Written as a treat for Yuletide 2022.
Rating: Teen
Laurence/Napolen
Tags & warnings: AU, What If, captivity, seduction, sharing clothes
Laurence woke with a start, and for a long moment did not recognize his surroundings. The cabin was filled with light, but it was not his, and his berth was startlingly unmoving; no hammock at all.
He sat up, and met Napoleon’s eyes. The emperor was sat again at the table, over papers and maps, and some unrepentant air about him declared as well as if he’d said so that he had been watching Laurence as he slept.
“Ah, you are awake.” His eyes again roamed Laurence, up and down, with an appreciation that made Laurence’s cheeks heat. “You look much better.”
If Napoleon had been on the French dragon transport in Crucible of Gold.
***
“We surrender,” Laurence said, to the collected French forces arrayed before him. Their captain stood at their front. At his side…
“Your majesty.” He bowed; then nearly lost his balance as he straightened. Three days of snatching sleep on the wing were beginning to tell.
Napoleon caught his elbow before he went staggering in front of the assembled officers. “Captain Laurence. You do come into my life in the most unlikely ways.”
Behind him, French officers chivvied British sailors about, imposing order on the chaos of exhausted, demoralized and disoriented refugees swarming their deck. Exhaustion made Laurence’s hands clumsy as he withdrew his weapons from his belt to surrender them to the ship’s captain. When his sword was handed back to him, the thought of returning it to his belt felt disastrous; Laurence let his hand fall to his side, carrying it. The world swayed faintly, contrary to the motion of the ship.
“You are dead on your feet,” Napoleon exclaimed, and slipped a hand again beneath his arm, this time gripping tight as though he did not mean to let go. “How in the world did you come to be here, of all places?”
He had to raise his voice to be heard over the clamour of men protesting, grumbling, calling questions and directions across the decks. Laurence offered no resistance as he was drawn to the side, in a slightly quieter eddy near one of the French dragons. The British officers had managed to struggle to the front of the mass, looking as unsteady as Laurence felt. The hands were being separated into groups, the first of whom were being herded away below-decks. Spotting Laurence, Granby made his way in their direction.
“We were shipwrecked. The dragons have carried us for three days without rest.”
“On the wing for three days!” Napoleon’s grip tightened. The support was welcome. “I must be glad that you found us, then, Captain. I would have been devastated to lose you in so senseless a fashion.”
A great clamour erupted as a small knit of men found the energy to resist being herded. The noise washed Napoleon’s next words away. He paused for a moment, waiting for the excitement to die down, and then began to draw Laurence away. “Come with me.”
“Where are you taking him, sir?” Hammond had, unnoticed, bulled his way forward through the turmoil. Credit to him for courage, if not courtesy, Laurence thought muzzily, taking such a tone with Bonaparte.
Napoleon disregarded the rudeness, and neither did he pause. “To my cabin. This is no fit place for conversation,” he said to Laurence, rather ignoring Hammond, “and your men will be some time getting settled. You are in no condition to wait here.”
Conversation, he said. Interrogation, Laurence rather thought he meant. And if he was in no state to wait, neither was he in any state to resist.
Granby, though, caught his eye, ready to fight despite being as bedraggled and sleep deprived as Laurence himself. “Laurence…?”
Temeraire lay sleeping, more nearly unconscious, behind Laurence, defenseless; along with Iskierka and Kulingile, as well as their officers and two hundred men who, regardless of the quality of Laurence’s regard for them, had no other recourse. Napoleon had to know that almost anything he wanted from Laurence, in these conditions, he could have for the asking.
Laurence shook his head at him. “I will be well, John. You see to things here.” If one of them must go, best it were Laurence; Napoleon’s affection for him might serve some defense, if it were needed.
The emperor’s quarters were, of course, at the stern. Laurence’s mind went blank with the effort of walking the length of the transport. Simply to keep his feet clear of ropes and barrels seemed to demand all his resources. Only Napoleon’s support kept him upright the entire way.
The cabin was sumptuously spacious. Laurence marked the desk and throne-like chair before the windows; to one side of the door a sitting area and to the other, a round, solid oaken table mostly covered with ledgers, books and maps of South America, with four low-backed chairs. Into one of these Laurence was deposited. Napoleon sat across from him, and offhandedly flipped a few of the books and ledgers closed and stacked them out of the way. Nearly before he was seated, Napoleon’s valet had mugs of coffee set in front of them both.
Laurence cradled it between his palms, the warmth of it a lifeline. A sip of the thick, biting brew seemed to jolt him from a waking trance.
Napoleon leaned forward, chin resting on his hand. “So, Captain. More detail, if you please, on how you came to be here.”
“We sailed from Australia on the Allegiance.” Each word was a separate effort demanding his focus, as he sought to marshal his thoughts into coherent form without giving away more information than he ought. “We were shipwrecked somewhere in the 60s after a five-day storm. In truth, it was not the storm that wrecked us.” The bitterness of it sat sharper in his mouth than the coffee. He drank deep, as he struggled with his own wrath toward men who were at his mercy. “Many of the hands we landed here with were pressed, and unseasoned, and after the storm when the officers were exhausted, they ran riot, celebrating. The ship…” He bit his tongue, hearing the anger grate in his own voice. “Someone must have been reckless near the powder stores.
“The dragons saved whomsoever they found, and then flew as far as they might. We were in the air three days. They had reached the very end of their strength when we came upon you.”
Napoleon’s eyes roamed him, and did not miss the way those last terrible moments clung to him: Temeraire’s trembling beneath him, struggling at his utmost to rally, yet unable; the horror of knowing beyond hope that he would watch the dragon drown, only to follow him shortly after. He was beyond summoning energy to lift the note of pathetic gratitude from his voice as he said, “You have saved my life, sir, and Temeraire’s; and all the men and dragons under my command. If you still insist that you are in my debt, I hope you must consider it at last fully discharged.”
Napoleon had sat still as if entranced while Laurence spoke. Now he roused, with an imperious wave of one hand to brush the notion aside. “Do you truly think that equivalent? I know very well how much you sacrificed, to bring me the cure: everything, Captain; career, prospects, society, freedom, your very life. All I have done is refrain from disputing your landing.”
He paused; then reached across the table to gently pull the mug from Laurence’s hand. With a start, Laurence realized he had been about to nod sideways right out of his chair, and take the coffee with him.
He rallied himself into a semblance of order. “I apologize, your majesty. I…”
Napoleon gestured to his valet, who leaned down next to him, nodded to a murmured question, and left through an interior door.
Napoleon pushed his chair back and moved to stand beside Laurence. He held a hand out. “You are flat on your back. We can continue this tomorrow; you shall sleep here tonight.”
“I…what? No, I couldn’t possibly.” The proposition was outrageous; an intrusion too presumptuous to be allowed. “My men. Granby and the others will expect me. Temeraire—”
“They are tended to. I shall send a messenger to your officers with word.” Laurence found himself lifted out of his chair and steered to the velvet-upholstered sofa on the other side of the room, which, to his consternation, at some point in the course of their discussion had been made up with bedding all unnoticed by him. The valet returned, carrying a stack of folded linens which he passed to Laurence: a fresh shirt and loose breeches, plain but of the finest linen. A change of Napoleon’s clothing, he realized, appalled.
“Your majesty, this is too…”
“Hush.” Laurence found himself falling silent in automatic obedience. The word had almost affectionate humour, but the tone of command was real. “If Temeraire flew without pause for three days, will you tell me you had any more rest than he?” Laurence could not; Napoleon saw it, and nodded with satisfaction. “Lacroix, assist him, if you please.”
He could not summon the coordination to ward off the valet with any politesse; nor, if he were honest, the will to resist a fresh change of clothes and a soft place to sleep.
Napoleon pushed him down by the shoulders to sit; later, he could not even remember laying down, or whether he had pulled the blankets over himself or if someone else had.
He woke with a start, and for a long moment did not recognize his surroundings. The cabin was filled with light, but it was not his, and his berth was startlingly unmoving; no hammock at all.
He sat up, and met Napoleon’s eyes. The emperor was sat again at the table, over papers and maps, and some unrepentant air about him declared as well as if he’d said so that he had been watching Laurence as he slept.
“Ah, you are awake.” His eyes again roamed Laurence, up and down, with an appreciation that made Laurence’s cheeks heat. “You look much better.”
“Temeraire?” Laurence swung his feet to the floor. A green silk banyan was spread at the foot of his sleeping pallet, clearly for his use. When he put it on, he was quite reminded of his time in China. He had been in over his head there, too.
Napoleon waved a hand. “He has yet to awaken; or any of the other dragons. Your men are dispositioned. The officers and Mr. Hammond share quarters below-decks. Your hands, I am afraid, must sleep in the brig, though I daresay they are grateful to be anyplace other than dragonback, after the time you’ve all had.”
He pointed out the necessary, and the washstand. “Make free of my razor, if you like.”
Laurence took that as perhaps a hint. Washing the crust of salt off his face was nearly transportingly refreshing. The ewer was chased silver, of such delicate intricacy that it looked like lacework. The blade was simple but good quality and sharp. Laurence was not disturbed while he shaved, but when he glanced up at the mirror, Napoleon was watching him.
Finished, face clean and smooth, he felt more put together when Napoleon demanded with a gesture that Laurence join him at the table. Though only a little: Napoleon was fully dressed, which made Laurence only that much more conscious as he padded over of how entirely in this man’s hands he was now held. That he wore nothing but nightclothes, another man’s clothing brushing soft and supple against his bare skin, and that he had just slept, defenseless under his enemy’s very eyes, for a time he couldn’t be certain of. Judging by the light through the great stern windows, most of the morning had gone.
More unsettling, the knowing composure in Napoleon’s aspect said he knew it just as well, and found it entirely satisfying.
The scents wafting from the waiting dishes, however, sidetracked that line of thought. While Laurence shaved, Lacroix had swept through to set down two steaming mugs, and a plate laden with hotcakes and eggs, which after the last three days smelled like God’s own blessings from Heaven.
“I have already breakfasted,” Napoleon said to his look, and took up his mug with a complacent air.
After allowing Laurence a few moments to begin on his meal, he disturbed the silence. “The last I had heard, you were stripped of your commission. My intelligence was not inaccurate, was it?”
Laurence sighed and finished his bite of egg. “You know it was not. It was restored, to undertake the mission we set sail on.”
“To Brazil?”
“Yes.” Pretending otherwise would be senseless; where else could they have been going?
It raised the question: where were they going now? He held his tongue; no answer would be forthcoming, and it would ill suit his role as a prisoner to ask.
Napoleon rapped his fingertips twice upon the table. “How astonishing! Sending you two to deal with the Tswana. That is quite the best decision those mannequins in your Ministry could have made. I would never have guessed it of them. And you: what has passed with you since we parted in Paris?”
Laurence would have said there was little enough to recount. Napoleon demonstrated that he knew much of the tale already, and showed away on his informed state with a little smile; Laurence was not required to tell more than half of it himself. He was able, even, to name most of the ships Laurence had been held on after his conviction. To understand that Napoleon had invested consequential time and resources into surveillance of him was eerie.
He brought Laurence up, however, at his recounting of the battle for London. “Ha, so you and Temeraire were responsible for that narrow escape! The two of you are surely the single greatest obstacle to all my ends. And then your forces retreated to Scotland, except for you and that band of yours who deviled me in the North all winter long.” His eyes fixed on Laurence and held him in place when he would have looked away. He felt his cheeks flush with shame. “It was quite unlike you. I was both appalled and impressed.” He sat back, amused and sly. “Did Wellesley put you up to it?”
Disgust twisted at Laurence’s mouth. “I shall not set responsibility for my own decisions upon another’s shoulders. I commanded in that operation. None other could have forced upon me the decisions I made; and the regret and shame of them are mine to bear.”
Napoleon shook his head with a smile. “That is not ‘no.’”
Laurence, dismayed, kept his lips pressed together. To deny it would be a lie; Napoleon could read his silence clearly, but he had no other recourse.
Napoleon laughed quietly, knowing it as futile as Laurence did.
For a moment, the quiet ruled, and Laurence believed Napoleon meant to let him stew in his own juices. Instead, he leaned across the table and caught Laurence’s jaw in his hand, holding him in place to meet a look of lacerating acuity.
“You alone can negotiate your own conscience.” Napoleon’s voice was soft. “But you know that without your actions there, I would certainly have secured my hold over the island and completed my conquest?”
The words, that relentless attention, struck deep. Thrown into himself, he hung for a twisting, awful moment back in the choking constraint of those days.
“I am not of the camp which believes that the ends justify the means, sir,” he replied quietly, when he could find words again. In the close air between them, he heard the waver at the edges of his own voice.
Whether they could have accomplished their goal that terrible winter without such cruel methods, he had never answered for himself; nor whether, if it could not have been achieved, Britain’s fall might not have been the just and proper outcome.
He set the question aside, as he had so many times before, and pushed his plate away, appetite dampened despite all.
Napoleon let go of him to push it back, then flicked a finger at it. “Eat.” It was an unmistakable command.
Laurence dropped his eyes and obeyed.
Napoleon watched him with satisfaction. “And afterwards,” he said, mercifully jumping forward in the conversation, “in thanks for all your efforts and sacrifice, they transported you both.” He snorted. “How merciful. Truly, Laurence, those men do not deserve the loyalty of a man of your calibre.”
“Your majesty.” It was all Laurence could say; acknowledgement and admonition both.
He breathed out, body and mind ringing still with what had just been done to him: hurled effortlessly into his own least-desired recesses and then summoned back out again, with nothing but a brush of thumb against the corner of his lips. The shock of that lightest, most cataclysmic contact still rang like a bell through his body.
Oh, he was in more danger than he had imagined. He knew himself seduced; and in no common way. Napoleon had wanted the two of them, Temeraire and himself, since their first meeting. It was not merely a desire of the body; he coveted their will, their devotion.
He saw now that Napoleon had planned this last night when he had led him here; and that he himself had known, but had been too spent to resist being so maneuvered. With Temeraire and their friends effective hostages if Napoleon wished it so, and no possible escape from this ship forthcoming for weeks, most likely, how much resistance would he be allowed?
In the tranquility with which Napoleon met his eyes, he read acknowledgement. They understood one another, he very much feared.
But for now, Napoleon permitted his retreat; Laurence only wished it had less of the sense of one of his tactical feints. “I have heard much about Sydney. Was it as unfortunate as stories have it?”
“To say it failed in discipline,” Laurence replied dryly, “would imply that an attempt at discipline had been made.”
From his court martial onward, Napoleon’s intelligence failed him; though he was courteous but relentless, he brooked no obfuscation. Laurence found himself quickly on his back foot in their verbal sparring, despite all his efforts. His every response was mined for further information, and interrogated till he was dismayed to realize he had surrendered more detail of Australia than he had ever intended.
Nor did he restrict himself to the facts of the matter. “Was it unsettling for you,” he asked, reading Laurence knew not what on his face, or in his words, “to find yourself so restrained? At liberty, but only to the extent decreed by your gaolers, and only for their purposes.”
Taken aback, Laurence matched gazes with him. Unsettled? He had been furious, and sick at heart, when he had understood the sort of instrument that had been made of them. The sort of weapon. When he had understood they might have their place back for the asking, so long as they agreed meekly to be used as suited the Ministry, who saw Laurence only as a fallen man, whose ruined honour they need not conserve; and Temeraire as nothing but an unruly beast.
Unsettled equally by Napoleon’s uncanny precision in reading him.
“You have studied me, sir,” he said after a long moment.
“Believe me when I promise you, I would not use you thus.” The words were soft and intense. They settled on the back of Laurence’s tongue like smoke.
Interrogation and seduction both. If there had been anywhere to go, he might have got up at that moment and fled. He was ensnared, swathed in what he saw now, in the light of morning, were carefully planned layers of captivity. Ensconced in his captor’s private rooms, held captive not only by the confines of the ship’s boundaries, or hostages, but by the very bedclothes he wore. He would not leave this cabin until Napoleon chose to return his clothing to him.
Despite the luxurious sweep of the cabin, there was nowhere he might go in this space where Napoleon was not touching him. There was, he realized with cold acceptance, nowhere he might go on this ship where he might be out from under Napoleon’s hand.
He felt himself, knew himself on display for the man’s enjoyment. His regard lay more heavily caressing against Laurence’s skin than the soft materials of his clothing.
Napoleon made no effort to hide it. He regarded Laurence with unconcealed sensual pleasure, feasting on his state of disarray almost as much as he took pleasure in their courteous but relentless verbal sparring. His eyes were never brighter than when unearthing Laurence’s own close-held thoughts.
There was something mesmerizing about being the recipient of Napoleon’s absolute, undivided attention. The full force of that famous character upon him alone, he felt like prey held under the sinuous regard of a snake; beautiful and deadly, and waiting to devour him should he make a move that implied his deliciousness.
He wondered uneasily if Napoleon would prove willing to use the power he held here; or what his own response would be if he did.
“This port sounds lovely. You seem torn regarding it.”
“They were tremendously hospitable. But they are forced to play along with this fiction of my being a prince.”
“Have you considered it is not a fiction to them? No more than if you had been entitled by your own king. I made Lien Princess of Aquitaine, and no matter she is not French.”
“I do not know their culture or customs or politics. Nor do I answer to the emperor in terms of my duty and loyalty. It would be deceitful.”
“But you do, through Temeraire. It’s much as if you had married into a noble Chinese family.”
Laurence stared at him in something like horror.
“It must be difficult to be outcast and disgraced by your chosen home while welcomed with reverence and open arms by those you would not choose.”
“I have done nothing to be worthy of it. I never acted for your benefit, or China’s.”
“Of course not. But should we fail to recognize the honor of a sacrifice because we were not the intended beneficiaries?” With a wave of his hand, he cut off Laurence’s protest aborning. “You cannot fail to feel it as a betrayal of your oaths: I understand that. And so you hate any intimation of reward for it. But I assure you, I do not take your honor lightly. I saw you that day, I will remind you. I know what your decision cost you.”
He shook his head at Laurence. “Any soldier might die for his cause, Laurence. But name me another man who would make the sacrifice you did. You cast the entirety of your life on the altar of a higher good; you made a burnt offering of your very honor. If those fools in Westminster knew you as I do, they would understand that leaving you alive is the cruelest sentence they could levy on you.”
In the nearly two years since he had committed treason, Laurence had spent little time in consideration of the implications; had, in point of fact, avoided doing so. He had done what was necessary, but it had been a crime, and a violation of his own oaths; therefore, he had faced the equally necessary consequences. There, he had left it.
“I see the shadow of it in your eyes still,” Napoleon said softly, “like a wound that has not yet healed. Do you think it ever will?” He touched the side of Laurence’s face, thumb brushing delicately against the corner of his eye. His voice was frighteningly tender; it sent butterflies though Laurence’s stomach.
His touches were as blatant as they were delicate. Laurence was so thrown by the implication that he spoke without meaning to. “I…” Caught by his own courtesy. He meant to say nothing. But now that he had, Napoleon waited him out. “I feel as though the man I was died that day; and since then someone else was born to stand in his place, though I hardly know myself some days, it seems.”
Napoleon nodded solemnly.
When he released Laurence from his attention, Laurence felt it as a grip lifted from him. Napoleon reached out to set his mug in amongst the empty dishes of Laurence’s meal, then slid his chair back and stood.
He placed each of his hands carefully flat on the worn wood of the table, and then met Laurence’s eye again. “I would not insult your intelligence nor waste my own time,” he said quietly, “by pretending at what I intend here with you.”
Was it a relief, to have the facade dropped? Or did it only coil the anxiety tighter in Laurence’s belly? But yes, then. Let them be honest. Laurence stood to meet him squarely. “What did I bind myself to, when I agreed to this?”
Napoleon reached out across the table to brush his fingertips along Laurence’s jaw once more. “I would not force you,” he said after a drawn, loaded moment.
“So,” Laurence breathed. As an answer, that was straightforward enough. “But you have every advantage over me, your majesty. Temeraire and my allies are your prisoners, as am I.”
“Do you think I would use them against you?”
There was no offense, in his face or voice: only curiosity; but Laurence felt keenly how carefully he must tread. Napoleon cultivated both ruthlessness and honesty, but he was a gentleman still; and Laurence had seen the cold blade of his roused temper in motion, and had no desire to bring it down on his friends. “I think that you want Temeraire as a political matter, and that where France is concerned, you see your honour in a different light.”
Napoleon’s dark eyes glittered at him. He did not answer. Instead he walked to the back of the cabin, to knock on the closed door between them and his berth.
In only a moment, it opened to Lacroix, who did not so much bustle as cut cleanly through the space to the table, where Laurence stood aside as he cleared the dishes in efficient movements, vanished with them, and then re-emerged carrying a folded set of clothes, which he placed on the couch where Laurence had slept.
He signaled his withdrawal with a bow to his master, and closed the door behind him.
Ships did not have privacy. And landsmen were not like sailors. Laurence’s face burned, wondering how perfect was the discretion of Napoleon’s man.
“Get dressed,” Napoleon commanded. “And then we shall visit your men. I suppose you will wish to ascertain their condition for yourself.”
Laurence had little enough modesty before soldiers or sailors, but getting dressed before an emperor felt like something else again. Napoleon, though, did not turn away. Indeed, when Laurence surrendered to his situation and began to change, he came closer.
“You think it is only Temeraire I want?” The words were a murmur from an intimate distance, as he… Laurence choked. The emperor of France took hold of his cravat to tighten the knot and tug his collar straight. “You underestimate yourself, my dear. They are afraid of you, in Britain. You change the world, wherever you turn. They would prefer familiar miseries over the unknowns of a better future.”
Laurence’s tongue felt cleaved to the roof of his mouth.
“But I am not afraid of you. You are not a weapon to me, William. I would not ask you to fight for me. What I want is your vision. The devotion to your cause that lets you break a prince with a word and shatter his empire.” His fingers whisked across Laurence’s epaulets, and then slipped under his collar, sliding from behind his neck down his throat and chest to ensure they laid flat and smooth. His mouth was inches at most from Laurence’s jaw, breath fanning his cheek when he murmured, “I intend to have that vision before you disembark from this ship.”
When he stepped away, it was not a relief, or a release. He opened the door of the cabin and gestured Laurence to it, and stepping through felt only like stepping into a tighter trap than the one he had just left.
The emperor’s voice was crisp and untroubled from behind him when he said, “Now, let us see to your men.”