A/N: A warning for nightmares, blood, serious wounds, and death. You know, all the good stuff.
And the last section implies some nsfw stuff.
There is no light in the ambulance, but Antoine cannot bring himself to care. He does not need light to know that Konstin is here, that Konstin is safe beside him. It is enough to listen to his easy breathing, to feel the soft twitching of his fingers cradled safe in Antoine's hand. "I love you," he murmurs into the darkness, the words he has been unable to speak all of this time, too many eyes watching them, too many ears listening and so he shrouded them in Persian, but now they are alone, and together, no one to notice or care, and so he says them properly, rolling them softly in their own French, je t'aime. "I love you." And Konstin cannot hear because he is soundly asleep, but it does not matter. Perhaps the words will permeate his dreams, and keep them peaceful.
Antoine can only hope, and he manoeuvres himself, raises himself slightly against the rocking of the ambulance and bowing his head raises Konstin's hand, and presses his lips gently to his knuckles. "I love you."
And he sinks back down to his own stretcher, and closes his eyes, and lets his mind wander, aware, all of the time, of Konstin's soft breathing beside him.
The transfer from ambulance to train rouses Antoine from his doze. (He was full of visions of dancing with Konstin, that long body pressed close to him, of pressing soft kisses to Konstin's chest, laying his head down and listening to his heart, memories of holding each other beneath a mound of blankets and the the tenderness in Konstin's eyes as he looked at him, and kissed him gently on the mouth, and of that one time when they both got obscenely drunk and dressed up as women, each wearing dresses and though the dress was too short for Konstin, with his hair fluffed up and rouge applied to lips and cheeks he made a beautiful woman.)
Thankfully, they are loaded into the same berth in the train. Antoine has a top bunk, and Konstin is in the bunk beneath him, and there are two lieutenants, only semi-conscious (one with a head wound, the other, presumably, due to morphine) loaded into the remaining two bunks. Antoine is grateful that they are not talkative. Best that they stay quiet, and not wake Konstin. He needs sleep too badly to be woken by chatter, and Antoine prays that he will stay asleep, and that the motion of the train will keep the nightmares at bay. Anything, now, that might help him is a blessing.
It takes a long time to load the train, and Antoine dozes in the interim, never quite sleeping. The darkness is too oppressive, feels too much as if the walls are closing in on him. He has managed to sleep in dug-outs smaller than this, but there is something about the confines of the berth that makes the hairs prickle on his arms. The thought comes, incongruous, that he would never have coped if he and Guillaume's roles had been reversed, if he had gone into the Navy instead. The narrow tightness of a ship's quarters would leave his heart constantly pounding. At least when he is belowground in the trenches he is still on solid land.
The train groans, and slowly chugs to life. At least they are on the move, and will soon be in Paris, and he will be out of this berth and in a proper room, with actual space and not just the illusion of space. Will he be alone? Or will they put Konstin in with him again? Two Commandants arriving in together, they are unlikely to put them in with officers of lower rank, and certainly not with enlisted men.
Please, God, let them be in a room together. Just the two of them, alone from everyone else and safe. That would be best. And he could not bear to be away from Konstin now.
Though she is relieved that Konstin is recovered enough to be transferred back here to Paris (and relieved over Antoine too, of course) she cannot help the anxiety twisting in her stomach at the thought of seeing them. All along, she has longed to see Konstin, to be beside him and reassure him (and reassure herself), and promise him that he would be all right. Even to sing to him. Singing to him always soothed him when he was a boy, and it helped to ensure a peaceful night of sleep. Would it help him now? If she were to sing to him?
(It always helped Erik. When he was ill she would hold him, and sing to him, and he would nuzzle into her and drift into sleep.)
But though she longed to be with him all along, now she is not so certain. She needs to be strong for him, needs to be able to take in all of his dreadful wounds and not weep at how he has suffered, not burn to go to the lines herself and take on that other army of men who have done this to him, who have so damaged him. He needs her to be strong, but how can she be strong thinking of what they have done to him? Thinking of weak he still is? How terribly close she came to losing him?
The very thought of seeing him, of facing how badly wounded he is, makes bile rise in her throat.
But she needs to see him, needs to hold his hand and know that he is alive, that he will live, and she is torn between the part of her that wants to run away, and the part of her that needs to be with him and never leave him.
Tomorrow evening. He will be here tomorrow evening, and they will unload him from the train and bring him to the hospital and settle him into a room (and she hopes he will be with Antoine, because ill as he is he will be unsettled and Antoine has always been able to ease him), and Anja has warned her that she needs to wait until the next morning to see him, that they will be busy settling him in and examining him. But Christine is not surprised that she will have to wait. The waiting is only a minor issue, and she has been waiting to see him for so long now. What are a few hours more?
Shells screeching overhead, crash in the distance, but he cannot worry about who they are crashing on so long as they are not crashing on them. Let them be falling on empty trenches, or choking off in No Man's Land.
His fingers are numb with cold. His pulled his gloves off when they got too stiff to work and he presses them deeper into Lieutenant Henri's stomach, a weak groan coming from Henri's throat. The blood wells up around his fingers, leaks out between them, but he dare not take them away, he dare not.
Henri's head is heavy on his shoulder and he leans in so that his lips are against the rim of his ear and whispers, praying the man in his arms can hear him, "The stretcher-bearers are coming, Henri." (Why does he not know his first name? He should know his first name.) "Just hold on, hold on."
Dupuis' eyes meet his, edges of his lips creased with worry. "His pulse is very weak, sir," and then Dupuis' hands are pressing into Henri's stomach over Konstin's, and his voice is lighter as he whispers, looking down into Henri's eyes, "Hold on, Antoine, just hold on."
Antoine? Is his name Antoine? Konstin's heart stalls, and the world seems to fall away. Antoine? Antoine? Tears sting his eyes. Antoine?
He looks down, down into Henri's dark eyes, flickering sightlessly, and forces a smile that feels unnatural on his face, feels unnatural when there is blood still welling up between his fingers, when Henri is gasping the single name, "Clara, Clara," over and over again, and Konstin whispers, his voice faint, "Keep fighting, Antoine, you're doing so well," and the name Antoine has never weighed so wrong on his tongue.
Blood gurgles from Henri's lips, trickles from the corner of his mouth, and Konstin eases one hand out from under Dupuis', tries to wipe it away but only smears it, and a tear drips onto Henri's forehead, and another one, but Konstin dares not wipe that away, dares not mar his forehead with blood. He searches at his throat instead, finds the thready pulse and wills it to keep going, wills his heart to keep beating, but even as he wills it the pulse is fading, and a peculiar little gasp comes from Henri's lips, almost a choking sound, and then his head is lolling, lolling, and it is all Konstin can do to prop him up, Dupuis still pressing into his stomach, whispering, "Come on, Antoine, for Clara, and for your little girl, and for the baby, come on," and another shell crashes, closer than before, and Henri sighs, his eyes rolling, the pulse gone from his throat, and he gasps, one more faint "Clara," and sinks silent and heavy into Konstin's arms.
A sob catches in Konstin's own throat, and he is shaking Henri, shaking him, and Dupuis' hands are wrapping tight around his, stilling them. "He's gone, sir, he's gone, let him be" and Konstin hears his own voice whispering, "he can't be, he can't, he can't," though he does not feel his lips say the words, and then hands are pulling him away, pulling Henri out of his arms, laying him on the stretcher that has come too late, "carry him out," he whispers, "carry him out, don't let him be buried here, carry him out," and the colour is draining from the world, Dupuis' green eyes the clearest thing, "you need to move, sir, you need to move, the shelling is getting closer," and hands are pulling him to his feet, but he can't move, he can't, not when Henri is dead, when Henri is leaving a widow behind, a baby, and he sees a flash of his own mother, her face pale and eyes rimmed in red, and his stomach heaves so that he is doubled over retching but there is nothing to bring up, nothing.
It is the helplessness that is the worst, the sheer aching helplessness. How he wishes he could do something, wishes he could take Konstin in his arms and whisper to him and promise him that he is all right now, that they are all right now, but he cannot move from his own bunk, and if he could there are the two lieutenants to consider, and so he is condemned to lie here, to simply lie here, and listen to Konstin's whimpers, each whimper a lance of pain in to his heart.
What is it that he sees? What is it that makes him whimper so?
A part of Antoine burns to know, burns to know so he can tell him that it is nothing, that it is behind him, that it cannot touch him, but if it is the lines, as he suspects (knows) it is—how could he ever lie and promise Konstin that the lines are behind them when they will likely be back there? Will have to face it all again? When it is not what has happened to him but what has happened to the others? The things he has seen, and done?
And Antoine would lie, for so many things he would lie and wrap Konstin in half-truths and fantasies, but the Front—
He cannot lie when both of them would know it as blatant.
There is nothing he can do, nothing, and he would dearly love to hit something, the longing to sink his fists into the wall surging in his chest, but it would create a disturbance and maybe make them move him and even if he cannot pull Konstin into his arms he will not leave him, not now.
So he swallows the urge to curse, and punch, and bites his tongue, and lies there and tries not to hear the whimpers, tries to draw the words of every old Persian poem out of his memory, and whisper them into the darkness.
Crash of a shell. Clay flying, falling, burying him, heavy on his chest and it is so hard to breathe so hard so hard the darkness pressing in on him and he cannot move, cannot escape, cannot dig his way out and his heart is racing, pounding, his lungs burning, demanding air
and his eyes snap open to darkness, a faint slice of light lancing through it though the roof above him is so close it is pressing in and the wall is too close, the space too narrow, and a chill makes him shiver because everything is too close, too small, too tight and he can't breathe—can't breathe—
"You're all right, Konstin." Antoine's voice, somewhere above him, speaking Persian. "You're all right now, I promise. Just breathe. Deep breaths. In, and hold it, and out. It will help. Just deep breaths." And it is Antoine's voice, and he is bound to obey Antoine's voice, bound to follow, and he sucks in a deep breath, as deep as he can, his ribs protesting sharply, and holds it, counts to seven, and lets it out slowly. His heart is already beating a little easier, the tightness in his chest looser, and from above Antoine's voice comes again. "Good, Konstin. And another one." And he draws another breath, and holds it, his eyes slipping closed, and with Antoine's voice coming softly from above him he is able to breathe his way through the darkness.
She has little enough that she wishes to bring to Paris, little enough here to her name. A book or two. A bundle of letters carefully tied together. The few clothes that are not her uniform. She fits them all neatly into a bag, and fastens it closed. For now she is wearing her uniform, and she cannot change out of it until she gets off the train. Until then she is, still, on duty.
Minette and Amélie are waiting for her, and they each hug her before she leaves the room they've shared. She should thank them, thank them for all of the help they've given her, for how kind they've been with—with everything. But the moment she tries to thank them she thinks of Edouard, and her throat tightens and there are no words able to escape. Minette sees the look that must cross her face, and hugs her again, and whispers, "He's at peace now," and when she pulls back her brown eyes are heavy and Marguerite's heart lurches.
Amélie's hand is gentle rubbing her arm, a steadying weight. "Don't worry about us. Just take care of yourself," and there are tears in her eyes too, and none of them say much of anything. "We'll write you, and you'll write us."
And looking at them both, and the way they are looking at her, Marguerite cannot help feeling as if it is a permanent departure, and not simply a long leave. But something in the world has changed, and she is not the girl she was when she came here, none of themare, and maybe that is why she feels so unsteady at the thought of leaving them both behind her, if only for a time.
The train is slowing down, its rhythmic chugging easing, and Antoine sighs. It must be a sign that they are near Paris, that they do not have much further to go, and the thoughts of being in Paris, of being off this bunk and out of this berth, of the air on his face, of seeing Guillaume, and Maman and Father, of being away from these lieutenants and (maybe) sharing a room with only Konstin who has been quiet now for hours, no whimpers or groans, those thoughts wash over him, and the lightness in his heart is blissful.
"Had we but world enough, and time," Antoine's breath is warm against Konstin's throat, makes the hairs on the back of his neck twitch, and he shudders, Antoine's fingers trailing lightly over his inner thigh. "This coyness, lady, were no crime."
It crosses Konstin's mind to say, I'm far from a lady, Milord, but Antoine is continuing on, nuzzling into his collarbone and murmuring, "We would sit down and think which way," a kiss and Konstin sighs, his eyes fluttering closed and Antoine smiles into his chest, "To walk and pass our long love's day."
"I love it when you get all poetic on me," Konstin whispers, his fingers toying at Antoine's earlobe, eyes opening to regard his mussed hair golden in the lamplight. "And quite literally on me too which is even more impressive. I always appreciate having literary lines breathed into my skin, as you well know. It adds a certain level of decency to the thing which is can be distinctly lacking, not to mention the delightful cultural addition…" He is rambling, definitely rambling. The Bordeaux is surely to blame and not the way—ahhhhh, not the way Antoine is whispering against his nipple, his fingers stroking the trail of hair beneath Konstin's navel, and it is so distracting, so distracting, what was he thinking about again? Poetry, literature, Marvell and time's wingéd chariot but that comes later, later, hurrying near.
"A hundred years should go to praise," and Antoine is grinning into his face again, his lips kiss-swollen and beautiful, "Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze," and three kisses pressed to his forehead, "Two hundred to adore each breast, but thirty thousand to the rest," and his voice drops, snagging something in Konstin's heart and he whimpers as Antoine continues on, murmuring softly against the corner of his mouth, "An age at least to every part," and the movement of his lips against the edge of Konstin's is maddening, maddening, makes Konstin groan, "And the last age should show your heart." And Konstin has enough, more than enough, and he turns his head and captures those maddening lips with his own.
A/N: Aaaaaaand that's it for another chapter. If you haven't checked out the recent update on 'Tender is a Kiss' and E/C is your thing, then please do gvie that a look. Apologies if this chapter messed with your feelings. Some of it I'm not happy with, and some of it I love.
The poem which memory!Antoine is quoting from at the end is 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell. It's an English poem first published in 1681, but I figured that after 230 years it may be a poem that Antoine would know.
As for Lieutenant Henri - he was inspired in the first instance by Henry DeTamble in The Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and so his fatal wound is similar to Henry's.
Up next: The boys arrive at the Paris hospital, Marguerite has a train journey, and Christine remembers.