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Lazare mourned, in his way. Not openly, not loudly. He went, with his men, to the makeshift barracks that they'd been crowded into, in a dead silence that they knew all too well meant punishment later on. When that was seen to, so that he could be safe in the knowledge that they would not be joining the rabble in their revolt, he made his way to the apartment, to the only place that he had left. The mob was no threat to him, at the moment. They had other tasks to tend to, and he was not their target of the moment.
It was strange, walking in. Everything was exactly as it had been the morning before, and the morning before that, and the morning before that. The bed was still mussed from where Ronan had slept the night before, the floors still strewn with the clutter that seemed to accumulate wherever Ronan walked, though he had no idea how. (He had berated him for it, once, four days ago, at approximately 9 in the morning. They had quarreled, briefly over Ronan's habit of leaving his clothing strewn about the floor, and he had berated him for it. Now, he didn't even have the strength to pick it up himself). At any moment, Ronan should have run through the door, rushed over to him, and given him a firm kiss on the mouth that Lazare would briefly frown at, just so that he would not overtly encourage him in his over-familiarity before returning it. Everything seemed like it should have. He hadn't---
He hadn't prepared for this. A lifetime of preparation, and, despite knowing that Ronan Mazurier was a fool who would lunge in front of a bullet, it was the one thing he had never been willing to prepare for, besides the outline of a plan that consisted mainly of, I had a life before Ronan Mazurier, I will have one after. Sometimes, he had even thought that it might be a good thing, if Ronan were to die. He would have his life back, glorious and simple and easy to spread out along a grid. He had wanted it in those moments, he---
He had--
He felt a stab of pain, only to look down to see that his fingers were digging hard into his hand, even with the leather gloves to act as a sheath for his fingernails. Furiously, he tossed them away, letting them fall onto the floor along with everything else as he sat on his side of the bed. (It was still his side, just as the other side was still Ronan's, and he refused to entertain any other possibility, because to entertain would be to accept--)
The energy was gone from his body, but he had no strength to take the clothes off himself, and Ronan generally took on the role of a traditional valet in terms of helping him dress and undress (though he considerably enjoyed the latter task more than the former) so he had no servant to assist him. Before Ronan, he had been wary of letting anyone, even a servant, perform such an intimate task on his person, and so he had managed on his own, which was well and good when he was in the mood for it, when his life was going as it should, in the way that he had designated for it to go.
Instead, he laid in the bed, in full uniform. He laid there, curling up as tightly as he could, as he hoped for sleep to come. His thoughts would be clearer, then. He would have room in his mind to think and plan for the future, as unsteady, as unwelcome as it was. He waited long hours, shifting, thinking, thinking too much as the sounds of gunshot rang clearly in his ear, followed by Ronan crying out in pain and then his own harsh call for a retreat, echoing time after time again.
He had killed him, and he had walked away because he had fallen into his training when faced with a situation he had no experience with. Had Ronan been frightened, he wondered, when the bullets hit him? Ronan was scared of little in life, especially when fear would have benefitted him, but had he felt it then? Had he trusted that Lazare wouldn't give the order, or that he would call it off when he saw Ronan jump in front of Lt. du Puget?
It was pointless to think it, an exercise in sentimentality if nothing else. It would accomplish nothing to think about it, and it was hardly as if it would affect things one way or another. Ronan Mazurier was dead, his life would have to go on without him.
And so they had a quiet confrontation, his training and the thoughts that closed in around his mind like a thick, stifling blanket, the emotions that he tried to reason away, reaching no resolution even as the first light of dawn began to peak through the window, shedding light on the bare, rumpled side of the bed to further remind Lazare, once again, that the day before had not been some sort of terrible nightmare as his brain continued to ring with the order and the immediate results of it time after time again.
This was his ultimate punishment for his transgression: A Hell of his own making.
The news that the Comte d'Artois had left the country both heightened his own loneliness, leaving him without his strongest ally in court, while also providing some amount of consolation. At least he would not have to have his failures smeared in front of his face. Oh, Artois would take pains to remind him of them while neatly absolving himself of any blame, but it would take several more weeks at least for the letter to arrive, and even more if he should prove distracted by more pressing matters. That gave Lazare the advantage of time, at least.
From there, it was a matter of assembling his life back together, taking the little pieces, smashed along with the Bastille's walls, and then creating a routine. He could not break down, to stay curled up in a ball and wasting his time on emotion for someone who could hardly reciprocate in his current state. He could not allow himself to break down. He still had his duties to the Crown. As any soldier would, he waited for his orders, to strike at the rebels one final time. He went back to his men, held the line against the Revolutionaries and their propaganda as best as he could even as a certain feeling of uncertainty had settled among them. More than ever, he could not have them desert as so many others had. For his part, his face remained impassive, giving away nothing of his true feelings. He had no illusions that, if he showed the slightest amount of weakness, they would leave him to be devoured by the rebels.
The orders never came.
On the 17th of July, 1789, the King of France and Navarre walked into the city and legitimized treason against the State. Lazare did not go out in the street, knowing that the people on the street would give him the same tender mercies they had given De Launay and the rest of the Bastille's senior staff who hadn't betrayed their country by desertion. Instead, he watched from his window as people celebrated in the street, the king's face having a broad smile as he accepted their fawning, and he knew that nothing would ever be the same again. The world he had built his life around was crumbling, and now he had nothing left to salvage if it was destroyed.
That night, he cried for the first time, the tears escaping despite his best efforts at squeezing his eyes shut against them, of preventing the heaving sobs from leaving his body, and he didn't know if it was for Ronan, for the world that he knew had just died there, or for himself and the life he'd spent fighting for something that, it appeared, he'd fought for alone. The more he tried to control himself over the pointless display of sentiment, the worse it became until, finally, the effort of it exhausted him and he fell into a deep sleep, Ronan’s yellow coat clutched in his hands.
He anticipated the audience with the King several weeks later. It did not make it any easier to stand there, in front of Necker (newly reinstated and evidently pleased with his newfound status of Friend and Ally of the People while he himself was regarded as an unfortunate, ill-mannered relation to the Devil), in front of the King, and have it explained to him that his life's work was, essentially, to come to nothing. France had no need of him anymore. The King had no need of him anymore. It was as if he was a young cadet again, only instead of a commanding officer ripping him to shreds over a missing button, it was the man appointed by God to lead France telling him, in the King's usual easy, good-natured tones (albeit weary from the upset of recent days), that there was no place for him anymore.
He did not cry then, at least. If he had cried in front of the King, the Queen, Necker, he would never have been able to live with himself.
Instead, he gathered himself together, straightened his back, and in the calmest voice he could manage, said, "I understand, Your Majesty. Thank you for the generosity you have shown me.”
He gave one final bow, and it was done. His fate decided in the course of a conversation, the same length of time it might take to purchase a pair of gloves or to take coffee at the beginning of the day.
As he walked out of Versailles, he looked out, knowing that it would probably be the last time. All around him, black and white marble interlocked in a stream of rectangles, the two hitting off against each other and wedding themselves to one another time after time again. If he had time, he might stay there further, count each one out to see whether one outnumbered the other, which had come first between the two of them. Ahead of them, a seemingly endless stream of white pavement spread out, with people, workmen, aristocrats, servants, and peasants alike crowding together, the air distinctly tense even as the faint sound of laughter of some of them rang in his ears. And, among the aristocrats, he noticed a much smaller number than there had been when last he’d been to Versailles. Turning his back on them, he could face the façade of the building itself, imposing and elegant as the midday sun gleamed across the glass and the gilding, baking the pavement mercilessly without any hope of shade to provide a reprieve, all there just as it had been for centuries. As it would be for centuries, an eternal testament to the power and authority of the Bourbons.
He had no purpose to visit the place, except for in the course of his duty-his former duty, he had to remind himself. His task for the moment was to acclimate himself to the new order of things.
Again, the wall had been smashed. Again, he would have to reassemble. A life as an idle nobleman would probably cause him to die of boredom, he had no patience for politics, and he was not so flattering in his estimation of himself that he believed he had the wit, the education, or the imagination to be a writer, nor had he lived long enough or through enough that the contents of his memoirs would outweigh the technical aspects of prose and style. He would hate to be involved in anything that he couldn't judge, for himself, on an objective level before exposing it to the condemnation of the world.
He could go into service in Prussia or England or Austria. It would be very similar to service in France, at least in terms of procedure, though he was unsure of how successful he'd be when other officers (cowards) had already fled and were no doubt already clamoring for whatever positions they could get. And if the Comte d'Artois were to catch a foul mood, he would doubtless see little reason not to divorce himself entirely from the events of July 12, thus setting Peyrol alone to be remembered as a hotheaded young officer who had lost Paris to the rebels. There was no king in Europe, he thought, who would be mad enough to take him on, and even if there were, he could hardly stand the thought of working for a madman. A fool, at least, could be reasoned with provided that he was treated with the respect owed his station, a madman would take him on a whim one day and take his head the next.
Taking one last look at Versailles, at the last sounds and smells of summer and the hot sun, he gave a nod, more certain than he felt, and walked off, ignoring the stares of the passerby as he climbed into his carriage.
Paris it was, then.
During the trip from Versailles, left alone with his own thoughts, Lazare continued his attempts to plan for the future accompanied by the constant roll of the carriage. Still, he couldn’t reach any solid plan, only ideas that would come close to something, only to dart away. It was enough to set his teeth on edge. He needed something. A direction, a purpose. His entire life had been planned for him and now, all he had to show for it was an empty apartment and a uniform that would mark him for the rest of his life as a butcher.
Going into the apartment, he found something…off. He took a certain comfort from being able to tell exactly where everything was at any given time, when the servants moved about, when they did not, where every single speck of dust had been placed. And, by all appearances, that held true in the present. Nothing was different from how it should have been, but there was a shift in the mood, as if, while he had been gone, the contents of the room had been taken out and then put back in, edged ever so slightly to the right.
The feeling persisted as he walked further and further into the apartment. The chance of someone being able to simply sneak in was unlikely. Someone would surely notice, if not in the street, then among his own staff (who were motivated to ensure his safety if not by loyalty or a sense of sentimentality, then by the promise of a steady paycheck), and while these revolutionaries were irrational and misguided as a rule, the only violence had occurred when they were in groups. They would never murder him in his own home; if they were going to kill him, they’d kill him in the street and then make a triumph of it. They would probably carry his head around on a pike for several hours, at least. He did have some hope that it ultimately wouldn’t end up in a drain somewhere, as De Launay’s had. There seemed to be something inglorious about it, compared to dying on the battlefield as he had once intended. (Though the alternative prospect of dying in his bed of old age, alone also lacked any amount of appeal).
It wasn’t until he reached the salon and saw a pair of absolutely filth-covered shoes propped up on one of small end tables that dotted the room that he knew who had caused the disturbance, the one who, in his life, always seemed synonymous with disorder.
He knew he should say something, but his mind seemed to have poured its contents out onto the hardwood floor. What did one even begin to say, when confronted by a ghost? His mouth shaped words, but nothing passed his lips. A simple “hello” seemed unsuited to the situation.
Fortunately, as in other cases, Ronan Mazurier talked enough for the both of them, staggering up as he clutched onto the thin, sloping arm of the chair. “Peyrol, you bastard, you shot me!”
Impulse told him to rush over to him in that moment and help him up. A firm knowledge of Ronan Mazurier’s temperament told him that it would be a poor decision.
“You live,” he said, and he had not intended for it to sound so…surprised. It was better than disappointment, he supposed, but still something about it seemed unfitting. (This was why he needed the army, he thought, he rarely had to concern himself with matters such as this.)
“Marat’s a Hell of a doctor and,” Ronan fumbled in his pockets for something, finally drawing out a large, bloodstained lead bullet with some pride, “Your men are bad shots. He let me keep it after digging it out. Took him a couple minutes at first. For a second there, they weren’t sure they were going to, with everything going on and all the blood. He said there might be one still lodged in there, but he wasn’t sure. I don’t feel anything, though, so it should be fine.”
“Ronan Mazurier.” He said, moving forward of his own accord, and it wasn’t a smile, exactly, that touched his face, as that particular combination of muscles tended to be more painful than not given their relative lack of exercise, but he could feel his mouth quirking slightly of its own accord. It seemed important, somehow, to say the name out loud, to acknowledge it and accept it.
Ronan Mazurier was alive, and he was in his salon, inconveniencing his servants with extra cleaning. He had lost the army, had lost the certainty it provided, but Ronan was there.
“What? You’re not getting off the hook that easily, you know.” Then, he shuffled in place, and Peyrol knew he was going to say something uncomfortable for the both of them, bracing himself. “I didn’t want to just…leave things as they are, with you here and me there."
“What did you want, then?”
“I don’t know; I thought I’d figure it out when I was here. When I saw you.”
“And now?”
Ronan shook his head. “You shot me, Lazare.” He’d said it already, but it was different now. That time, it had been said in anger, this time, it was in sadness and doubt, and of the two of them, Lazare greatly preferred the former. Ronan Mazurier’s temper, he could deal with. It would cool off, eventually, and then they could talk or, at the very least, re-establish themselves. Ronan sad, however…he didn’t know how to deal with it, especially given his unfortunate habit of pushing him away when that particular mood hit him, no doubt due to Lazare’s own accidental contribution to a vast majority of those moods.
“On a matter of technicality, I ordered my men to fire on Lieutenant du Puget. I never intended—“
“I don’t give a fuck what you intended! Your soldiers stuffed me full of lead anyway!”
Lazare flinched.
“I never thought,” Ronan said, “That you’d hurt me again. You said you wouldn’t. Why the Hell was it so important to you, anyway, to shoot him? What had he done to you?”
“He abandoned his post,” Peyrol snapped. “And he betrayed his country by doing so. While the rest of the Bastille’s staff were being slaughtered, he was able to flee in comfort to his family.”
“He saved my life,” Ronan said, “When the Secret Police were after me. He got me out of my cell.” Unspoken and unnecessary were the words, When you couldn’t. Or, perhaps, more accurately, When you wouldn’t. “I’d never forget that, and I couldn't let his daughter live without her father. I don’t give a damn about a country that’d force him to stay there when it was already a lost cause.”
Lazare felt his own temper rise at the triple reminder of his own failure, the recent loss of his position, and of the single, original sin that had haunted them from the beginning, that would haunt them until they were both dead. “So, instead you chose to rush in like a fool without any thought to the consequences, risking your own life, breaking my heart—“
….
He had not intended for that to spill out, the month of frustration, anger, and grief mixing with his anger like a thick wine, forcing the truth out of his throat.
“I was going to give my life for the people! And if it meant their freedom, I’d do it a hundred times over. And your heart would’ve been fine.” He sulked, "Sometimes I wonder if it’s even in there.” As soon as he said it, he seemed to realize exactly what he’d said in a rare moment of self-reflection, his eyes widening. “Lazare, I—“
For the second time that day, Peyrol straightened his back, not allowing any weakness to show even as those words coming from Ronan were like a punch delivered squarely to the stomach, no doubt as he’d intended. “You do not need to explain yourself, Mazurier. You’ve not said anything that hasn’t been repeated elsewhere a hundred times at this point. Tell me, do your friends know that you gave yourself over to a monster? That you slept beside him every night, ate from the same table, drank the same wine?”
Ronan shook his head. “You’re not a monster.” He exhaled sharply, "And I was wrong. You do have a heart, I know it. I didn’t mean—I didn’t think you’d take my death too badly. I mean, I’m some illiterate peasant. Even though we came into the world the same way, it wouldn’t be too hard for you to get someone else, if you wanted.”
“I did not. I have given you a level of trust that I would never bestow upon another.” Consciously, at least. Then again, that had been Ronan’s threat: The prisoner at the Bastile who’d somehow managed to smash his way into his life, his bed, and the heart which, even though it did, in fact exist, was surrounded by a thick layer of ice. His head had had little to do with the whole affair.
He knew that now was the time to strike, just when the conversation had managed to burn itself out.
“Ronan,” he said, forcing the stubborn words out of his mouth where they’d been lodged. “You know that I am a soldier. Sentiment does not come easily to me. I am…glad to see you again. When you died, I was…troubled. Greatly.” He winced at the entire affair, how desperate he seemed, how stunted his attempt was. Perhaps they were right, after all, in their way: Perhaps he should have left his heart out of the business. It would have made it easier, at least.
“So was I. It’s not been the same,” he ran a hand through his hair, giving a halfhearted laugh, “You know, I’ve not had anyone growling at me about where I put my clothes for the last month.”
Lazare, however, was deathly serious. “Come home, Ronan.”
“God, Peyrol, you killed my father, you killed all those people in the Place Louis XV, you shot me…”
Lazare swallowed. “When I saw you lying there, I have never in my life felt more helpless, and I knew it was because of my own actions. I am prepared to face the consequences for them now, if need be.” And then, in a quiet voice that he hated, hated for the lack of direction and confidence, hated for the vulnerability that seeped through, he asked, “Is it over, then?”
It was strange. When he had imagined the moment that Ronan Mazurier would inevitably leave him, he had imagined a shouting match and two warring tempers, not four words almost whispered in a quiet room.
“I don’t want it to be.”
“Nor do I.”
A long, pregnant pause.
“I’m taking the bed, you can find someplace else to sleep. Marat says I shouldn’t stretch myself too much for the next couple months."
Hundreds of years of breeding and rank bristled, asking him why he should let this filthy little peasant dictate terms to him, when he was the one who was paying for the place and Ronan was lucky to not be on the street. The feeling that he’d gotten when his arm had brushed against a bare pillow for the first time provided the more convincing counter-argument. He had lost Ronan Mazurier once, and it had only been his career that had salvaged him. He could never do it again, especially not when he was alive and they still had time.
“Very well.” He paused, and then remembered the pain Ronan had been when he forced himself out of the chair. “Do you need help?”
“I’ll be fine."
If he didn’t have crystal-clear evidence to the contrary, he would have been sure that those would be Ronan Mazurier’s last words. Even though he held himself back, his eyes didn’t leave him once as he trudged to the bedroom, taking in every step and every breath.
And so, once again, Ronan Mazurier managed to crash his way into his life, in a single conversation.
There were a total of three bedrooms in the apartment, which made it sparse by aristocratic standards but ridiculously large to Ronan, who had wandered through the place at first with a certain lost, distant look on his face (before, inevitably, complaining about the aristocracy while sitting on the bed, bouncing up and down as he did so). Still, Lazare found himself settling into a couch in the salon. A bed would be too much of a reminder, and he had little taste to sleep in a small, dark room he’d never slept in before. There was no security in it, and there seemed to be a certain kind of danger in having a door between himself and the rest of the house. A hypothetical intruder could, perhaps, kill him easier in his current position, but he could more readily alert someone else in the household. In the bedroom, though…there was the bell, at least, but it still seemed altogether too isolated.
The fact that the master bedroom, and, consequently, Ronan was closer to the salon than the other two bedrooms didn’t enter his mind. Not at all.
For all of its merits, however, he found it considerably harder to sleep on the couch than he had in the usual bed, shifting around to try to find the right position. He had no particular need for blankets (which was incredibly fortunate for him when living with Ronan, as he would be divested of them by the end of the night anyway), so that was not one of his major concerns, but the couch itself was…different. He had slept on a number of surfaces that weaker men would have found cause of complaint for, even as he had climbed the ranks, and if it had been commanded of him, he would have slept on a stone in the dead of winter. A cushion covered with silk should have been one of the better choices of his career, when it came to it, even if it was perhaps a bit firmer than he was accustomed to, being made more for sitting than for sleeping.
Still, it wasn’t his. He’d grown soft, since moving into this place with Ronan. A few months in a soft bed with a warm body next to him had spoiled him for anything else, had allowed him to be lured into a habit and from there into a routine. For any other aspect of his life, it would have been a good thing. Living his life in a strictly structured manner had allowed him to get to where he was-had been, not falling into the hundreds of little traps other young, unoccupied, and uninterested aristocrats fell into. But establishing a place of residence, developing a preference in where he slept, that would only lead to trouble when he received his orders to go somewhere else.
And, now, he had to pay the consequences, his face flat against smooth, cold silk (which, in the light of day, showed a bright orange color, courtesy of Ronan’s influence) as he held a small pillow over his head in a useless attempt at blocking the world and its distractions out.
Somehow, he wasn’t aware when, he managed to fall into his first sleep of the night, the world slipping away until he awoke. It was still dark outside when he woke up again, and as he shifted, he realized that his arm was numb from falling asleep on it, as he shook it several times to revive it. Why had he chosen-
Ronan. Ronan was alive. Ronan was there and he was alive and Peyrol hadn’t—
Had he? This was the real world, not some frivolous romance where angels’ tears brought back the dead. (Or so he imagined; he had never had the time for them, but given what he’d heard, he’d hardly suffered a terrible loss on that score.) It was just as likely that he’d fallen asleep on the couch shortly after arriving home and then dreamt the whole thing up. It would hardly have been the first time.
Carefully, he crept into the bedroom, wincing as the door creaked beneath his hand. At first, he could hardly see anything in the dark, just the shine of silk. Then, he saw movement, as an arm slung out onto the side that he usually occupied, accompanied by a low moan that he knew intimately. He leaned against the doorway, finding, once again, that same unfamiliar tug of his lips before leaving, holding the door as steadily as possible so as to create as little disturbance as he could.
That left him an hour still to do something, but, at the moment, nothing particularly seemed to appeal. He briefly considered taking the air, enjoying the steady beat of his own feet along the pavement, but then ruled it out as he decided that being murdered by a mob would somewhat ruin the experience. Playing his much neglected harpsichord, while appealing, would be too loud in the early hours of the morning. He could pick up a book to read, he had several that he had accumulated through the years and had never so much as turned the cover on, but then he would have only a short time with it before he had to fall asleep again. If he could fall asleep again, given the relative difficulty he had had previously.
Perhaps, rather than re-attempt falling into second sleep, he’d just stay awake for the rest of the night. He usually kept early hours anyway. Then he would more time to decide what to do with his time and then to go about it.
But there seemed something fundamentally wrong about it. When he was still an officer (he was no longer an officer now, he was no longer an officer now, it was hard to believe it still, even as he kept hammering the point through his skull in the hope that it would sink in), he sometimes would stay up the entire night if he had to, grabbing a cup of coffee the next morning to revive himself with the full knowledge that no one would dare comment on any dark lines beneath his eyes. But that had been when he had a duty, not simply because he couldn’t will his own body into it.
In the end, he spent the hour pacing through the house, studiously making sure that everything was exactly as it should be as he found some amount of comfort in the repetitive movement of his feet, even if hardwood wasn’t the same as cobblestone. (He chose not to think about how he hadn’t done the same when it had been more or less him on his own.) He curled up on the couch after, finding sleep came easier to him than the time before, with only a small amount of tossing and turning.
The next morning, he crawled off of the couch and made to prepare himself for the day before remembering that all his clothing and everything else required for his toilette laid in the bedroom. Where Ronan was situated. Judging from the way the pale light had infiltrated the room, it was at least 6 o’clock, and Ronan tended to wake with the sun, never entirely shaking himself free of his upbringing as a farmer. It would be impossible to sneak in covertly, then.
Very well.
They were both adult men, at least in theory. They could handle this together.
He knocked on the door, the wood hard against his knuckles as they made contact with the wood.
“What is it?” He heard faintly.
“I need to come in.”
The door opened and Ronan stood there, a denim jacket that Lazare knew he hadn’t bought for him hanging down from one arm. (Lazare tried to remember if he had been wearing it the night before, finding that his mind had been too fixed on other matters at the time.)
“My clothing,” Lazare said, “I should like to wear it. And also to prepare myself for the day.”
Ronan quickly cleared the way. “Oh, yeah, of course.”
Lazare’s morning routine was fairly short, at least for his class. Not being a habitual wig wearer, he had no need for the many, many rituals associated with it, or for powdering his skin. Instead, he was content to wash his face and shave in terms of hygiene, using a faint, musky scent in an attempt to ward off the smell of tallow that clung onto the soap.
It wasn’t until he was in the process of changing his clothes from the clothes from the day before, stripping out of his shirt so that it could be replaced with something that had seen less use in recent days, that he felt Ronan’s eyes on him, looking up only to see Ronan avert his eyes.
“I can go, you know,” Ronan said, looking up at the ceiling in a particularly studious manner that seemed foreign to him.
“There is no need,” Lazare said, fixed in his place even as he didn’t have a scrap of clothing on him, “Provided you see none.”
“No,” Ronan shook his head, a small glint in his eye that Lazare had forgotten how much he’d missed as his eyes flicked up and down Lazare’s naked body, “I don’t mind the view a bit.”
He was far too old, he thought, to blush like a schoolgirl over a single ribald comment. He had been in the Army for too many years to be shocked by much of anything, given what his men would sometimes whisper about when they thought he was out of earshot. (He was never out of earshot, and would demonstrate it by administering a firm slap to the back of the head when they said something particularly abhorrent, lewd, immoral or otherwise injurious to the state of his mind if not technically illegal.) Especially when Ronan must have seen him naked a hundred times. There was no reason to have anything but a sense of ease and professionalism about this sort of thing, at least until they had eased back into their old stride. Still, he felt his cheeks burn, pulling the fresh shirt over his head to hide it.
This man would be the death of him.
The rest of the process went as expected, until he prepared to tie his hair back and Ronan started to shuffle in his place.
“What is it, Ronan?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Ronan Mazurier.” It was strange, the difference between Ronan’s two essential moods: When there was no power on Earth that could keep him from revealing to the world what was on his mind and, then, when there was no power on Earth that could get him to reveal what was on his mind. Lazare had willingly surrendered his own bed, his own sense of normalcy to him. Did he really believe after that that there was anything he could ask for, short of treason, blasphemy, or the possibility of children that Lazare wouldn’t at least consider, when his mind was still turned upside down over him being alive in the first place?
“Can I help? With-“ He nodded towards the ribbon in Lazare’s hand. “You always miss a little when it’s just you and I know how you like everything in place and it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything and—“
He raised his head,“You may.”
“You’re-?”
“You did it well enough in the past. I see no reason why not.”
Ronan went up behind him slowly, gripping onto some of the furniture to help him, and Lazare attempted to quiet the little prickling of his spine that occurred whenever anyone approached him from behind. If Ronan Mazurier was going to kill him, he would surely have done it by a more direct manner than strangling him with his own hair ribbon. As Ronan gathered his hair together, his fingers brushed across Lazare’s neck, and Lazare stilled at the contact even as Ronan continued to comb his fingers through the strands before tying it up tightly. In another time, he might have buried his head in Lazare’s neck then, murmuring something that would have been muffled through fabric and skin. But, he knew, they were not on those terms anymore. Another day, maybe, though he refused to allow himself any hope these days.
“Good enough?” Ronan asked, stepping in front of him again.
“Yes,” Lazare said, and then, knowing that he needed to try for more now that he had a second chance at things, he added, “You did well. Thank you.” This time, he was the one who found himself staring, taking everything in, from the line of his mouth to the boots he wore (still muddy, he noted, but he couldn't find it in himself to care) to his hair, which was still mussed from the night before. “Ronan-“
The bell for breakfast spared him from whatever display of sentimentality he was going to perform next.
And, as he watched Ronan shovel food into his mouth some five or ten minutes later, he thought (not hoped) that, perhaps, they might find normalcy again.
He was in a cold, dark room, alone. Why? What had had happened? It didn’t feel like he should be there, but he wasn’t sure why he shouldn’t be there. He groped along the damp wall, hoping to find an exit, but it was all solid stone and his hands kept slipping against it. He pulled away. Why should a room have no doors? He must have missed something. No, no it wasn’t a room at all, he thought as he frantically tried to push against the wall, finding bars of metal instead of solid wall. It was a cell, or a cage of some sort. Which was strange, given that before it had been solid. Rooms generally didn’t do that, did they? Just as they didn’t get smaller and smaller and the air thinner and thinner and why couldn’t he speak? Outside, he could hear footsteps, heavy boots going back and forth in a steady rhythm, the harsh rap of a walking stick against the floor. He kept trying to force something out, shout something, anything, but his throat was dry and he was trapped and it was cold and why was he there in the first place? He didn’t recall being put there, or had he always been there? It didn’t seem like it should have always been the case, but he was there, and it hardly made sense that something that was happening in front of him wasn’t real. No, this was how things had always been. It was the only thing that made sense. He just had to get out, escape, but the walls were pushing against him now, squeezing him, and—
“LAZARE!”
He woke up with Ronan’s face in his as he was shaking him. Out of impulse, he jumped away, nearly falling off the end of the couch in the process.
“Hey, hey,” Ronan patted him in a manner that he supposed was intended to be comforting. “It’s me.”
“What happened?” Lazare looked around, his eyes accustoming to the darkness, which was helped by the candle that Ronan had put on one of the stands, which cast the surrounding area in a halo of orange and gold.
“I don’t know. I heard you screaming and came in here to see what was the matter.”
“Screaming?”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger on this one, alright? It sounded like…God Peyrol, it sounded like you were being murdered in there.”
Lazare swallowed. They were close to each other, now, as they hadn’t been for the entire month that Ronan had moved back in, and he could feel a tension form in his stomach as he saw Ronan looking at him with concern. (It was, at least, some small relief that, after everything, Ronan did care whether he lived or died. Or at least whether he was vocal about it.) “It was nothing, I assure you. A common nightmare, nothing more.”
“A common nightmare? You mean this happens to you all the time?”
“On a fairly frequent basis. Not all the time. Sometimes, an entire week can go by without incident.” He was proud of the way he sounded, the confident army commander back from the dead. Really, it was, in many ways, as much a part of his routine as shaving or dressing or taking a cup of coffee with his breakfast. Terrifying in the moment, but something he had accepted from the time he was a boy, as much a part of him as the military commission he’d had bought for him several years later.
“But, when we were sleeping together, you never-“
He hesitated before answering the next part, knowing that he would have to be careful but also knowing, from the dogged look on Ronan’s face, he wasn’t going to escape the question. “Your…presence had a certain effect on the nightmares. Made them more manageable. And, when I woke up, I had a sort of…reminder that it was only in my head. I could look over to you, sleeping on your side, and I would know that the worlds of fantasy and reality remained apart.”
“Fuck, Lazare, you never told me.”
Lazare stiffened at the tone of pity in his voice. “It was never required. I was able to manage it, but in recent days, it has become more troublesome. There is no need to waste your time on something that is of so little consequence.”
“It was enough to make you scream.” Ronan shuddered. “I’d never heard anything like that come from you. I was scared out of my skull.”
“There was no need, I assure you.” He sighed, looking at how Ronan’s eyes, wide open and terrified, still, dressed just in his nightshirt (he was grateful at least that he had been able to convince Ronan of the merits of nightshirts, otherwise the already difficult conversation would have proven even more so), and he knew that more was needed. “I apologize for disturbing you.”
No comment over what might have been the first open apology between the two of them. No teasing. Just dead silence. Ronan was taking this seriously, then, which meant he would know little peace over it.
“If you came back to bed, would it be easier?”
“Ronan…” He wanted back in their bed, he felt the loss of it every night and every morning, every time he saw Ronan so much as smile or laugh or do anything that reminded him of how much he loved him. But he refused to return out of some misguided sense of pity, because Ronan saw poor, weak Lazare being unable to function without him there.
“Would it be easier?”
Lazare turned over on his side, staring intently at the sofa’s back. “We will discuss this in the morning.”
He heard a deep sigh from Ronan. Good. Hopefully, he could distract Ronan with something else the next morning, though he knew that Ronan was unlikely to let it go. It would have to be something to really grab him. His feelings on the recent reforms to the nobility and its impact on the peasantry? The merits of the color yellow in costuming?
As he considered this, he felt something heavy plop onto the couch, curling against his back. Ronan... At any other time, it would have actually been rather soothing, Ronan resting on top of him as they both prepared to go to sleep. But he knew this was only one part of a larger battle.
“Ronan-Ronan Mazurier!” He hissed.
“If you’re not joining me, I’m joining you.”
“That is not what I meant and you know it.”
“I’m not letting you go until you come back to bed.” Had they been having this conversation in the light of day, with the two of them standing, he could almost have imagined Ronan crossing his arms over his chest, turning away petulantly. Then again, they would not be having this discussion then, and his problem of the moment would be nonexistent or long since resolved.
“You can be such a child at times.”
“I’m not the one who’s putting himself through Hell out of stubborn pride. Come on, I’ve seen the way you look at me, I saw my old coat in your bed when I went back to the room.” Lazare was very grateful that Ronan couldn’t see his face then. "I know you want to go back, so what’s the problem, besides that I want you to do it and you want to pretend you’re above it all?” Ronan rested his head against his back. “What’s the problem, huh?”
Lazare turned over, so that Ronan fell on top of him, and even with only a little light there, he could see the dazed, confused look on his face as he looked down at him, their breaths intermingling, and then he was grinning, and it was suddenly very hard to think of reasons not to do exactly as he requested.
“At the moment?” Lazare ran a finger along Ronan’s jawline out of habit as he watched, lips quirking upward as he could see Ronan running what he’d said through his brain and reaching the final conclusion.
“You bastard.”
Lazare scooped him up, Ronan’s arm flying around his neck, and it really had far too long since they’d done this, though then it had been under a considerably different context. Ronan’s mouth was parted, and he half expected to hear a protest out of it, but instead he only received a brief “Oh.”
He walked Ronan over to the bedroom, putting him down on the bed with as much gentleness as he could muster within himself even as Ronan weighed slightly more than he remembered. He prepared to walk out, steel himself against what was to come.
“Wait, Lazare.” He stopped in his tracks, turning back to see Ronan sitting up, and it was for the best that they were in the dark there because he didn’t want to imagine the look on his face, knowing that it would somewhat resemble that of a kicked puppy and he knew that, for all his attempts, he couldn’t turn his back on it. Before July 14, it would have been…difficult, but after, when he’d thought he would never have this chance again, it was impossible. A lifetime of discipline simply couldn’t stand up to a pair of pleading green eyes. “Please come back. I’ve missed you."
“Are you saying this because it is true, or because you know that I want to hear it?”
“When have I ever lied to you, huh?”
…..True. Ronan Mazurier’s game was never manipulation, at least not via lying. (Making a menace of himself, yes, lying no.) And he would not lie on something this important, that was only what…someone else would have done. Someone else who was definitely not in his bed, someone who had never asked him to stay, someone who had merely tolerated his presence while he was useful but who would have never allowed this kind of intimacy. Or any kind of intimacy.
Ronan wanted him there. Regardless of the present state of their relationship, even as the process of rebuilding it was slow, he wanted him there. He wanted him, still. And that thought was what moved him to get under the covers, sleeping on his side opposite Ronan. He felt Ronan shift, but he didn’t move closer, and nor did he attempt it himself. The distance between them that had lingered since Ronan came back stayed, but it wasn’t so great as it had been an hour or two before. Not normalcy, but perhaps one or two bricks had managed to right themselves once again, one more bit of rubble carted away.
“Hey, Lazare,” Ronan said, nudging at his dinner with a fork, and Lazare wondered what it had to be because as rare as a silence was from Ronan, he never played with his food. Especially not meat.
He stilled from his previous task of cutting up the rabbit on his plate into smaller pieces. “What is it?”
“Can my sister visit?”
“Your sister, the—“
“My sister, Soléne. I don’t think you’ve met, or at least, you’ve not met her.” He knew of her by reputation, when Ronan was in the mood to talk, though he didn’t mention her often and getting him to talk about it was like stepping a foot over a cliff to see how far one could go without falling off. He knew that she was a woman of the world, that she lived in Rue Saint-Denis, that the two siblings had separated around the time Ronan left for Paris, but little more. Not having any siblings himself and having little idea what was expected between a brother and sister, he tended to leave the matter alone.
“She knows about-“ He lowered his voice instinctually, even though there was no one there but the occasional servant who was perfectly aware of the situation even as they valued a good recommendation more than a bit of gossip, “About this?”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “She knows that we’re together. We had a lot of time to talk while I was getting dissected by Marat.” Lazare winced at the word “dissected.” He was sure that Ronan was exaggerating, but the way he said it, so casually…What had they had to do to bring him back from death’s door?
“And she approves?”
Ronan finally decided to spear some of the rabbit, shoving it into his mouth, unaffected by the flow of conversation. “She called me a fucking idiot, if that’s what you mean. But-“ He swallowed, “She also told me to come over here when I was able to walk on my own. I’d been hanging around, talking to her about you,” It was astonishing. Lazare had no food in his mouth and yet still felt like choking, “And she said, ‘Ronan Mazurier, if you destroy this, I’ll never forgive you’ which was what I needed to come back.” He shrugged, "Olympe wanted me to put ratsbane in your coffee.”
“I am grateful that you didn’t listen to the advice of Mademoiselle du Puget.” It was useless to try to remind Ronan of the importance of maintaining distinctions, the casual way he threw around Lazare’s own Christian name made that much obvious, however he was not willing to give up the cause just yet.
He mulled the possibility over. It would hardly do for his reputation, he thought, if a woman of the world was seen wandering around the place. The next thing that would be heard on the streets was that the Comte de Peyrol was throwing orgies during his (self-imposed, at the moment) house arrest. He could practically see the engraving: Him (or, rather, a very poor likeness of him) stomping on the cockade while women with bared breasts lounged about. Maybe a few dead infants here or there. Whips, chains, overly expensive food, references to obscure ancient deities that he had no care for.
But, she was Ronan’s sister. And at the moment, she was an ally, and his list of allies seemed to grow thinner and thinner by the day, as many of them suddenly, inexplicably seen the need to leave the country. And, for those who remained in France, misfortune dogged their every step. Truly, life in the countryside must have been harder than he had given it credit for, judging by the number of relatives who had mysteriously died, causing several of the men he had gone to to tend to their estates “regretfully” in lieu of offering any form of support. If Soléne respected his relationship with her brother, that was one person in the world close to Ronan that was definitively on his side, obviously possessing a more pragmatic mind than his Ronan would ever have.
At least she hadn’t opted for the ratsbane. That was a good sign, given their history.
And Ronan wanted her there, and he was looking at him so intently, and he hated that his own actions were so intimately tied to what he wanted now, that somehow Ronan had thoroughly nested himself into Lazare’s life, but this was something he could do for him that, potential libel aside, would cost him only his time, which he had in abundance as it was.
“Very well,” he said. “She may visit. I would have to know what time she was available, and then we can arrange a date and time.”
Ronan scratched the back of his head, “About that…We’d already agreed on Sunday at noon, unless you had a problem with it.”
"Ronan Mazurier.”
Ronan walked over to him, brushing his lips against his cheek. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”
As he walked off, Lazare, dazed, touched his cheek, the sudden sign of affection completely taking him off of whatever route his mind had been on.
There was a significant chance he was going to regret this.
“Sir,” one of the servants bowed.
“What is it?” He watched the clock carefully, half hoping that the allotted time would pass and he could soothe Ronan’s disappointment while not having to be exposed to another human being.
“There’s a young woman here who claims to want to see you. Well, using the term ‘woman’ lightly given that she’s the type who-“
Lazare wasted no time. “She is Monsieur Mazurier’s sister and my guest for the day. As such, while she is here, she is to be treated with the same respect as you would give him.” There was just enough danger in his tone to brook no arguments. He had made it very clear, when bringing servants in, that, along with the exact nature of their relationship, Ronan’s birth was never to be discussed. He was not Lazare’s equal, not in rank or birth, but nor was he a servant, and he was due some amount of respect as such even if he refused to acknowledge it.
“It will be done. Should I show her in?”
Lazare nodded. The man quickly scrambled to the door, and he could hear faint shouts of, “Come back! There’s been a mistake!” as he sipped at the black coffee in his hand for fortitude.
A few minutes later, the servant reappeared, a young woman by his side. “Mademoiselle Mazurier here to see you,” the man said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a blur of denim ran out of the hallway to embrace her. “Soléne!”
“Ronan!” Came the somewhat choked sound from the other side of the hug. Lazare could sympathize. “So, this is where you live.”
“Yeah, I wanted someplace smaller, but Lazare refused to settle for anything else. By the way…Lazare, Soléne.”
He felt the younger Mazurier’s eyes burn into him as Ronan introduced them. Solene Mazurier was very different in appearance to her brother, darker in complexion, with sharp black eyes that seemed uncomfortably close. She wore rags of cream and white, patched with various other fabrics where it had worn and frayed, a sharp contrast to the dark wood of the apartment, the blue-black furnishings, the silver trimming (though Ronan had slipped the odd lime colored chair in.) But she stood straight up, her expression every bit as proud as any he had ever seen, as unashamed with her bare shoulders as he had in his army uniform.
“Monsieur le Comte de Peyrol,” she said, politely, formally. He understood the message plainly: I am not my brother. I have no desire to kick a bee’s hive and then complain about the stings.
He nodded, “Mademoiselle Mazurier. I apologize for the incident earlier; I had told them you were coming, however they must have been remiss.”
“It’s nothing that I am not used to already,” she said, dismissiveness cloaking any anger she might have felt, before turning to her brother. “I was going to ask about how you’ve been healing, but I can see you’ve managed that out for yourself.”
“It’s mostly healed now. It sometimes hurts like Hell, but I can manage. How’s Olympe?”
At the mention of Mademoiselle du Puget’s name, he found himself looking into the black, swirling liquid in his cup. No, no chance for anyone to have put ratsbane in it.
“Worried. I do everything I can to keep her occupied, but there’s only so much one woman can do. Her father’s still not recovered; I don’t think he ever will, at least not in his mind. He sees more than than five people together and he sees a mob."
Lazare knit his brows. He had missed something. He had missed something important. “Mademoiselle du Puget and you are—“
“Close friends,” Soléne said, with a pointed look. “Since we were both at Ronan’s sickbed.”
“I see,” Lazare looked between the two Mazurier siblings, wanting to see a sign of something from them, though he wasn’t sure what.
They had a brief second meal, the two siblings talking more while he listened. He saw little to add most of the time, especially when it came to childhood memories, and it was better to simply sit by and listen to embarrassing stories from Ronan’s childhood. (Including the time he had managed to get himself kicked by a mule into a mud puddle one Sunday just before Mass.) Afterwards, Ronan left the room, creating a transparent reason to do so, and Lazare got the distinct sense that this was the purpose of the meeting. The two of them, in this room, alone, all of Lazare’s coffee tragically drained.
“I am grateful to you, Mademoiselle Mazurier, for suggesting that your brother return here.”
“Don’t think I did it for you,” she said, looking him straight in the eye before sighing, “He really does love you, you know. I know he’s odd with it, but he does. And,” she half-shrugged, in a gesture that was simultaneously familiar and entirely her own, “There isn’t a woman I know who wouldn’t take the offer.”
“Even under the circumstances that I first became acquainted with your family?”
He could feel the hardening of her eyes as the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees (strange, normally he was the one to do that, it was alien having someone else control the mood of the room). “You murdered our father, Monsieur de Peyrol. And that is something that I will never forget until the day I day. But…” she looked down then, “You’ve also kept my brother away from the streets, put food in his mouth, and given him a bed to sleep in. That is more than most people can say. Any of us would be lucky to speak for half of that.”
"And,” she smiled, not the full-mouthed grin of her brother, but a private, closed-mouth one that made him think she was enjoying a small joke at his expense, “I haven’t had to hear a word about my dignity since he took up with you. I suppose I should be grateful for that. Though now it’s been replaced by talking about you at all hours.”
“Yes,” Lazare’s voice was tight, “He informed me.”
“Did he? Did he tell you about coming to my apartment, when I was close to snagging a dupe, only to stare at the man’s coat and say ‘you know, he liked blue?’ Or, whenever he saw a soldier in the street, not even one of the officers, he would get that look on his face, you know the one, where he looks like a dog that’s been run over by a cart?“
“I do, I assure you.” He knew that particular look very well.
“Or, when I was beginning my-“ She halted, and then continued, “Friendship with Mademoiselle du Puget, how he would look at us and then either look like he was having a stomach ache or have that look? It made it very hard to develop our friendship with my big brother acting as a miserable chaperone. Or, when he finally thought to tell me, because at some point apparently he decided that I was going to be the last to know anything, he kept talking about how handsome you were, how you smelled, what your favorite food was, on and on. If your face weren’t already embedded in my mind, I would still know you by sight.”
It required every last amount of his training to keep his face impassive.
Ronan.
From his humiliation, he salvaged that Ronan cared significantly more for him during their time apart than he had imagined, at least. Regardless of his means of expressing it. They would have to have a talk about that. Or two.
Solene leaned forward. “And that was just when he was in a good mood. When he got into one of his moods, he wouldn’t stop for hours, because if he couldn’t tell you in person, he was going to tell the world, the world in this case being myself and Mademoiselle du Puget.”
“I apologize, Mademoiselle Mazurier, for your pains.”
She shrugged. “You can either take my brother or you leave him. I was going to leave him, but, after nearly losing him-“
“He is not so easy to live without, is he?”
She shook her head, a bit of that fire that the Mazurier siblings shared dimmed. “No. No, he isn’t.” A pause, as those dark eyes tilted back up at him, but now with something different in them, curiosity and realization mixed together, “You really do love him, don’t you? He made it obvious that he loved you, but he never was sure if you felt the same. Believe me, he made that much obvious. I’d thought that he was one of the toys of the aristocracy.”
“I never play, Mademoiselle Mazurier. In any aspect of my life.”
“And you love my brother,” she gave that same, private smile.
Seeing that he was quickly losing the advantage in this, he resolved to change the subject. “What a shock it must have been when you discovered where your brother’s interests lied.”
She chuckled. “There wasn’t anyone in our village who didn’t know that Ronan had no interest in playing le loup when all of us got together. But our father…” Peyrol forced his grip on the tablecloth to relax. She came in peace. For the moment. “He was a good man. He was never a rich man, but he was as much a part of the village as the priest or the doctor. No one would say a word against Ronan while he lived.” He could have hardly missed the emphasis she put on the word good as if to say, and yet you still killed him. But she said nothing more there. More of a tactical mind, he thought, than he was used to with Ronan: she struck to make a point and walked away.
Not forgotten, not forgiven, but tolerated. It was a bearable situation.
As she turned to leave later, she paused at the door, knuckles white as she grasped at the dark wood of the frame. “Don’t hurt him. I know he’s a fool, but he’s the only family I have left.” He expected a threat there, something more from a woman that he knew by reputation to be formidable in her own right, but none came, only raw vulnerability, and he found that that disturbed him far more than a thousand threats would have.
She didn’t wait for a response, though Lazare tried to think of one long after she’d left.
The news came on October 5 that the King and Queen of France had been captured by the mob, and again Lazare watched from his window as they were paraded through the streets, no doubt one more black silhouette amongst a hundred in the city.
At least Ronan wasn’t a part of it, he thought. There were rumors that there had been firing on the crowd, and even though he had a lifetime’s worth of knowledge in how the worst lies could spread (shortly after the events of July 14, he’d torn a pamphlet depicting him, the Queen, Madame de Polignac, and the Comte d’Artois in an amorous encounter to shreds. As well as being treasonous slander, it made little sense, in terms of the limits of the human body). If Ronan had been there…
He could not live like that again. He refused to.
Ronan seemed to lack his caution on the matter, his body tense with barely concealed energy as he looked at the display. “Maybe now we can finally see real change, away from Versailles, away from the intrigues, away from-“
The sight of the two Swiss Guards’ heads impaled on a pike stopped him short, as he blanched, looking from them to Lazare. They both knew that, had Peyrol been there, he would have never surrendered the Royal Family. It would have been him there just as easily as either of them. Only a single turn of fate separated them.
That night, as they climbed into bed together, their hands found one another, brushing in the darkness. For a second, they both stilled, until Ronan clasped them closer together, his index finger running down his knuckle, and they both understood. Communication was difficult, at times between the two of them, two entirely different souls attracted and repelled endlessly towards one another like waves moving against a shoreline, but there were some things that were too important not to try.
After that, he noticed with some amount of satisfaction (not hope) that Ronan had abandoned the denim in favor of one of the coats that he’d bought months ago. Not the red coat, as that one, to Lazare’s knowledge, had been somewhat marred by the bullet holes and bloodstains, but a blue coat, a few shades lighter than the one Lazare favored, that Ronan had never had the opportunity to wear before--
Before he had very nearly killed him.
The message was clear, sent as clearly as if it had been laid out in a contract, in stark black and white: They were together in this.
Fittingly, given the nature of their relationship, he didn’t expect their first kiss. One minute, Ronan was preparing to go to Marat’s printing house, where he apparently had some new, ambitious mud-slinging monstrosity that was already building up a readership (it kept Ronan out of the crowds, away from the violence, and also kept him occupied and gave him some sense of fulfillment, and so he could offer little complaint even as he wished that he could have found employment elsewhere.) The next, Ronan’s mouth was on his, both of his hands flying out to frame Lazare’s face. Lazare for his part was too shocked to have much of a response until long after the door had shut behind Ronan, continually touching his finger to his lips in order to remind himself that, yes, it had really happened.
When Ronan returned later that day with ink-splattered hands, Lazare had already prepared a counter-strike, kissing him hard as soon as he was through the door, their noses bumping together in the rush as they tried to accommodate each other after so long. Had it been with anyone else, it might have been humiliating, the little imperfections throughout. But feeling Ronan’s grin against his mouth as they experimented, with long kisses that lasted until they were both out of breath and with short kisses that left them both wanting more, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that they’d done anything wrong. In this one area of his life, he could allow for something other than the ideal of perfection.
He wasn’t entirely sure who initiated things in bed for the first time, shortly afterwards. Perhaps both of them did, sensing the tension and wanting nothing more than to put a quick end to it after so long. All he knew was that they had been preparing to go to bed and the next thing he was aware of, he was kissing Ronan, intimately, deeply, as Ronan nipped at his lower lip whenever he had the chance, the only thing his mind was capable of processing being Finally. Both of their hands were on each other, flailing more than touching with any sort of mastery, just wanting more of one another.
Ronan got him out of his nightshirt quicker, giving a short laugh that was cut short by Peyrol’s tongue and teeth finding his throat as he rolled Ronan underneath him. He moaned at the contact, spurring Lazare on because it had been so long since he’d heard that sound and it was like a lightning bolt running through his body. From there, he made a trail of love-bites, marking him from the neck to the collarbone, finally disposing of the nightshirt as the linen began to obstruct his path, allowing it to join its twin wherever it fell.
However, as he looked at Ronan there, in the candlelight, he felt the enthusiasm leave his body at the sight of the scar that covered the area where the bullet had entered Ronan’s chest. It was large, roughly the size of a large coin by his estimate, and it was dark, the difference between the scar and the surrounding flesh stark in the flickering orange glow of the nearby candles, along with the white lines that stretched away from Ronan’s back and lashed along his sides, and then, on his wrist, the Bastille’s brand, their history together laid out on his skin.
Don’t hurt him. I know he’s a fool, but he’s the only family I have left.
He pulled away, sitting at the edge of the bed to gather himself.
I don’t give a fuck what you intended! Your soldiers stuffed me full of lead anyway!
Ronan, being Ronan joined him, laying his chin on Lazare’s bare shoulder. “Hey, hey. What is it?” His kissed Lazare’s throat, and as he did so Peyrol resisted the urge to sink into him again. “Huh, what is it?”
Your heart would’ve been fine. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even in there.
Peyrol pulled away, and as he did so, he caught Ronan’s gaze, and he must have given something away (he had been out of the army too long, now, or perhaps when it came to Ronan it would have been a useless endeavor anyway) because he could see the full progression of Ronan’s face, crushed before becoming angry.
“So, what? Because I got a bullet in me I’m not worth your time anymore? The Comte de Peyrol’s favorite possession got a scratch on him?”
I’d thought that he was one of the toys of the aristocracy.
“No.” He reached out to grab Ronan’s hand, only realizing afterwards that he had little idea what to do. Ronan stared at him, eyes wide, mouth parted to say something, but nothing came out. “No.” He said it more definitely this time, running his finger along his knuckle just as he had done to him when they laid in bed together. “I would be here with you had every inch of your skin been burned to cinders and…” He swallowed, but knew that it needed to be said. It had needed to be said when they began this, it had needed to be said when Ronan came back, it had needed to be said a hundred times but he had refused to. “And I would be proud to be.”
Ronan looked at him then, and Lazare could see the rise and fall of his breath as they stayed there, as he took in what Lazare had just said. “Then why—“
Lazare straightened up. “It isn’t you.”
“Then wha-You?”
Lazare nodded.
“But I’m here with you now.”
“And in a month? In six months? A year? Will you have another mark then?”
“Lazare…” Ronan took their still clasped hands, putting them on his own stomach, so close to the scar, Peyrol’s hand meeting flesh that had never been allowed to grow soft. “Feel this? It’s solid, alright? I’m here now, I want to be with you, and I don’t give a damn about the rest. And you’re not going to hurt me. I know you. ”
Lazare eyed the red marks from before, and Ronan followed his glance. “Come on, Peyrol, like I wasn’t begging you for them a few minutes ago. You must really think I’m fragile, huh? Poor peasant boy, can’t defend himself from the evil aristocrat. But if I didn’t want it, you’d know. If you tried even when I didn't want it I’d send you flying out the window.” He eased himself closer, “So fuck me, because we've not had the chance to mess around for months and right now I want to forget my own name.” He practically sat in Lazare’s lap, nibbling at his earlobe, causing him to claw at Ronan’s back in response. “Lazare…mon amour…”
Against a barrage like that, his defenses fell, crumbling into the ground as he pinned Ronan against the bed-their bed.
When it was done, as they both collapsed against each other in a sweat-soaked, wrecked heap (in a minute or two, he would at least get a rag to wash the two of them off with, though he knew Ronan would attempt to protest), Ronan looked up at him.
“So…” He panted…”How…do you…feel...now? Still…don’t...think I...can handle...you?”
“Impudence.” It lacked the bark he’d once possessed and he knew it. To the world at large, he was still the Comte de Peyrol, a looming, snarling reminder of the power of the Royal Family, or at least, of the power they had held before they became captives in their own country. Even in his self-imposed house arrest, he held that image, and he accepted it. Here with Ronan, however…
“That wasn’t...what you said a couple of minutes ago.”
To wipe the self-satisfied grin off his face, he kissed him hard, or as hard as he could when they were both still exhausted from their efforts before, though he still could feel Ronan’s smile against his mouth. He had the distinct feeling that, between the two of them, Ronan might very well have been the victor.
Ronan rested his head against Lazare’s shoulder, hands wandering along his chest. “I’ve missed you, you know. This. Everything.”
Lazare leaned his head back on the pillow, allowing his head to sink down. “And I you.”
Regretfully for the state of their persons the next morning, he never did get around to cleaning them both, as Ronan fell asleep against him, mouth open against his shoulder and, even though the rational part of Peyrol’s mind told him to pull away as Ronan had the tendency of sleeping through anything less than the destruction of the world, the weaker, softer part of his brain, stretching its limbs as it came out of a long, long sleep, told him not to leave. Not now.
No, it wasn’t the normalcy that he had anticipated, laying in bed with a man laughably below his station, his military career in shambles while France itself seemed resolved to set itself on fire. It was hardly what he’d wanted (or what he’d been told he wanted, though it was hard to tell the line between them anymore). A year ago, he would have turned away in disgust at the thought. But it was his life, reassembled, haphazardly in places, but reassembled, something to come home to, something to live for that didn’t involve four hours of drills and sleeping in a cold bed. And—
He looked at Ronan, looking at the steady rise and fall of his breath, brushing a kiss against his forehead that he knew would never be felt, one final secret between him and the dark. He would certainly never want for company.
Not fragile at all.