December 1831
There's snow on the ground, and more falling like a shower of stars, almost blotting out the street. A night like this can be cozy, if you're indoors and warm, with the snow making a curtain to hide behind; but tonight it doesn't keep the chill from my heart. I turn away from the window.
Chrétien is sitting quietly, staring at the embers. He looks up to meet my eyes, and frowns. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. It's devilish cold."
"It'll be colder." He seems to shrink into himself, saying it. His hands around the empty glass look transparent in the low light. Like Jehan -- impossible as always not to compare them -- he makes me feel protective. Jehan has the vulnerable appeal of a flower, easily bruised, but Chrétien is brittle as glass.
"Are you all right?" I ask him, sitting down again.
He shrugs. "Fine."
"Mon ami--"
"Don't mother me, Théo!"
"Sorry."
Chrétien sighs. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's this weather. Nothing's quite as dead as a city in winter. I hate it."
I think of the blind darkness outside. "It is rather awful."
"I'd go howling mad if I had to stay here alone tonight." Musichetta is away, visiting her sister and the sister's latest infant. "Nothing to listen to but the wind, and my own Godforsaken thoughts, and what's-his-name next door, coughing up a lung."
"Is he still like that?"
"He's not going to get any better."
There seems nothing to say to that. Chrétien glowers at the floor for a minute. "I know I'm morbid. I only wish I could help it. I wish I could keep things from sticking in my mind--" His shoulders twitch. "I wake up in the night and I can't stop thinking. It's maddening."
"I shouldn't wonder," I say.
He unfolds abruptly to his feet. "All the things I should have done, or could do if there were more hours in the day--" His hands are shaking now, and he sets down the glass clumsily. In a very few minutes he'll be pacing the floor, lost in his distress, beyond my reach.
"Chrétien." I stand, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
"I hate-- I hate this. I'm sorry, I oughtn't to--"
"Dearest brother. It's all right."
For a moment he stands still, trembling. Then he whirls, and before I can move his arms are around me, his mouth pressed feverishly to mine. I kiss him back without thinking, too startled to do anything else. He's never shown the slightest interest in such intimacies, staying well clear of the flirtations that catch up the rest of us. But there is nothing feigned in his urgency. When at last he pulls away, both of us are breathless.
"Chrétien, what--"
"Don't talk," he says mildly, leaning on my shoulder.
And so I don't, for several minutes, while he seems content to stand there, letting me stroke his hair.
"You're always calm," he says at last.
"Mostly."
"You are-- everything I lack. You are so kind, and so patient, and-- damn it, dearest friend, why the hell couldn't you have been a girl?"
"An oversight," I say. "I'll try not to make a habit of it."
Chrétien laughs, burying his face in my shirt. "Ah, damn you. Let's go to bed."
It is as though there is some enchantment on us both. There is no hesitation, no flinching, no fear, no surprise. His touch is insistent, and surprisingly deft, and though his eyes are closed from first to last, he whispers my name once and again between ragged breaths.
Afterward he embraces me with a sigh, relaxed as if some burden has been lifted from him. "Merci, mon frère."
I squeeze his shoulder. "Of course."
"Stay the night?"
"I don't mind."
Chrétien nods, and settles back against the pillow. The tension that so often tightens his mouth is gone, now; his face is tranquil in the half-light. Outside, the snow still falls.