I.
Chauvelin had outstripped the Committee's authorizations. He knew what a madman he must look: wild-eyed, disheveled, and demanding that every boat be impounded to search for Englishmen. The Granvillais mayor had begun nodding, though, murmuring ever fainter protestations.
And then the door swung open on a nightmare in pressed black garments and an immaculate cravat. Without a sideways glance, Blakeney laid out the papers proving his orders and authority as Agent Chauvelin.
The mayor raised his hands for peace. He was no Solomon; he might ruin himself closing the port. "Under the circumstances, Citizen, I fear I have no choice."
II.
The Scarlet Pimpernel sprawled at ease, hat over his face. Chauvelin, still pacing, kicked the bed to stop his snoring.
"Temper," Percy scolded - muffled, not drowsy.
"Temper," Chauvelin snarled. The week had not improved his, and he hated amusing Blakeney. "You Englishmen have ice-water for blood."
"Tch, Sir Percy." Percy tipped the hat back, lips curling up faintly. "We're alone, you can drop the act. It's training to spin disgust into amity, vexation to amusement."
"Hate to love will be next," Chauvelin exploded. "Do you listen to your own nonsense?"
Percy laughed, long and loud. "No, Chauvelin, not love."
III.
"Guard!" Chauvelin wheeled towards the door, clenched fists. The door - the ever-locked door - had been taking the brunt of Chauvelin's temper, and bearing up well. Commendable, in Percy's opinion, and better than letting him loose on the National Guard.
"Of course, out of consideration for your scruples, I hadn't dreamed of saying anything." He remembered the game again, suddenly. "Sir Percy."
"Enough, Blakeney," Chauvelin grated out, addressing the door.
The Pimpernel's lazy smile grew tight as he scented blood; pulled himself upright, strolled over to lean on the back of a chair. "Percy, I - I do apologize. I don t know what to say - the strain of these last few days - knowing how soon you ll be climbing the stairs to La Guillotine. I couldn't remain silent." With a valiant effort, he kept the smirk out of his voice.
Chauvelin found he could be silent, and was. Percy drummed his fingers on the upholstery, and got bored. "Have you got the wood-grain memorized yet, Shovelin?" died on his lips when the Frenchman turned around. Chauvelin's usual barely restrained frustration and loathing had condensed into grim calm. Percy wondered a second if he d gone mad, before Chauvelin lunged at him and proved definitively so.
"I - have had - enough of this, Blakeney," he said - as close to a scream as one could get, without raising his voice, ripping at Percy s cravat, half-strangling him before Percy shoved him back.
Cold satisfaction gleamed in Chauvelin's eyes, not abating the fury that seemed out of his hands. He pulled the chair easily out of Blakeney's light grip, shoving it aside, and found he liked very much the Scarlet Pimpernel confused and alarmed.
Percy began some inane protest, and Chauvelin stopped it with his own mouth. Nothing like a kiss, that, but his breath quickened all the same. "When the guillotine finally has you," he whispered, "it will be the greatest achievement of my life. I look forward to giving the news to Lady Blakeney."
Percy tried to hit him, hampered by the close quarters. Chauvelin fought past where he should have stopped, easily outmatched, overpowered, and pinned to the wall. Percy shook him, stern. "Chauvelin. Armand. Control yourself, man."
"No. No, damn you -" Chauvelin, eyes wide and dark, breath coming in gasps.
Percy felt moved not to pity, but to temptation. To push him over the edge, to see how far a man with no God, no King, no country could go. To break him. "You're such a damned wretched object," he murmured, shifting his grip minutely. "Be a good sport for once in your life."
He turned on Percy a look of complete and appalling hatred. "Sport. Is that what you English call this?"
"One of the things." Percy's mouth found Chauvelin's again - thinking the jest had gone much too far; thinking surely this would shock the Frenchman back to sense and the other side of the room, and save them both. It was not nearly a real kiss, with the tang of blood and fury.
It was enough to go on with; bruising kisses succeeded by more awkward grappling. The effort needed to get to the bed, or suggest it, would have appeared a retreat. The floor, then, and the minimal amount of derangement necessary. Chauvelin gasping - they might have been sobs - against Percy's shoulder; Percy similarly swallowing any outcry an instinctive English silence.
And when they fell apart, at length, Chauvelin lay still shuddering, as though he finally had worked himself into that long-threatened nervous collapse. Percy wished he would collect himself, suddenly. He'd meant to pull the man apart but found the disorder unpleasant.
And Percy looked and felt, for once, in little better condition. Dear god in heaven, and with Chauvelin. He sat up, pulled himself together, and said aloud, quite calmly. "This - it s forgotten, of course." Or would be, very soon. He got to his feet, and reached the table. "Wine?"
Behind him, beneath him, Chauvelin began to laugh.