#not tagging bc literally nobody asked for this! unfortunately i am unhinged and unwell enough to put more words into this

[hourcat]

“Did you just tell the commander of our battalion to leave his own house?” Charles’ voice filters through his brain hazily as he comes out of whatever fit that had come over him. Pierre, standing beside his dining chair, grips the back of it tight for a second before exhaling.

They’re alone in the room, now, dinner all but abandoned—Horner had left at his suggestion even though, Charles is correct, this is still very much his home. The guards had walked behind him, clearly taken aback at how the evening’s events had unfolded. What was meant to be a dinner for formally introducing the details of the initial Nasseau proposal had become…

Well, Pierre saw red the moment Commander Horner had begun nit-picking Charles’ intentions behind putting it all together. He doesn’t remember exactly what he’d said even though it had only happened moments before, but it doesn’t matter, because this is Charles. Charles, who is putting himself on the line for such an enlightened military excursion and getting torn down for it. Getting his character insulted. Charles is Pierre’s best friend. Pierre loves him. Was he supposed to just stand by and allow it to happen before his eyes?

After a beat of silence, Pierre huffs softly and turns towards where Charles is still sitting at the table, looking at him with those wide, disbelieving green eyes. He continues speaking. “Right now, Horner must be relaying messages among his petty officers to get in contact with every connection of his on the council.” Charles doesn’t sound angry at Pierre’s outburst. Instead, he seems…pensive. Calculating, like always when they’re discussing parliamentary matters. He runs a hand over his powdered wig and then peels it away, slow and thoughtful, before itching at his hair. “He will stop at nothing to make sure this plan of ours never sees the light of day.” He exhales softly. “And now…Pierrot, now you are in the line of fire.”

A laugh bubbles up from somewhere in Pierre’s gut, to his own shock. “I am an officer of the Navy,” he answers quietly, shaking his head. “I am always in the line of fire.” It is worth it, to protect Charles’ endeavors—to keep their plan alive until the very end, even if it falls on deaf ears in a council that’s entrenched in Christian Horner’s pocket. Charles has to know that—that Pierre is committed to this cause of theirs, that he’s committed to doing anything Charles needs him to. He offers his friend a smile, small and probably not as comforting as he’d intended, but the worried expression on Charles’ face is too much for him to bear.

Pierre committed to him when they were small, promised on a blood oath that he would fight by Charles’ side until his dying breath. This is no exception, even if his blood won’t be spilled directly in the process.

Charles returns his faint smile. (At least Horner’s spiteful words seem to have rolled off his back.) Pierre watches as it spreads slowly across his face, still quiet and disbelieving but also, at least here, knowing. He does know Pierre better than anyone, after all.

“Pierre,” Charles says quietly, shakes his head once. The smile catches the lamplight of the dining room as he pushes his chair out from the table.

“People can say what they like about you,” Pierre says softly, turning to fully face his closest friend. Charles’ eyes are fixed on him, smile still glittering in the low light of the room. “But you are a good man. More people should say that.” And then, unthinkingly, he continues. “Someone should be willing to defend that.” The words feel heavy on his tongue as he says them—like they’re weighed down with something else, with something that Pierre doesn’t know how to say or feel or even understand. But it’s the truth—it’s the truth because that is what Charles makes him, an honest man. His whole life, Charles has kept him that way.

Charles, who has now stood from his seat and is walking around the table and towards him. His expression is unreadable, although Pierre should be at least relieved he no longer looks worried at the consequences of Pierre’s outburst. The world will go on after this, he thinks, trying to force the guilt from his chest. Horner may lash out at first, but he will eventually see reason. Wolff is the one who makes a majority of the decisions on this front, anyway; Pierre knows he will be able to speak with him later and explain his own behavior and the intentions behind the dinner without fear of being misunderstood. Torger is a man of passion. He will understand.

Pierre exhales, blinks, and suddenly Charles is standing before him. He’s still smiling. “Pierre,” he repeats, reaching out to rest a hand on Pierre’s shoulder. He’s warm—it bleeds through the fabric of Pierre’s uniform and settles over his skin, something that is so typically Charles and yet sends a shiver of something inexplicable up his spine nevertheless.

And then Charles moves even closer, hand still pressed into Pierre’s shoulder, eyes searching Pierre’s face, a quiet urgency behind them even though Pierre can’t imagine—this is—

“Pierre.” Charles’ eyes keep moving to his lips and back up to meet his gaze. Over and over, and Pierre is suddenly breathless because Charles sinks in to close the final remaining space between them and Pierre lets him.

During the most tumultuous evening of Pierre’s naval career, Charles kisses him full on the mouth, cautious but unapologetic, and Pierre lets him. Arms still at his sides, he allows Charles to kiss him for a beat and then realizes, belatedly, that he—he wants to kiss Charles back.

So he does.

He’s careful, too, of course; he’s slow to slide his hands up Charles’ sides and let them settle on his back, a place so familiar to him and yet so impossibly different in the here and now. He’s kissing Charles. His closest friend, another man, an officer of the navy who has a wife at home that Pierre cherishes his relationship with. Pierre has a wife—or a woman that will be his wife, anyway, not that he’s ever been one to indulge in that fantasy. But this feels…right, somehow. Charles fits so perfectly against him. Charles kisses him and has found a way to speak through it.

Thank you, he seems to say, for defending me. Tongue gliding over his bottom lip, unoccupied hand now settled delicately at Pierre’s cheek, Charles continues to kiss him like this is something they can do. Like this is something they can have.

Like this is something they can come back from.

“Pierre,” Charles whispers when he pulls away, voice barely audible even though he’s not even a hairsbreadth away.

Finally, finally, Pierre’s voice seems to return to him. “Charles,” he answers, allowing his hand to come up and cradle his friend’s cheek as if a mirror. “Charles. I—” and then he stops, because. What can he say? What could he possibly say, after this? Pierre has promised his life to Charles. However he needs him, Pierre will be there.

When he moves forward to initiate the next kiss, just as careful and hesitant as the first, Pierre realizes that this, too, is his. Whatever has just shifted between them—it is Charles’, entirely and without hesitation.

#10 x 16 #fic #bs au #not tagging bc literally nobody asked for this! unfortunately i am unhinged and unwell enough to put more words into this