It is a ghost. It must be a ghost. There are things on these battlefields, spirits of centuries, spectres of the wounded, the dead. A figure draped in black walking across foggy No Man's Land with an air of belonging there? It cannot be anything living.
The very sight of it makes Antoine's blood chill.
The ghost has no wings, not that he ever expected a ghost to have wings. They say that ghosts float above the ground, but this ghost does not do that either. This ghost simply is, unarmed and black enough to be a shadow. And when the ghost tilts it's head, and turns towards Antoine, it looks out at him from a face like a skull.
Konstin's eyes shine back at him, and take his breath away.
He sees them, only for a flash of a moment, before he catches sight of Konstin himself, lying silent and bloody in the shell crater beneath him, the shall crater he would have fallen right into if he had not seem the ghost. The same eyes, that same glowing gold-hazel that no one else in the world could ever have. Antoine's heart lurches, and he looks from Konstin to the ghost and back, and the world tilts.
His brain buzzes, snags on a single thought. Konstin. Konstin is what matters now. Not some ghost with his eyes.
There is no water in this shell crater, which means it's fresh, and Konstin is slumped over, leaning against the side of it, his uniform torn and half his face streaked in blood. He looks dead, a voice whispers in Antoine's ear, and his head spins, his stomach falling. A heartbeat later he has scrambled into the crater too, has dropped to his knees beside Konstin, his brain echoing the single mantra of Not dead not dead not dead can't be dead. He pulls off one of his gloves, loosens Konstin's collar, and presses trembling fingers to his throat.
For a moment, for one, awful, heart-stopping moment, Antoine can feel nothing. No pulse, no breathing, nothing but the cool, clamminess of Konstin's skin. The world spins around him, his heart clenching painfully. No no no. Then there is a faint flickering against his fingertips, and he presses his fingers deeper, hardly daring to breathe just to be sure, to be sure.
And there it is, a slight pulse fluttering faintly against his fingers.
Konstin groans, his face contorting, and the relief that overcomes Antoine is dizzying. He sinks down beside him, tears prickling his eyes, and with one rough movement he brushes them away, sucks in a breath to steady the pounding of his heart. Konstin is alive, he's alive, thank God he's alive. His hand lies limp beside him, and Antoine gently takes it, squeezes it. He gets no response, only a whimper that his ears barely catch.
The earth shakes with the thud of a shell, and without a single thought Antoine throws himself over Konstin. He has to protect him, he has to, he can't let him get killed now just after finding him! But he can't hear the shells, not through the fog, their screeching so dull they sound miles away. His vision blurs with the tears that prickle his eyes, jaw aching his teeth are clenched so tight.
The earth shakes again. Another shell. The strafe! But…it isn't due for a few more hours. And they're always so regular with their strafes. Did they start early? How long was he wandering in the fog before he fell into this crater?
Konstin groans, coughs. The very sound of that hoarse cough makes sweat break out on Antoine's forehead and the shaking of the earth seems to still. Coughing means lungs. Coughing means gas. Gas! Is there gas? Antoine heaves a breath without intending to, and the air whistles cold and clean in his throat. Gas settles heavy at the bottom of shell craters. That's what they always say. And if there was even a small bit of gas—If there was even a small bit of gas when Konstin fell in here then he needs to be in hospital now.
Gas leaves blisters.
Antoine pulls back, and peers into Konstin's face. There is so much blood down the left side, spilled from a gash just over his eye, that for a moment Antoine cannot tell if there are blisters or not. His fingers tremble as they brush the skin, find another gash at the edge of Konstin's lip, and one below his eye. But there are no raised bubbles, on the left side or the right, and without a moment's hesitation he presses his lips to Konstin's clammy forehead.
"Thank God," he whispers. "Thank God."
Another tremor in the ground reminds him that the strafe is ongoing, and he closes his eyes as he flattens himself back over Konstin. Please God there'll be plenty of time to thank God later, for both of them, if he can only keep Konstin safe now.
So many words cluster on his tongue, but he can't speak a single one of them. So many simple things, so many promises, so many of them things he's whispered to Konstin a hundred, a thousand times! And he burns to speak them now, to whisper them into his skin as he lies here shielding him, but to even breathe them out here in the middle of—in the middle of this would taint them, poison them, and he would never be able to speak them again, so he clamps down tight on the urge and gropes for Konstin's hand again, and squeezes it. That will have to do, will have to do.
How long he lies there over Konstin, shielding him from the shellfire, Antoine cannot tell. But gradually the shaking of the ground because less and less, until it dies away, and he lies there a little longer just to be certain that it really is gone. Konstin never stirred, never made a sound beyond the occasional groan or whimper, and Antoine wishes he could believe that that is a good thing, but he can't. He just can't. Konstin, a man who refuses to complain about anything, to whimper in pain even unconscious? How could that ever be good?
Antoine's heart aches, and his stomach churns with threatening panic. But he can't let himself panic now. If he does then they are both dead, and whatever about himself but Konstin. No. He needs to stay calm, needs to stay composed. Needs to think. He draws in a breath, and nods to himself, feeling a little stronger.
First thing first. Figure out what wounds Konstin has. There might something he can do about them.
Would that he could figure out what wounds Konstin has. But Konstin's uniform is heavy and stiff with mud, and the light through the fog is too weak to see what blood there is, apart from what's on his face. Antoine's fingers hover over that face again, and his heart aches to wipe the blood away but if he does that then the gashes might only start bleeding again.
Instead he lets his hand drop to Konstin's shoulder, and shakes him. "Konstin," he whispers, "Konstin."
The only answer he gets is a faint whimper, and the flickering of eyelids.
How long has Konstin even been lying out here?
Too long. It was early morning when word reached Antoine down the line that Commandant Daaé had not returned with what was left of his men. That there was a shell but through the fog they could not see where it landed, and it took them a while to realise that Commandant Daaé, always so calm, so steady leading them, had disappeared.
And Antoine stared at the aide telling him, his mind insisting it was not real, it could not be real. Konstin couldn't be missing, he couldn't have disappeared out there, he couldn't have been blown up by a shell. He was Erik Konstantin Daaé, didn't they know that? Konstin wouldn't let something like that happen to him.
"He'll be hiding out there," he whispered, the words catching in his throat. "You'll see. He's only hiding until it's safe to come back." They were still in the middle of the early strafe, and even as he spoke Antoine and the aide had to steady themselves against the shaking of the dugout as another shell burst.
And here Konstin is, as if Antoine had prophesied it, lying in a shell crater, wounded but alive, and in spite of the worry twisting in his gut, in spite of the struggle that it's going to be to get Konstin back, part of Antoine burns to look that aide in the eye, and tell him, I knew he was alive. I knew it.
"An…" it is the barest breath, hardly even a word, but it draws Antoine's attention away from the memory of the dugout and back to Konstin, and he curls his fingers around Konstin's own and smooths back his hair.
"I'm here, Konstin," he whispers, and presses his lips gently to Konstin's forehead again, to the clean patch unblemished by blood or dirt. It registers faintly in the back of his mind, for the first time, that Konstin has lost his helmet somewhere, his dark hair stiff and muddy too. "I'm here, and I'm going to get you back to the line, I promise, and you're going to be fine."
Konstin whimpers, tears trickling from his closed eyes. "An…toine."
"Ssshhh. Sshh. I'm here, don't say a word. I'm here. You're safe now." And how Antoine aches to believe those words himself, but if he can even make Konstin believe them then things might not be so bad.
A flicker of gold-hazel iris from beneath heavy lids. "Hu-urts."
"I know it does, I know. But I'll get you back, I promise, and they'll fix you up."
He's going to have to get him out somehow. But how? He can't just drag him out and across No Man's Land. There's too much barbed wire and too much shrapnel hidden in the mud and it would only make his wounds worse. But Konstin is far too weak to walk, even supported by Antoine. He's going to have to try to carry him.
But as soon as he tries to lift him, Konstin cries out, tears trickling down his cheeks, and Antoine realises for the first time how pale his lips are, tinged blue. His heart clenches tight at the sight.
"I'm sorry, Konstin," he whispers, his voice cracking, "but I need to move you," and bracing himself for another cry of pain, Antoine tries again. Konstin is silent this time, his body limp, the pain having pulled him back to unconsciousness, and somehow, somehow, Antoine manages to hoist him onto his back. His muscles ache and tremble, lungs burn with the effort, and praying each step of the way Antoine carries him out of the shell crater.
And finds a figure in black with a face like a skull standing at the edge of the crater, waiting.
It takes Antoine a moment to realise that this is the spectre from before, the spectre that led him to Konstin what feels like a hundred years ago though it can only be a handful of hours at most.
Surely, surely it cannot be a good sign to find a figure in black looking like a corpse walking waiting for him to climb out of a crater with Konstin wounded on his back. And it's on the tip of Antoine's tongue to hiss something like, "If you're Death, you'll have to take me too to get him," but the figure only scowls at him with those golden eyes startlingly like Konstin's, and beckoning imperiously turns away, before Antoine has the chance to utter a single thing, and starts walking.
And part of Antoine screams at him that he should not follow something that looks like Death. And part of him reminds him that with the pressing fog and how long he's been in the shell crater he can't tell what direction the French lines are in anymore. He could easily walk right into a German trench and hand himself over to them, or get killed! This ghost, demon, spectre, whatever the hell it is, might be trying to lead him astray, to lose him out here.
But the ghost led him to Konstin. The ghost has Konstin's eyes, and in the end, there is really no question of what he will do. The memory of those eyes pushes Antoine to stumble after the ghost, Konstin's breaths warm and faint against his neck.
Konstin's breaths force Antoine on, keep him walking even as his shoulders stiffen and his arms scooped under Konstin's legs tingle with numbness and his own legs ache. He keeps walking, his mind empty of thoughts, too hollow and too numb and too tired, one foot in front of the other, and that black figure only ever a little in front of him. Walking for what seems like an eternity through the fog pressing in on each side, the screams of other soldiers faint and distant, the low rumble of gunfire faded as if in a dream. If there are shells he does not hear them, and if he had the energy he might thank God for that. But he has only the energy for walking. Walking and walking and walking. And it niggles in the back of his mind. A ghost in black. A ghost with a face like a skull. A ghost with Konstin's eyes. And the answer is there, just out of his reach, but he needs to keep walking and he can't stop to think, can't stop when he needs to get back to the lines.
It is only when he hears "Commandant de Chagny!" that Antoine realises the black figure has gone, that he is standing before Capitaine Thibault, the trench opening up just beneath them, and then there are several more men crowding around them, a jumble of faces he knows and is too tired to name, lifting Konstin off his back.
"Careful!" His voice is hoarse, throat aching. "Commandant Daaé is badly wounded."
His aide is beside him, the same aide that told him so long ago that Konstin was missing. "Where did you find him, sir?"
Antoine's mouth has only opened to tell him that such questions can wait until later when he feels it, the sharp piercing pain in his side. He gasps a short breath, the pain lancing deep, the colour draining from the world. Distantly, as if he is someone else, he feels his knees buckle, hears a faint cry going up as Thibault's arms wrap around him, lower him to the ground.
And it's so hard to breathe, so hard and suddenly his men are swarming around him, pulling at his uniform, around him and not around Konstin and what does he matter when Konstin is so badly wounded? When Konstin is barely alive? And he can't breathe, his lungs burning, blood hot and metallic on his tongue, black spots dancing before his eyes, and he gasps as fingers probe his side, tries to twist away.
Tell them—he needs to tell them—Konstin—
"Look—look to Daaé," he chokes out, his lips stiff and clumsy, golden eyes flashing before him, and they are the last thing he knows before the darkness takes him.
A/N: This chapter ended up ridiculously long, but stay tuned because I *hopefully* will post the next chapter on Sunday!
Next up: Further adventures of Konstin and Antoine at the Front.
And please do let me know what you think!