Note: The characterization of Frollo here is more like the theatrical version, since there he's given a more developed, nuanced backstory. But he's apparently still a judge, like in the movie.
"I could still save you," he whispers, his eyes wide. Beneath the soft drape of his robe, there is an unmistakable edge to him, a taut desperation.
Esmeralda forces herself to breathe, to think. She was always bravest when she was angry, so she uses that, attacks her fear with it. She knew what he wanted, perhaps better than he himself did. There was an important opportunity here, and she had not survived this long on the streets by missing important opportunities.
"It's your choice," he continues. "Choose me, or the flames."
All her life, she had done her best to better the lives of the people she cared for. And she was good at what she did, but even the most heated stares of her audience never translated into much of actual use; she could never give more than a coin or a morsel or a comforting word. She never had the power to give more. But now – now, for the first time, she senses it, senses power just beyond her fingertips, if she is courageous enough to reach out and seize it.
She imagines the blood of her people staining her cowardly fingertips, and forcibly extinguishes the last of her fear. She raises her head to meet his eyes. Straightens her spine. Steels the arch of her neck.
"I choose you," she says, dispassionately. She does not miss the way the torch he carries sputters as his hands tremble. She cannot afford to miss anything, here, if she is to survive this. "But."
"But?" his brows tighten. His eyes are wild. She has him balanced precariously between elation and despair. If she is to see this through, she must not let him fall into rage.
"But I, too, have conditions," she smirks, flicking her tongue over her upper lip to remind him what he wants, to strengthen the craving that is her shield against his violence. Obediently, his eyes lock onto her mouth, and in doing so his gaze loses some of its hardness. "I am a woman who knows what she is worth, Claude." His breath stutters; she notices the arrhythmic movements of his chest. She, too, is having trouble breathing, but she does not let it show. Precarious, precarious. "I know when I am wanted, and I know when I am needed." She knows her eyes are wilder too, wild with the exhilaration of danger. She lets him see it. "You want me, Claude, yes. But more than that –" She steps forward, and only remembers that she is chained when the cold iron band digs into her wrist. She pays it no mind, her attention dominated by the heady confusion playing out on the face of the man before her. "You need me," she breathes, and brushes her lips against his.
He takes in a sharp gasp, surprised, but before he can think to move away she catches his lower lip between her teeth and sucks at it. He stays shocked and still, and for a terrifying moment she thinks she has tipped him over the wrong edge.
Then she runs her tongue over his mouth, and she can pinpoint the moment he surrenders.
His left hand, the hand not carrying the torch, slowly rises to touch her hair. But just before he can make contact, she pulls away. There is a little less madness in his face now, a little more agony.
Good.
"Chains," she says, her voice carrying with a strength that is more genuine than it was a few minutes before. He blinks, as though it is difficult to process the word, and then all at once he hurries to place the torch in holder, draw the keyring from his robes, and unlock her manacles. Freed, she squares her shoulders, and though he is still taller than she is, though he still stands between her and the cell door, she knows that she has begun to sink her fingers into that elusive, intoxicating thing called power.
"I know that you don't really want to take me, Claude." She steps toward him again. He is uncharacteristically silent; he had not prepared for this, could not have prepared for this, and everything about her inspires such bewilderment in him that before his hazy mind can fully comprehend one move, she has already started the next. "You want me to come to you. Willingly. Even eagerly." She laughs, a soft sound of wonderment. "Happily."
He is entranced by her smile. He has not seen her smile at him since the day of the festival, and even then, it was nothing like the bright, joyful thing he saw now. He feels more at ease than he has in a long time – for weeks on end he had tried to articulate exactly what it was Esmeralda made him feel, and his efforts had always been frustrated. He had not known what he really wanted from her; he had called it love, but that label was as meaningless as anonymity. It certainly didn't help that whenever he had thought about her, a part of him had screamed at him to stop.
Now, however, her words are finally sorting out the nameless tangle of passions that afflicts him. Her words restore some order. He lets them soothe his exhausted psyche.
She is so close to triumphing over this, the first and most delicate challenge in the treacherous journey towards her goal. She can feel it. She is beginning to channel his consuming desire into something she can use.
"Happily," she repeats, more commandingly as she sees him offer no resistance. "And I will not be happy unless I am free. I will not be happy while my people are tormented. I cannot be happy then, especially not with you.
"But you have the power to change that, Claude. The choice is yours." She swallows, softens her face with all the gentle affection she can feign. "The choice has always been yours."
A flash of panic spasms through the corners of his lips and brows as he realizes what she means. He backs away from her, his hands curling around the cell bars behind him. For the first time since she chose this mad gambit, she can see his lucidity returning, his rage resurfacing.
She must kill it before it kills her.
Reaching up toward him, Esmeralda surges forward, twines his hair tightly around her fingers, rakes her nails across his scalp. His jaw slackens with the sensation, and renewed desire snuffs out the awakening rage. She traces one hand down his cheekbone to his chin, then curls her fingertips at his throat. Her arrestingly green eyes never stray from his dark, dilated pupils.
"Do you burn for me?" she asks huskily.
He exhales, almost laughing, in incredulity. "You know that I do."
"But I don't know that," she tilts her head, bites her lip. Watches him watch her. "Why would I know that? You know what I want. You know what I care about. But you destroy those things. You cause pain to them." She moves her eyes away from his to look over his shoulder, letting the suffering that she has endured at his hand and at the hands of those like him leak through her voice. "Why would I think you burn for me when you are burning everything out there?"
"I – I thought –" his words tumble clumsily off his tongue, strained and agonized. When she looks back at him, his eyes are tightly shut, his brows tense, and his lashes glisten wet with emotion that his rational mind could not conceptualize or understand. Every muscle on his face flexes in agitation.
She has him now.
She kisses his cheek, tastes the saline on his skin. She nuzzles against the side of his face, curving her neck so that she can speak directly into his ear. He leans into her black curls, and she allows him a moment to envelope himself in her scent before playing her final hand.
"You can have me, if you burn for me. If you can prove that you burn for me." She kisses him on the mouth, hard, intent on driving everything from his mind except Esmeralda. She lets the hand at his clavicles travel further, trailing a firm palm across his chest and torso. Her mouth takes to his throat, nipping gently where she can feeling his relentlessly speeding pulse throb against her tongue. "Prove it to me," she intones again, repeats almost like a chant. "You know what I want. Prove to me that you burn, and I will come to you. Only you. I will be yours and yours alone, if you just prove that you burn for me." She traces teasing patterns across the inside of his thigh, and captures his groan between her teeth. "Prove that you burn for me."
He does not know how long he remains in her cell after she is gone. He does know that he had called for a guard to escort her outside. He knows it, but what he remembers is the heat of her tongue, the searing brand of her fingertips.
He knows what he should do. But what he remembers is the hypnotic promise that lingered at the edges of her challenge. Her demand.
He is not a man who accepts demands lightly. Not from mere mortals, and certainly not from gypsy girls. He knows this.
"Release the prisoner," he mutters to the guard outside the former captain's cell. The young soldier does not question the order, of course, but he cannot help raising his brows in surprise, and Frollo drops his eyes, unwilling to explain. An abrupt shifting in the darkness tells him that Phoebus, too, has heard, and so before the traitor can confront him, Frollo turns and hurries away. He is not quite fast enough, and as he leaves he hears the man's shout echoing behind him. "Why? Where is Esmeralda? What have you done with Esmeralda?"
His laugh is torn out of him involuntarily. What has he done with Esmeralda.
What has he done, with Esmeralda.
For all intents and purposes, he thinks, the phrasing is entirely accurate. It is already done. Oh, he'll wrestle and brood the next time a gypsy is dragged before his feet on some unprovable charge. His insides will churn when he gives his orders to the guard. He'll spend his sleepless nights in guilt and shame.
But the fire he cannot excise from his skin will scorch away all competing desires. It will blaze in his mouth and warp his words to the soldiers. It will scald him until it forces mercy from his fist. It is already done.
He had forced her to make an impossible choice, Esmeralda reasons as she makes her way toward the crypt. A decision between two paths when one of them led to either eternal damnation or unfathomable oblivion is hardly a decision at all. It's not her fault; she has been dragged into a maze of Frollo's creation, and she is finding the one way out.
He thinks perhaps she will never come back to him, no matter how much he betrays his calling, abandons his duty. A part of him hopes that she will prove false. Then he could see her for the deceitful witch that she is. Then he could summon the rage that was so familiar, so safe. Then he would be free from the sweet smolder of hopeful anticipation.
If she does deliver her promised reward -
The thought sends terror and ecstasy blazing between his ribs in equal measure, an irresistible, rapturous inferno. He has no choice but to yield to the fire.
Note:
This oneshot was particularly inspired by Jonathan Young's cover of Hellfire. You should go watch it, if you haven't already. I'm normally not a metal fan, but the emotion he infused into his performance, especially his face at the end, is brilliant.
I wanted to add to the stories of Esmeralda taking the reins, because I think it's the more realistic outcome of their dynamic. Despite the ostensible power differential, Frollo is lost in navigating what he feels for Esmeralda. She, on the other hand, knows enough about desire to use it, which is a significant advantage.
Frollo is also portrayed a little more humanly in the theatrical version, as opposed to the movie version which is more just-plain-evil, as Disney villains are wont to be. I honestly don't think he would be a callous rapist the way he has been written in some stories; when he's confronted with his sexuality, he's primarily afraid, and secondarily confused. This could certainly lead to destructive externalization, but not likely in the form of rape. Someone like him, exposed to such vulnerability, naturally turns to anger as a way to feel stronger, but that doesn't mean he's actually confident and secure in his actions. Quite the opposite.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Finally got all that out of my system! Thanks for reading.