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Arno rises from the bed, careful not to stir the man sleeping beside him. He pulls on a shirt and breeches and moves to stand by the window, drawn in by the light of the sun. It’s an enveloping warmth that reaches beneath the skin, to his core. If feels curiously like peace and Arno leans against the wall, closing his eyes. These moments were few and far between and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. Unlike everything else in his life.
Nope. No, he wasn’t going to think about her , not today, not now. Though she did have the uncanny ability to show up in his thoughts when they were least warranted. A habit she seemingly shared in death as in life.
As if on cue, Napoleon stirs in the bed across the room and Arno opens his eyes.
Napoleon turns over onto his side and shifts to prop up his head with an elbow. When their gazes lock, his mouth is pulled into a lazy grin.
“My, look at you,” Napoleon says, whimsically. “All awash in golden light. If I didn’t know any better, I might think you were the incarnation of Apollo himself.”
Here was the recently appointed Commander of the Italian forces, leader of men, grinning at him while his hair stood at odds with itself, saying things that should only be said by obnoxious seventeen year old boys and not grown military generals.
Arno snorts. “If you were going to compare me to a god then you should have chosen Dionysus. At least he gets to have fun.”
Napoleon laughs, a sight and sound that sends a pleasant jolt through his body.
He glances out the window to hide his own smile.
An eagle, stark against the blue, soars through the sky, disappearing into the glare of the sun.
Arno wonders briefly what might have brought it so far from the countryside. Hunger? Or merely the desire to fly? Or perhaps he was only projecting.
When he turns back to Napoleon, he catches him leering. Arno has seen that look enough times to know that Napoleon wants something from him.
“What now?” he asks, inexplicably willing to entertain the answer.
A moment passes and then Napoleon stands from the bed to cross the distance between them. His hands come up to rest upon Arno’s shoulders and he leans in, smiling.
“Come with me to Italy. Fight for France!” Napoleon's eyes are gleaming and Arno finds it impossible to ignore how it makes his heart flutter around in his chest. “Think of what the two of us could achieve! We could be titans of the nation!” When Napoleon was like this, he was magnetic. Unbridled energy and passion that could transform the disposition of those around him. He could convince anyone of anything, he was sure. It was difficult not to get swept up by the fervor.
But to go to war, that was something else. Mobs of men charging at them. Cannons and guns and bayonets. Corpses left out to rot in the rain, or the sun. It was difficult to hide out in the shadows when there were none. Not that it was hard to get lost in a throng of thousands of soldiers. But if he were to stay by Napoleon’s side, he would be known. There was only so much that a hood could hide.
So he deflects. “I can’t imagine the army would take too kindly to that, what with the fact that I have absolutely no history of military service whatsoever.”
And of course Napoleon was quick to parry. “Mere technicalities,” he says, brushing away the idea like a speck of dust. “I can have something easily arranged. Thus, you have no choice but to join me, Arno.”
Arno rolls his eyes, “Oh you think you’re so sly, don’t you?” But he has to turn away from him, still unsure. “I don’t-”
“Arno.” Napoleon slides a hand along the length of his jaw, guiding him back so that they’re facing each other again. “I will go to Italy with or without you.”
And that was the crux of things, wasn’t it?
He owed the nation nothing, but Napoleon... Napoleon he owed a great deal.
After Elise, he was adrift, unmoored in a sea of self-pity. He had never felt truly loyal to the Brotherhood, and without her, much of his work seemed, at times, meaningless.
Napoleon kept things interesting. Always up to something, always busying himself and others, keeping Arno occupied. He wasn’t sure if Napoleon had known that at the time, that that was what he had needed, but somewhere deep down he was grateful. Perhaps without him, Arno might have gone down an even darker path.
In reality, there was not much left for him in France, tethered there only by Napoleon and nothing else. And this damnable, frustrating man, this man to whom he owed so much, was charging off to Italy with a head full of steam and ambition and god knows what else.
What was there to stand in the way between Napoleon and the charging masses? He realizes the foolishness of the thought. Napoleon is a commander. Of legions, no less. He wouldn’t be alone. But none of those men could do what he could. In war, there were too many possibilities, too many variables.
He doesn’t even want to entertain the thought of what might happen if he’d lost the man.
Goddamn you, Napoleon Bonaparte.
He would not see Napoleon off to Italy while he waited in France twiddling his thumbs, drinking down disturbing thoughts, wondering if the man had the decency to come back alive.
It was decided.
“So what will it be, my friend?”
To step out of the shadows, to join him in the light.
“Alright then, General ,” he says slowly, delighting in the way that Napoleon leans even closer, expectant, “I’ll go. But I’m not going to wear the uniform. Or the hat. And I get to do what I want.”
Napoleon slips his fingers into Arno’s hair, cradles his head, and crushes their mouths together in a searing kiss. Arno’s hands go to Napoleon’s hips, pulling their bodies closer together. The desire to keep him here in this room, against him, suddenly surges.
He wants to bottle up this moment, keep it locked away and hidden from the relentless pull of time.
"For the record, I’m not doing this for France,” Arno says after they pull apart.
A languid smile graces Napoleon’s lips. “I know,” he murmurs. His fingers curl along the nape of Arno’s neck. “I promise you, Arno, that I will bring you the world.”
And Arno actually believes him.