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margridarnauds · 6 years ago

Note

Please talk about Forgiveness (Can You Imagine?)

Thank you so much!

This one was probably one of the single funnest fics for me to write; I think I ended up finishing it in less than a week, in the end? And it was really exciting to work with because a lot of the things I’d mentioned in it are things that I’d been working with in the background for months before, so I finally got to see my baby on page. To this day, of all my fics, it’s really the one that I reread the most when I need my fluff fix for these two, and it holds a very special place in my heart for that as one of the few things I’ve written that I actually, genuinely like, since 99% of the time I HATE anything I write.

It’s funny that you ask about it, actually, given that you inadvertantly got me to write it, since I wrote it as a way of providing context for the one fic that I’d mentioned once that had Ronan just…casually dragging Peyrol around to Jacobin Club meetings. A part of me was going, “How would they get to that point?” And so Forgiveness basically helped bridge that gap. Not that the Jacobin Club fic’s even been BEGUN yet, but in theory, they share a universe.

(More in-depth annotations/info beneath the cut, which no one is in any way obligated to read because LONG.)

Lazare mourned, in his way.

This was pretty much the first line of the fic that came into my mind and the first that I wrote down. I don’t think there was really a moment that I knew this wasn’t going to be the opening, because it FITS my take on Lazare so much. While Camille, Danton, and Robespierre are doing the dramatic, “Screaming into the air while cradling Ronan’s body,” Peyrol’s trying to internalize it until he can’t anymore. Which…does get him in trouble. In other universes.

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.

One thing that’s always really eerie about any kind of loss is that strange stretch of time where your brain isn’t used to it yet, and in my personal experience, it’s very, very weird to walk in one of those places that you associate with them.

Obviously, this is an extreme case as well, since they were actively LIVING together, and in my headcanon, Ronan tends to leave a lot of physical evidence of his existence, so it’s even more eerie.

(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).

This part killed me to write but also is one of the parts that is most consistently mentioned in reviews and reactions. It’s such a little domestic quarrel in the middle of such dramatic events, not the kind of thing we ever see any of the 1789 couples go through, but there’s that sense of oh my God, we wasted so much time fighting over such a little thing when we were running out of time.

And of course Peyrol remembers the exact time. Because he’s Peyrol.

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—

Tbh from what canon evidence we have of Ronan’s kissing skills, “frowning” would probably be a decent response.

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—

We’ve both talked about it, but Lazare isn’t exactly wrong here. Ronan really has kind of smashed into his life, and doesn’t really care about the damage he causes because he just jumps in.

This was a bit that I strongly considered cutting, because I was like, “Will I lose whatever sympathy I’ve built up for Lazare here?” But it was also vital as far as Lazare’s characterization, and I ultimately decided that to not include it would be completely unfair to him as a character. (And, I mean, it’s already 100% canon that Lazare came VERY close to shooting Ronan before Necker stopped him, so it would be even more unfair to Peyrol’s characterization to pretend the thought never crossed his mind.)

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–)

My favorite thing as far as writing Peyrol’s grief at any time is that thin line between self-control and the sometimes feral way he can express his anger, like The Stomp when Necker holds him back from murder. And, whereas before he might have spent about an hour or two venting his anger on a prisoner or one of his underlings, he doesn’t really have that at the moment. All he can do is vent it on himself.

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.

I really debated whether or not Peyrol would have had a valet before Ronan moved in before deciding “no.” On one hand, NO self-respecting aristocrat would go without one, but on the other…it’s Peyrol. He’s not exactly the norm. I have a hard time seeing him letting anyone that close, even if it’s someone who’s basically a step above furniture. The role of the valet kind of necessitates Peyrol putting some of his precious control in someone else’s hands, and that’s just fundamentally something that I have a hard time seeing him doing.

Also, “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” essentially sums up the problem with Peyrol as an officer: He’s brilliant when it comes to routines and rules and designating authority. In that sense, he’d have been a BRILLIANT knight in the Middle Ages. But, when his precious sense of order is upset, he’s left adrift, trying to scramble and go back to what he knows.

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.

Peyrol curling up on his bed post-finale is something that I’ve tossed around for about a year or so as his reaction, since it’s just a great contrast from what we’re used to from him, where he’s very action-oriented and focused, and shows how draining it was. (Probably the one death that’s actually given him pause.) At least one time when I was tossing it around, Solène was the one who found him, in other universes, he mourns alone, and obviously with this one I went with the single fluffiest possibility I could, even if he’s mourning alone at the moment.

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?

In an as of yet unpublished chapter of Pour la Peine, Solène wonders the same thing as far as whether Ronan was afraid, which is one of the points where these two tie together even if they don’t TECHNICALLY share a universe. (Another one is the description of Peyrol continuing to sleep on his side, which comes up in another unpublished chapter.)

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.

What he says here, “his life would have to go on” is so much less certain than “he would have [a life after].” It was easier, before, to have that kind of sentiment, but in the moment of the loss, nothing’s quite as certain and there’s more the idea that he’s PUSHING himself through this than that it’s coming as naturally to him as he’d hoped.

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.

Je sais la Sentence/Pour l’indécence/De mes Pensées

Alright, in all seriousness, this was one of those bits I had a bit of trouble with, because it’s very…religious for Peyrol, and he’s not like, say, Olympe or MA, though I’ve had a lot of fun imagining him in a confessional. Still, I think it kind of fits into what I headcanon his religious leanings to be, which is that he doesn’t so much believe in the traditional idea of the benevolent Christian god so much as he believes in God as the ultimate authority. Peyrol transgressed against that authority by taking a traitor to his bed = He gets Ronan snatched away from him. Cause-Effect, a nice, convenient, straight line.

It’s very King David-esque, actually. When I think about it. Which is NOT something I ever thought I’d be saying about Peyrol, believe me.

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.

There are times that I miss not finding some way to include Artois’ scathing letter, but…knowing Artois, I think we have a decent idea what it contained. *Monsieur lde Peyrol**Smug, smug, smug**Insult here* *I’m having SO MUCH SEX in London**You’re not invited**How did leaving me for a peasant go**Sincerely, fuck you* all on a sheet of paper that smells suspiciously like aphrodisiacs. And, for the most part, Artois really isn’t Peyrol’s concern now. He haunts him, on some level, but with him out of the country + Ronan THERE, Peyrol’s focus has shifted.

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.

A major part of why I love Peyronan as a concept is the idea of Ronan going into Paris to avenge his father’s death and destroy Peyrol and to succeed in doing that…but by getting himself killed. It was really interesting writing Lazare like this, because so much of that front that he makes everyone, including himself believe in is just…completely crumbling around him. Here, he’s able to be more functional, but had Ronan not survived…it’s questionable.

The orders never came.

Historically, the reason why there was no real military action at the Bastille was that none of the forces in Paris really got any orders, along with MASSIVE defections. All of the major military commanders were too busy worrying over whether the troops would stay loyal when asked to shoot their fellow Frenchmen that they missed their window of opportunity.

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.

This was such a huge point for me to write, as far as tearing down the Ancien Régime and everything that Lazare’s kind of built his life on. It really is a world turned upside down, and from what I’ve read the king’s acceptance of the Fall of the Bastille was really what made it such a victory.

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.

It was important for me that Peyrol only really broke at the last minute, because I wanted to keep his breakdowns incredibly limited. It’s not any one thing that’s doing this, but it’s a death by a thousand cuts situation, as he’s kind of finding all of his solid grounding disappearing out from under him.

Also, Ronan’s coat was a last second addition and I stand by it. One of my favorite reactions to it was “How dare you make me sad over that goddamn coat.”

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.

The thing that I really, really tried to emphasize is that Louis is a good man, he’s not giving Peyrol a breaking speech or laying ALL of the blame on him. Historically and in canon, Louis seems to be a very pleasant, amiable man. But, politically, Peyrol has to go if he’s going to make nice with the revolutionaries and for once in his life, Louis’ making the smartest decision. It’s bitterly ironic that, for all that Peyrol talks about service and duty to the Crown, the best thing he can do for France is to resign from that service, and tbh that tends to be my endgame for him no matter what.

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.

I personally really like the circular movement there: He’s there when Necker’s sacked and kind of edges him towards it, now Necker’s there when he’s sacked. It’s karma, and it’s something that Peyrol really does deserve even if I can still sympathize with him.

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.

I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t decided other people’s lives in the time it took him to give an order, but they were ~different~. How the turn tables.

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.

I spent an ungodly amount of time staring at pictures of Versailles for this and it nearly killed me because, even though my mom WENT TO FREAKING FRANCE decades ago, the guy she was with didn’t want to take her to Versailles so she just got to wave goodbye to it on the train. I was PISSED. But it was also so important as a way of kind of saying goodbye to the Ancien Régime, so it was very important to show it even if it murdered me. Also: Even though it doesn’t come naturally, I’m a slut for short, contained scenes filled with description, and for me this was the only real part of this that I got to do that with, so it was kind of a return to form even as I was adapting it into a longer narrative.

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.

The last two lines are #Relatable

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.

Historically, there was a HUGE problem where all these officers emigrated to different countries, all of them wanting to retain their old statuses (aka the best ranks money could buy), which meant the chain of command was WRECKED. I’ve seen it blamed as one of the reason why the royalist army was, consistently, a bit of a wreck. Because you suddenly have a bunch of mostly unprofessional upperclass twits who treated their military career as essentially a club membership that they didn’t really have to tend to, they just wanted the bragging rights.

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.

Now would probably be the wrong time to mention that Catherine the Great would probably take him on. In multiple meanings of the word.

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.

One of my favorite things to bring in, and that really laces itself throughout the fic, is the paranoia that’s taking hold after the Bastille, that sense of uncertainty and anxiety. Because the Bastille was a glorious event, no doubt, and the musical does a great job showing the triumph and the sacrifice involved, but it was also an event that was marked by violence against perceived enemies of the people. And Peyrol being…Peyrol’s managed to mark himself as Public Enemy #1 because of his actions during Nous ne Sommes, and the events of the last month or so have SEVERELY undermined his sense of security. Before, he always had his authority to fall back on, whether it was the military authority courtesy of his regiment or his rank (or both. Mostly both.) Now, he’s completely unmoored.

Also, it was a grisly nod to Marat’s death a few years later, since he really WAS murdered in his own home.

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).

One thing that I personally enjoy about Peyrol is that, really, he doesn’t seem too fazed by death. In the French version, we have that single line about “We owe to those in power death and duty” and to me that really encapsulates him, since he’s always thought of himself as fundamentally expendable. But the thought of dying at the hands of the MOB…that’s horrific to him. Even as he’s being flippant about it, it’s horrific to him.

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.

If Peyrol had any regrets about the Clutter Argument…

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!”

Ronan calling Peyrol a bastard is my eternal aesthetic.

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.

One thing that I kind of love about these two here, and that made writing them so much fun, is that, even though they’re on the outs at this point, they also GET one another. They have their misunderstandings since they’re still two people with a very different view of the world, they’re never GOING to see eye to eye and there will always be times they’re just like, “How can you think that? I don’t understand how your brain can work that way.” But, living together’s given them this idea of how they work.

“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.)

I actually had a devil of a time coming up with Peyrol’s response here; this entire conversation, save for Ronan’s entrance and the very end, were more or less me winging it and letting the two duke it out. I wanted Peyrol to have that sense of astonishment, but it also couldn’t be saccharine. Like, normally, if someone told me to write a reunion scene between two lovers where one thought the other was dead, it would be dramatic and full of passion and longing. And, for Peyrol, it IS, but being Peyrol, it’s also…stunted.

“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.”

AKA the one time that Peyrol’s troops being bad shots works in a POSITIVE way.

Also, I do not recommend looking up 18th century gunshot wounds. I did for the sake of figuring out Ronan’s chances of survival and, suffice it to say, he would most likely be fucked, from infection if not from the GIANT projectile being lodged in there/the shards from said projectile. But, this is my self-indulgent fluff.

And God bless pages dedicated to historically accurate pirate fiction for having so many resources on 18th century gunshot wounds.

“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.

My not-so-subtle callback to Maniaque, especially by the time of the Tokyo run and the overall feeling of “Holy fuck Peyrol’s SMILING” I get from what videos I’ve seen of 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.”

For some reason, I’m very attached to Ronan saying variations of “You’re not getting rid of me that easily” to Peyrol and this was the first time I actually had the chance to use it.

“What did you want, then?”

“I don’t know; I thought I’d figure it out when I was here. When I saw you.”

Ronan showing his usual level of forethought before diving into a potentially fraught situation.

“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?”

Honestly, I’m not sure whether Peyrol would have made a promise like that when he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it, but it does explain Ronan’s betrayed face when Peyrol shoots him.

“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.”

Honestly, I STILL have a hard time understanding why Peyrol chose to shoot Lt. du Puget, since we have no idea whether he knows that he helped Ronan escape. On a meta level, I’m pretty damn certain that it’s just an excuse to parallel the beginning. This is the best excuse I can personally come up with (next to “he collects dead fathers,” of course), and I’m more or less sticking to it.

“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.”

“Couldn’t let his daughter live without her father” Ronan not so subtly projecting there.

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—“

I go back and forth as far as how Peyrol would ultimately end up feeling about Papa Mazurier, but I do think that, even as Ronan might toss away his revenge scheme fairly quickly after they become involved (going from a specific target to the monarchy/aristocracy in general), that kind of thing would linger between them. My ongoing personal headcanon is that, for a couple of weeks or so around July 24, Ronan kind of distances himself, even years later.

….

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.

Just like the author didn’t intend for it to spill out, because Peyrol has the tendency, as a character, of doing whatever he damn well pleases. This was a bit I really, really debated over including, because it’s so DIFFERENT from the Peyrol we’re used to, since I generally have a hard time seeing Peyrol giving a straightforward “I love you.” They could grow old together, adopt a (poor, traumatized) kid, have five grandkids, three dogs, a cat, and maybe even a parrot, and Peyrol would still say, “Ronan Mazurier, I believe I have grown somewhat fond of you.”

But it was important to me as far far as showing Peyrol’s emotional state, given he is in a very unique position emotionally; he’s lost his beloved career, he thought he’d lost Ronan, the precious social order he’s built his life on + benefitted from IMMENSELY is being pulled down around him, and his ex patron is leaving him on read. So, his emotional state really isn’t like anything we’ve seen, he’s angry from the argument, and, as we generally see with Peyrol, when he gets angry…things happen. Only this time, instead of murder, it was him accidentally shooting himself in the foot, letting out all those repressed emotions he’s been feeling for the past month or two.

“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—“

This was another bit that spilled out, and then I had a devil of a time coming up with Peyrol’s response because RONAN, THAT WAS HARSH. JUSTIFIED, BUT HARSH.

Because, as already mentioned, this scene had Peyrol and Ronan going off, there were several parts that made me have to go back multiple times because SOMEONE ended up saying something a little too harsh and I was like, “Alright, Ronan, go back in your quiet corner until you can play nice with your boyfriend.” Obviously, it was important that they both had a chance to air out their issues; Ronan being completely okay with being shot would be unrealistic, and, let’s be honest, we wouldn’t be shipping the Hell out of this if they were two unproblematic, sweet, pure people meeting in a coffeshop AU who had cute pet names for one another and never argued. Peyrol and Ronan are canonical messes and we love them for it, and their relationship reflects that. But, at the same time, there are some things you really, really can’t write yourself out of, and both of them have the tendency to go for the jugular.

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?”

I STILL am not happy with those last few lines, they’re one of the few that I really don’t hear in his voice as much, even if the spirit of the response is him, but I couldn’t think of any other way for him to phrase it, since Lazare is legally not allowed to say “fuck” despite being in the army for so long. (Artois and Ronan more than make up for it.)

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.”

Both of them are really showing their insecurities here, even if they’d normally never say them out loud: Peyrol that Ronan’s just using him for what he can provide for him while still hating him and Ronan that he’s expendable and that Peyrol was just using him for a quick lay. It isn’t necessarily that Ronan thinks that Peyrol’s necessarily out of his league, but that Peyrol could have anyone (who is willing to put up with him) and he knows it. Historically, queer aristocrats had a Hell of a lot more as far as resources are concerned. They had gambling rooms and private clubs and salons where they could scope out same gender partners, whereas Ronan…doesn’t have access to that. The best he could do, hypothetically, would be to go to the public baths or cruise Palais Royal or the Tuileries. Or just go to Camille. Not that Peyrol would ever make USE of those resources, but in theory, he could have all the sex.

“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.”

Shoutout to my favorite line in the whole damn musical.

Also, Peyrol’s line about being a soldier and how sentiment works to him is one of those lines that I’ve known I was going to include SOMEWHERE for a long time, it just ended up fitting best in this fic.

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…”

“And those are just the ones we know about!”

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?”

Between the “Helpless” line and the title of this, this fic probably owes more to Hamilton than I’ll ever be willing to personally admit. (There are multiple messages I exchanged with friends where I was asking them whether I was desperate enough to go Hamilton on main for the title before deciding that I might as well, since it was really the only thing I could think of.)

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.

The tragic thing about Lazare, to me, is that he’s so brutally realistic about things and has such a low opinion of himself (despite the image he projects), that he can’t imagine someone choosing to be with him because they love him. And that’s probably Artois’ fault, partially, probably at least partially due to my various headcanons about his childhood and upbringing, as well as the temporality of an officer’s life, but my boy has a deeply fucked up sense of self-esteem. He truly believes, I think, that in the end he’s just a tool.

Also, these two lines basically killed me when I wrote them out, because it feels so FINAL for them, like the equivalent of listening to “Say Something (I’m Giving Up On You)” on repeat. Like, it feels WRONG for them to be this close to ending things, even if I know that, logically, they’re incompatible on multiple points.

“I don’t want it to be.”

“Nor do I.”

A long, pregnant pause.

This whole bit was really important to me, in the sense that I felt like, if they were going to have a relationship post-finale, it needed to be a mutual decision. They might have gotten into this thing as a spur of the moment bout of hatesex against the Bastille’s walls, but they have the chance to think, walk away, and say “This isn’t what I want.” And it’s Peyrol giving Ronan that power, him asking the question and showing that kind of vulnerability. No matter how it might have started between the two of them and even though I have to believe that Peyrol will have a hard time if not outright find it impossible to fully view Ronan as an equal, they’re re-establishing that relationship on more equal footing. Which makes sense given the Bastille’s kind of shifted the power more to Ronan’s court anyway. Like, he could, in theory, throw Peyrol out to the mob and go, “Hey guys, go wild!” Not that he would. But he could. (And if this was the Ronan who came to Paris, he probably would.)

“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.

I’ll be honest: One of the central images that kicked off this fic, besides my conversation with you, was me telling a friend that post-canon, Ronan is making Peyrol sleep on the couch while he’s lounging around in yellow booty shorts that say “God Won’t Let Me Die.”

Tragically, the booty shorts weren’t exactly period accurate, but the couch bit stayed.

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.

Peyrol doing what he does best and reverting to denial.

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.

I really like the idea of them living together in no small part because it’s such a huge adjustment for BOTH of them, Ronan adjusting to living in such a large space, dealing with an aristocracy that he hates, while Peyrol has to adjust to a level of domesticity than he’s ever been able to have, while they’re both also trying to deal with the realities of a steady romantic relationship for the first time. That, and it does explain why Ronan’s not sleeping in Palais Royal. And how he got the coats, besides, “This is a Takarazuka production and we can’t have our lead only have one outfit.”)

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.

Symbolism of this aside (with Ronan’s taste in interior design intruding into a space primarily dominated by Peyrol’s more austere style = Ronan’s intrusion into Peyrol’s stable, orderly sense of the world) I can only imagine the disaster that these two going furniture shopping would be.

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-

At first, I’d considered merging this scene with the nightmare scene, but I knew that not enough time had passed, and it wouldn’t be either realistic or fair to them to just have them sleeping in the same bed the same night as Ronan comes back.

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.

Of course Ronan moans when he sleeps.

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.

I love the pre-electricity idea of first and second sleep, with the person waking up and going about their day before settling back into a longer sleep, but it’s also damned inconvenient for the purposes of this fic since I honestly had no idea what I wanted him to do.

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.

Even though I’ll always prefer versions of Maniaque where Ronan and Peyrol INTERACT, as a chronic pacer I do appreciate how Peyrol is always in movement in the standard French version, pacing back and forth in the background as Ronan complains about his life.

It also ties into my longstanding headcanon that Peyrol is autistic, with pacing being one of the ways that he stims.

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.

I don’t think I’d initially realized that Ronan exiling Peyrol to couch would mean that Peyrol was exiled from his wardrobe + anything else he needed to start his day when I began this, but I decided to take advantage of it for everything it’s worth.

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.)

Yes, I put Ronan in denim. God help us all. (Though tbh…Toho did it first.) I really wanted to show that Ronan was distancing himself from Peyrol by not wearing anything that Peyrol might have bought for him, going back more to his outfit at the very, very beginning, to the Toho, or to the clothes that the original production videos showed.

“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.

Ah, yes, the time I spent about a day or so researching shaving rituals in the 18th century only to then CUT THE ENTIRE SEQUENCE I’d had planned out for the two of them, where they would be talking while Peyrol shaved because I realized I hated it and I wanted to get to the good part anyway. So, instead I just glossed over it in one paragraph. As you do.

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.

Replacing Blue Coat #23 with Blue Coat #24.

“I can go, you know,” Ronan said, looking up at the ceiling in a particularly studious manner that seemed foreign to him.

In all seriousness, writing this type of sexual tension was such a joy for me, since they’re at this weird place where they’re not where they were when the musical began, but they’re still consciously trying to avoid the elephant in the room.

“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.”

On one hand, this is such blatantly self-indulgent, cliche, fanservice. On the other hand…it’s RONAN. No one ever said he was smooth. And I really did want to establish that, despite them not being A Thing to the same extent they were, they still both do want each other.

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.

Flustered!Peyrol is very important to me, as is Peyrol randomly coming up behind people to deliver bitchslaps, so this paragraph really gave me two Ids for the price of one.

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.

The eternal dichotomy of Ronan Mazurier: He won’t shut up when he needs to, but then when the other characters (see: Camille) are BEGGING him to talk, he keeps quiet.

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?

Gotta love Peyrol’s priorities there. (I could talk at length about Peyrol + children, but my tl;dr there is that he knows HAS to have them, one day, at least in the canon era when things are more or less steady, in order to carry on the de Peyrol family name, but that doesn’t mean he necessarily WANTS to have them for a variety of reasons.)

“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.”

“Oh dear, I suppose if you INSIST on touching me after months of useless pining, I must allow it.”

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.

Obviously, I can never exactly write these two as broken up for long, but I did appreciate taking the sexual tension for everything it was worth, just like I enjoyed getting to escalate the touching throughout.

Also, between this and a similar scene in my unpublished, quite possibly dead Peasant Lazare AU, I think it’s safe to say that the Hair Ribbon of Sexual Tension is a Thing with me. I don’t know WHY it’s a thing, but it’s a thing. That and abusing Peyrol’s gloves.

“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-“

Peyrol starts off this paragraph more or less taking it for granted that Ronan would do that for him due to their statuses, but then he stops himself and treats him more like a romantic partner. It’s pretty much rock bottom as far as “things you’d expect your lover to do” but it’s big for him.

The bell for breakfast spared him from whatever display of sentimentality he was going to perform next.

And thus conveniently saving the author from having to come up with whatever the Hell he was going to say next.

Also, special props to Dangerous Liaisons for the detail about the bell being used, thus justifying me spending an ungodly amount of time reading it.

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—

For Peyrol’s nightmare, I wanted something that would be HIM, so, instead of drawing from the canon example we have of Olympe’s nightmare in the French production, I drew from my own anxiety nightmares that I had on and off for about a year or two, as well as that persistent feeling I tend to get in dreams that “Well, I know this isn’t normal, but it’s right in front of me, so it has to be.” And for someone like Peyrol, who tends to be very pragmatic as far as what he’s seeing and touching being what’s real, I think that he would have a similar feeling.

A lot of the specific imagery I bring up here comes from the Abomination (Which I’m STILL working on dammit), and it relates to an incident he had when he was a young boy, where he was locked in a dark cellar for a day with no food or water by his grandfather (who I’ve lovingly nicknamed “Grandpapa de Fuck”), who is the source of the boots and cane mentioned here.

“LAZARE!”

This is the the first time Ronan’s called him Lazare in-fic, and it’s his knee-jerk impulse, since it’s what they would have used when they were intimate and alone.

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.”

Ronan’s not always the brightest bulb on the block, bless his heart, but he can draw the line between Lazare being panicked + He’s pretty much the only one in the city who likes Lazare = Lazare is being murdered.

Also, back to Peyrol.

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.

My general take on Peyrol + the various traumas he might or might not have endured is that he just completely takes it in his stride. “Oh, you mean you weren’t conditioned from childhood to be the perfect soldier?” Which…is very common for abuse victims, anyway. Not that Peyrol would EVER use that term for himself even if it was in common use in the 18th century. And, imo, this paragraph kind of shows that off, as far as him completely accepting the nightmares as a part of his day to day existence.

“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.”

Inspired by what I noticed when I got dogs. Not that Ronan’s a dog, despite Artois’ “mongrel” comments, but…

“Fuck, Lazare, you never told me.”

Back to “Lazare.”

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.”

That one time where I totally gave Ronan one of my most used phrases.

“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.

Peyrol apologizing is SUCH A BIG DEAL for them, relationship wise, but also it’s a distractor, as he’s choosing between two things, both of which will hurt his pride. And Ronan not taking advantage of it really shows how scared he was for Peyrol.

“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.

Props to Peyrol for finally admitting in his narration that he loves Ronan. Personally, I try to keep references to it as small as I can.

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.

I firmly stand behind my belief that 9/10 times Peyrol’s own worst enemy is that fucking aristocratic pride. His boyfriend’s offering him almost everything he’s been longing for, but he can’t STAND the thought of being pitied, so he does as he does best and retreats into his little shell.

“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.

This entire part was a delight for me to write, since it has Ronan being a stubborn inconvenience even as he’s trying to help his boyfriend out while Peyrol is both annoyed and smitten. Though mostly annoyed.

I mainly had French!Ronan in mind here, which is very unusual for me, specifically the scene at the Bastille where he won’t go until Olympe tells him her name, even though I like to think that Ronan’s reasons here are significantly more sympathetic. That, and it’s not like both of them will DIE because of it.

“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?”

As much as I love writing Peyrol calling out Ronan for his occasional immaturity, I love Ronan calling out Peyrol even more, especially since he often doesn’t get the chance.

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.”

I lowkey considered cutting this bit out and replacing it with Ronan falling asleep on top of him instead, because I was wondering if it was too mean-spirited (and because I love Ronan falling atop Peyrol in inconvenient positions), but…it’s PEYROL. And RONAN. And it’s really important to me personally to show the interplay between the two of them, especially as Peyrol’s still trying to deflect a little from the fact that he’s very, very, very compromised and Ronan’s close to getting what he wants. They’re still them, even if they might melt a little, and at their most loving and saccharine, they’re still going to argue like an old married couple.

Also, Ronan calling Peyrol a bastard, Part the Second.

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.”

No one will ever know how tempted I was to have Peyrol accidentally hit Ronan’s head against a door while he was carrying him, which is in no way inspired by a childhood event.

Personally, when it comes to both of them, I tend to lean towards Ronan being the stronger, from years doing farmwork. Like, I’ve lived around farm kids before, and they tend to be strong as a mule. BUT Peyrol is unusually hands on for an army officer and is probably pretty damn fit from horse-riding if nothing else, so…that’s my justification for the self-indulgence here.

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.

I wanted to emphasize “he could muster within himself” as a way of showing that this kind of thing REALLY doesn’t come naturally to him; it’s something he does for Ronan’s sake.

“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.”

Lazare de Peyrol being Whipped AF, despite how this relationship began, Exhibit #1567. Also, Ronan getting over himself enough to finally ASK Peyrol to come back and to admit that he’s actually missed him.

“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.

I tend to go with the idea that after being exposed to Artois’ little manipulations, whether or not the relationship was ever actually CONSUMMATED (in anything I do, I tend to lean towards “no,” though I don’t think it really matters), Peyrol has this little undercurrent of suspicion towards everyone around him, this kind of idea of “You like me too much, something is wrong here. What do you want?” Which…#RelatablePeyrol comes back to strike again.

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?”

Honestly, I love those little moments where I get to work with how both of their backgrounds continue to influence them, like earlier when Peyrol mentioned Ronan’s habit of stealing the covers, and this little bit here shows it off. Of course Ronan doesn’t miss a meal, because most of his life has been spent without food being readily available, and meat would more or less be a privilege of the nobility. I remember my grandparents, who were children during the Great Depression, ALWAYS pushed as far as food was concerned, because the notion of having _excess_ food was very much not a marker of their childhoods.

Meanwhile, Peyrol has that meticulous habit of cutting up his food into smaller pieces, both because it’s him, but also because he was raised to uphold a long, long, long list of table manners, and even though he could *technically* not follow them now, it’s a part of his routine.

“Can my sister visit?”

This part of the fic kind of infamously got away from me, in the sense that I ended up with about 2000 words more than I’d intended. I’d had a full fic in my hands and then spent extra time adding a HUGE chunk that would become Peyrol and Ronan’s meeting with Solène. It was something I had a huge debate over, since I was really worried that it would upset the flow of the narrative I’d set up, but it was also VITAL to me to have her input, since, next to Ronan, she’s the most OBVIOUS victim of Peyrol’s trigger finger, and it’s important to me personally to show that dynamic.

I love Peyrol and I love Ronan, I love them together, obviously, and I even love, on occasion (more often than not), making them happy and giving them rainbows and puppies and unicorns. But him and Ronan running off into the sunset while the female characters who’ve had to deal with Peyrol’s bullshit (though Solène’s troubles are also partially Ronan’s fault as well) are swept to the side isn’t the sort of thing I want to write.

“Your sister, the—“

Peyrol being an aristocratic 18th century male.

“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.

Ronan defending his sister here is such a long way away from where he started with “If we lose our dignity, it’s the end” and I’m proud of him.

“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-“

Solène saying what we all wish we could say.

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 had to actually look up what the period-accurate term for rat poison was. I feel like given Saotome Wakaba’s understated, sly take on Olympe, it would be very _her_ as a murder technique. (Charles had better start guarding his alcohol carefully.)

Honestly, as much as I love Olympe and Lazare as friends, I really kind of like her NOT forgiving him. One thing I really wanted to emphasize is that Peyrol DOES have a body count and that that’s not been forgotten. Having everyone in love with him wouldn’t make sense (and would make him absolutely insufferable as a character), and she provides a solid counterpoint to Ronan even if she’s not really onstage. Maybe she’ll smooth over, in time, maybe she won’t, but the important thing is that as things stand, at the moment, Peyrol’s not been forgiven by everyone just because Ronan is working on it.

“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.

I have seen too many terrible 18th century pornographic pamphlets to not see this image vividly. And I hate it.

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.”

I’ll be honest: I would probably kill Ronan here, too.

Ronan walked over to him, brushing his lips against his cheek. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

AKA the seven words most likely to be heard before the Apocalypse.

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.

Honestly, one of Peyrol’s most #Relatable moments for me.

“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.

One of the things that I’m always curious about any universe where Ronan moves in with Lazare is how someone like Ronan, who is so fiercely independent and big on people being able to do what he wants, would deal with servants, and even though it’s not DIRECTLY addressed here, there are the hints here and there, as well as how Lazare deals with someone of Ronan’s station sharing his space. (Basically, he treats him like a mistress. Not that either would SAY that out loud.)

Also, I do like that this section gets to show a little bit of Lazare as an employer, since, even though he doesn’t have the whip and chains, you can see that harsh edge making its way in. Which is important for me, since it shows that Ronan is an anomaly for him and that he’s still PEYROL, even if he’s improving. Slightly.

“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.

AKA the moment that the snobbish servant suddenly saw his life flashing before his eyes.

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.

I really enjoyed the ratsbane more than anyone who claims to love Peyrol probably should. He’s trying so hard to be cool and collected but there’s just that little ridiculous side of him that’s always just lurking in the shadows. It’s also why he lends himself so very well to crackfics.

Not that he’s WRONG to be a little bit wary, tbh.

“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.”

Gals who are pals, if you will.

“I see,” Lazare looked between the two Mazurier siblings, wanting to see a sign of something from them, though he wasn’t sure what.

I deliberately kept this ambiguous as far as whether he’s looking to see whether Ronan’s jealous that they’re a thing or whether it’s Peyrol not fully understanding what Solène means by “friends” because, again, he’s an 18th century male aristocrat, and he’s looking to Ronan as a way of saying “What does this mean?” Or whether he’s just confused in general because he’s an only child.

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.”

The thing l think I love most about Solène is her pragmatism. Unlike Ronan, she’s not going to shame her brother for something that gives him three full meals and a place to sleep. She’s seen too much for that. (Though she definitely shamed him for his hypocrisy.) But that doesn’t mean she’ll LIKE Peyrol, she just knows that the situation he’s giving her brother is one that she would personally kill for and I think it kind of surprises/irritates her that Ronan got it mainly by insulting him. Like, the role of being a mistress to an aristocratic officer was the kind of thing that women at a high-end establishment would covet, much less a woman working the streets like Solène.

“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.”

A moment of silence for Solène and her sacrifice.

In all seriousness, Ronan would be HELL to live with. I can only imagine what she had to deal with when they were growing up together.

It required every last amount of his training to keep his face impassive.

Ronan.

Props to Peyrol for not shooting Ronan again. That would have made for a much more depressing fic than what I was going for.

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.

“Le loup” is a game that involves boys “hunting” a girl and, according to my book on growing up French in the 18-20th centuries, had more than a few sexual connotations.

One of the things that’s endlessly fascinating to me as far as queer history is the varying levels of acceptance and toleration in places where you really wouldn’t expect it. While it’s not always CHEERY throughout history, it really did vary as far as the degrees to which it could be tolerated. And my personal headcanon is always that EVERYONE knew about Ronan. Like. My boy’s not subtle there.

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.

When I write Solène, I always have Nathalia’s one quote about her where she says, “She hides her fragility beneath this determined appearance” in mind. I love Solène when she’s being badass, tossing bakers around, not having the Revolution mansplained to her, but I also love those moments in canon where she shows that she’s a woman who’s been deeply, deeply affected by everything that she’s seen. And that reminder, of how terrified she is of him hurting her brother and how she really can’t do anything about it, hits Peyrol more, ultimately, than if she’d threatened him. Because, if she’d threatened, he could hit back with a quick, brutal comment, he could go to an offensive defense as he normally does, but to that kind of plea…there’s really not anything he can do. He can’t even say “It won’t happen again.”

She didn’t wait for a response, though Lazare tried to think of one long after she’d left.

My mother was actually a bit disappointed when I ran it by her (yes, I show my fanfic to my mother as a beta reader, bless her), because she was really hoping Peyrol would give Solène money or go all Jean Valjean on her, but, honestly, I kind of deliberately DIDN’T do that because Peyrol’s still a bit of a bitch. He’s still recovering from nearly losing Ronan, which means that they’re in a sort of honeymoon phase, but having him show that degree of generosity/remorse is still very much out there, especially to a sex worker like Solène who is a Fallen Woman to society. He might show it, one day, or he might not, but right now his perception of the world is essentially superiors, equals, Ronan, and People Who Are Not Ronan, and even though Solène’s his ally as of right now, they’re not that warm.

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.

Louis XVI going into the city willingly at the beginning is paralleled by the Royal Family being captured and forced to go into the city by force here. Also, the last time Louis showed up, Peyrol and Ronan were at their most distant, relationship-wise; here, they finally become intimate again.

So, the moral of the story is that monarchy is bad for relationships; capturing your local monarch is a good replacement for relationship counseling.

At least Ronan wasn’t a part of it, he thought.

I really wanted to include a reference to Solène here, given that she WOULD be part of it, but i couldn’t find where to include it. As much as I love and support Solène Mazurier, I felt like her time in this particular narrative had run its course, sadly, and it would have taken away from the flow. That, and given that her side of the October Days is shown in Pour la Peine, it’s a little bit reductive.

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…

I’ll admit it: I took a bizarre amount of delight in Peyrol critiquing the RPF written about him.

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-“

AKA French!Ronan coming out to play again, before quickly being smothered by the cold, harsh reality.

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.

I actually made a little mistake here that I keep meaning to fix: It was the Body Guard who dealt with the crowd’s wrath here, not the Swiss Guard, who would be butchered in 1792 instead. Mea culpa.

As much as I focus on Lazare’s character development, this is a really important moment for Ronan, as he’s kind of forced to acknowledge that, yes, his side is capable of doing that kind of thing, and they would do it to someone he loves. He’s kind of forced into the same position Peyrol’s in: Unswerving loyalty to a cause or his lover. And, ultimately, he chooses Peyrol. He’s still a Revolutionary, he’s not going to start flying the Fleur-de-Lys anytime soon just like Peyrol’s not going to start playing “Ah, Ça Ira” on that harpsichord of his , but he’s been shaken.

It’d be really, really easy to put all the impetus for change in the relationship on Lazare, since in many ways he’s the most obviously flawed (Ronan is stupid, but he doesn’t really actively kill anyone. He just…accidentally gets them killed via his stupidity), but they’re most interesting to me as a couple when they’re BOTH spurring on each others’ development.

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.

I honestly feel like that last line would be the thesis statement for this fic and hopeful!Peyronan in general if it had one. Well, that line, BDSM, angst, and “He would be troubled if you died on him.”

This moment was one of the major scenes that I’d had planned out, as far as getting them to touch hands again, and it was one that I really couldn’t wait to get to when I was writing it out. It’s so…unusually chaste and tender for them, given everything.

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–

One of the things I really love about the Takarazuka 1789, besides it giving me so much ship fuel, is how you can really trace the trajectory of Ronan’s character development through his clothing, and here’s me trying to kind of take that on.

Will Ronan probably stick with the blue coat forever? Probably not. But for now, he’s making that effort for Peyrol, as his way of bridging that gap, even if his coat isn’t an EXACT match because the two of them are never going to exactly match one another.

Before he had very nearly killed him.

HE SAID IT. Most of the time, Peyrol has various and assorted ways of trying to justify himself, but here we see him finally accept it.

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

Les Amis du Peuple, which was started in late 1789.

(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.

I really enjoyed having Peyrol taking the reactive stance here, partially because “This is allowed now” and partially because “I refuse to have Ronan Mazurier get the last say here.” Some part of his pride absolutely refuses to have Ronan set ALL the terms.

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.

Callback to the reference at the very beginning to Ronan and Peyrol’s kisses. Also, the final line is probably overly sappy, but, at the same time, it’s important for him to accept that and to still be happy. And for him to not directly say that he’s happy, but that he’s “allow” for it.

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.

As uncomfortable as I am writing any kind of sex scene, it was also important that they end here where their relationship kind of kicked off (albeit with less BDSM. This time.) It starts off as a purely sex-based thing that evolves to include emotions and intimacy, here it’s ending as an emotions and intimacy thing that includes sex.

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.

Ronan + Moaning-The ongoing saga.

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.

I spent way too long looking up pictures of bullet wounds. It was not fun; my stomach was not grateful for it.

Also, I’m personally fond of “their history together laid out on his skin” as a phrase; it might be one of my favorite lines in the entire fic. It really brings home to me how much of their relationship has been marked by them harming one another, especially Lazare harming Ronan (though I firmly believe that when it comes to them in an actual _relationship_ Ronan gives as good as he gets). I felt like it was one of those things that needed to mentioned instead of cleanly wiped away, as a full reminder of what Peyrol is capable of doing and to give Peyrol that little reminder as well.

Don’t hurt him. I know he’s a fool, but he’s the only family I have left.

This is one of those things I added very last minute, as I tried to weave in Solène’s section to the rest of the fic. Initially, I don’t think I really included ANY of the quotes, but I have to say that I’m happy with the full effect of getting into Peyrol’s mind.

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?”

Going back to Ronan’s earlier insecurity that he’s expendable to Peyrol.

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.”

Honestly, all my ribbing Lazare about his inability to get his feelings aside (which is very, very rich coming from me, I know), this IS him saying “I love you” to Ronan. It’s him saying that he doesn’t care about how Ronan looks, he doesn’t care if Ronan couldn’t or wouldn’t have sex with him, but that he would still be willing to be with him, and he’s trying to do it in a way that Ronan understands, doing the finger running thing that Ronan does to HIM. And he’s doing it even though it’s essentially like gargling rocks for him because the stakes are too high otherwise.

Basically, if there was any doubt that this was no longer about having sex while one of them’s chained up against a wall, this just destroyed it.

This was also a very hard moment to write, as far as trying to get Lazare more emotionally available than he normally is while still keeping him HIM, which is also why there are so many stops here. He knows he needs to say it, but that doesn’t make it _easy_ to say it.

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. ”

“Or, when you do hurt me, you know I’ll like it.”

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…”

I was really happy to have Ronan kind of owning the dominant narrative around this kind of relationship, where the presumption is that Peyrol seduces him, not the other way around, and tossing it out. Like, this isn’t Pamela 2.0, and if Ronan had been subservient and meek, Peyrol would never have given him a second glance (and his father would have lived, WHOOPS).

And we also have him finally going back to form here, using “mon amour” for the first time since everything happened.

Against a barrage like that, his defenses fell, crumbling into the ground as he pinned Ronan against the bed-their bed.

Back at it with the military innuendos, Laz.

In all seriousness, I do feel like the moment Peyrol’s narration specifies it’s their bed is the moment when they finally, fully re-establish that bond again.

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…

We know, Peyrol, we know. You’re whipped.

Also, at some point I decided that “Impudence” was one of Peyrol’s catchphrases.

“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.”

This is one of those moments that they NEEDED to have, now that they’re 100% back together and vulnerable. That, and them finally cuddling after so long is something that made even my black heart grow three sizes. Really, the last few scenes all made my heart grow three sizes. I needed to dunk one of them in a river somewhere else in order to make up for it.

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.

I repeat: Lazare de Peyrol? Whipped. So whipped.

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.

Earlier, Peyrol mentioned the two options for his death: On the battlefield or alone. Now, he’s taking the possibility of long-term companionship with Ronan and some of that mundane, unexciting domesticity, even if they’ll never exactly be a *normal* couple in many senses.

Not fragile at all.

#long post #very long post #my writing #now even longer due to the powers of annotation #berncat

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