Work Text:
& there was something about you that now i can’t remember
it’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender
The sound of bare feet on hardwood floors, thunderous down the long hallways of Chavaniac. Carefree laughter, floating through the creaky old building alongside the warmth of the furnace. Outside, Auvergne receives the first of what will be weeks of snowfall—but if one were to ask the two boys bolting through the home, wearing their knitted Christmas sweaters and woolen socks, there is no chill to be felt. They’re warmed by life, and by love.
The two of them take the stairs three at a time, Segur sliding down the last half dozen or so on the banister just as mémé passes by with freshly baked goods. She reaches up just in time to clip his ear as both boys dart past her, a grumbling chastising on her lips, but it doesn’t slow their momentum in the slightest.
“Hurry, we’re going to miss it!” Segur exclaims, pulling on his boots by the front door—the back of one shoe folded beneath his heel, the other completely unlaced. Lafayette is no better off, his laces pulled up in mismatching knots. He’s been unfairly distracted by watching sandy red hair flop into emerald eyes as Segur leant down to tie his other shoe. Segur is incandescent like this—flushed and overeager, fraying at the edges with excitement and bubbling full of life.
But there’s no time to remind Segur of how beautiful he is because they’re darting out the backdoor just then. The older boy reaches back for his hand, the way he always does, and Lafayette grabs onto him. Holds fast as he’s pulled through the gardens, through the carefully trimmed hedges and the perfectly maintained rose bushes. Past the camellias and over the dogwood, until the towering apple trees don’t impede their view of the purpling evening sky.
They make it to the edge of the garden just as the first fireworks burst over the horizon, an explosion of dazzling reds and golden yellows. Breathing hard, Lafayette turns to look at his boyfriend. Both of his cheeks are flush, his freckles bright pinpricks of burnt sienna against strawberry red cheeks. Some strands of his hair curl into waves on the sweat of his forehead, and his green eyes are iridescent beneath the light show in the sky. Lafayette’s heart thrums so hard, he can feel it pounding against his ribcage.
Despite the snowflakes falling around them, seeping through their sweaters down to their underclothes, Lafayette believes nothing could make him feel warmer than looking at Louis Philippe de Segur.
“Look, Gil,” breathes the boy, finally meeting his gaze. “I told you, I’d get you something special.”
It’s their second anniversary. The anniversary of their first kiss, the first they’ve been allowed to celebrate in the comfort of Chavaniac. The first time Segur has been allowed to board for the winter at the Lafayette family chateau, and the first time they’ve been in France just in time for the Armistice Day fireworks.
“Fireworks? Just for me?” Lafayette laughs, tossing his arms over his boyfriend’s shoulders. He beams up at him, eyes sparkling with joy. “Oh, Segur. You shouldn’t have.”
Segur swoops down to kiss him then, grinning all the while. He tastes of honey lip balm. Lafayette has never felt so happy in his life.
and i miss you on a train, i miss you in the morning
He finds himself on a train to the airport, so early the sun is still slumbering beneath the horizon. Gilbert had scrounged together enough meager clothes and toiletries to last him a handful of days; abandoned all of his childhood possessions back at the Chateau de Chavaniac, fled with only a backpack full of things, his head full of dreams and heart seized by wanderlust. He’d absconded from his responsibility to his mother, the comfort of his grandmother, from all the childlike laughter that haunted those old castle walls.
For the last time in his life, he blends into the throngs of people boarding around him—a nothing, nobody teenager in a sea full of unremarkable faces. His new boyfriend has promised to make him a star, and he clings to that wishful thinking. Desperate to memorialize his name in the history books as something other than a killer.
He thinks back to Adrienne on the platform of the train station, tears welling in her dark blue eyes and the chipped nail polish on her fingers glinting beneath the bright manufactured lights. She’d thought him insane; running off to be with some man ten years his senior, abandoning the safe little flat his grandmother had rented for him in Lyon. Leaving behind a life of certainty, of comfort and luxury, to chase his dreams in the promised land.
“You barely know this man, and now you’re certain about moving to a whole new country with him? Where they speak a language you don’t even know?” she’d tried for the last time, as though they hadn’t had this conversation a thousand times over. Heartbreak written in every tired line of her face, chilly hands clutched around his desperately.
“He’s going to make me a star, Adri. He promised. And when I have my own money and my own career, I can come back for you.”
But they’d both known they were empty promises. He’d seen her boyfriend lingering in the background, a cigarette perched between his lips as he’d watched them both with a steely gaze. Adrienne had flitted a glance over her shoulder at him, and Lafayette had known then that there would be no coming back for her. The only way that man would release her is if he was in prison or she was dead.
“If this is about Segur, he wouldn’t want—”
That had stung, even sharper than the bite of cold autumn wind against his face. He’d cut her off at the pass, shaking his head desperately. The mere utterance of that name, right at the beginning of fall and on the anniversary he holds close to his heart, is enough to make him tremble. Instead, he’d squeezed her hands and brought pale, cold knuckles to his lips.
“This isn’t about him. And you can come with me, you know? You can work for my team. You don’t have to stay here,” he’d insisted, his own words falling on equally deaf ears. Adrienne had shaken her head, taken a step away from him. She knew better. Her new fiancé now had enough money and time to chase her to the ends of the Earth. The two of them would never be truly safe again.
Adrienne loves him too much to saddle him with a lifetime of running. And Lafayette loves her too much to worry her with the knowledge that’s what he’s doing, anyways.
“You’ll call. And you’ll text. And you’ll visit,” she’d said, tears rolling over her cherubic round cheeks. Less question, more demand; less inquiry and more desperate self-reassurance. He’d nodded his head, unable to speak over the sound of the announcements. His train was arriving.
In the present, Lafayette feels his phone buzzing in his lap. The train would take him from Lyon to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, where Voltaire and his new team would be waiting for him. Where his life would start over in America, away from the mistakes of his childhood and the ghosts of Segur’s love in Chavaniac.
A message from Voltaire illuminates his screen; he’s confirming that their private plane is waiting in the hangar, and their departure from his homeland to the land of the free would begin the second Lafayette arrives.
It isn’t until Lafayette looks out of the window that he notices the explosion of yellows, reds and blues in the morning sky. They’re further in the distance, coming from the southwest—the direction of Chavaniac. Starting exceedingly early this year, an uncommon occurrence for the holiday.
A sign, he tells himself. A sign from Segur that leaving her, leaving home, leaving him behind was worth it.
His fingers twist the necklace under his shirt. The last birthday gift that Segur never got the chance to give him; the one that Adrienne had given to him instead.
You got me something special, Segur. Just like you always have.
i never know what to think about, i think about you
Ever since they’d acquired a third addition, Lafayette had been longing for an excuse to visit his old stomping grounds with his new little family. However, it had taken nearly a year for the couple to make their plans come to fruition. Too much hurt and heartbreak lived within the borders of his native country; there were memories he’d been running from that seized him at the sight of those familiar palatial walls or the still-upkept pond meters away from the driveway. Suffering and regret had hunted him so voraciously, Gilbert had neglected the desire to show his son his future inheritance in favor of forgetting all of those he’d loved and lost within his beloved childhood home.
It didn’t help that he and his husband had their own wars to fight back home; somehow managing against odds to stick together while everything tried its damndest to rend them apart.
Despite the trials and the heartbreak, Lafayette eventually finds himself in the Chavaniac gardens. Ten years older than that little boy that watched fireworks with his whole life ahead of him, but fantastically, just as happy as he’d been that day.
There is the sound of tiny feet on hardwood floors in the distance, the thunderous laughter of the man he loves trickling outside through the open back door. Eager little legs navigate through the hedges and the rose bushes. A broad-shouldered man hurrying around the camellias and over the dogwood, father and son bursting through the clearing past the tall apple trees. Gilbert looks over his shoulder to watch them as they approach, his heart swelling with affection.
“Hey, gorgeous!” laughs George, barely heard over a squealing Georges. The man lifts his son high over his head, much to his delight, and settles Georges’ on his shoulders. Little hands steady themselves in the man’s hair, as they close the space that separates them from Lafayette.
On the horizon of the sunset, the first fireworks explode far enough in the distance to not make a sound. He gives his husband a smile and tips his chin in the direction of the fireworks. “Armistice Day fireworks.”
“Yeah?” George hums. It’s likely the first time the man has been able to enjoy fireworks without headphones in a long time, and he seems to be soaking in the visuals. “They’re nice. You see the fireworks, kiddo?”
“Uh-huh,” Georges responds, leaning over his fathers head to get a closer look. “Very pretty, Papa.”
“Yes, my little love. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”