A/N: Apologies for the long, unexpected hiatus. Time ran short with my thesis, so I had to abandon all fic until I got that finished. But I'm back now and updates will (hopefully) be regular again!
The world fades back into view, dim and grey, the fog swaying around him. Antoine is aware of pain, far away, buzzing deep in his left side. Pain. Why is there pain? His thoughts come slow, sluggish as if through mud. A shell. Something about a shell.
No, not a shell. A shot.
He swallows, his tongue stinging, tastes metallic blood in his mouth. He must have bitten it when he threw himself over—over Konstin. Konstin! Konstin was there, somewhere, bloodied and muddied but Konstin. Where—where is Konstin?
He draws breath for to call for him, but the pain blooms deep in his gut and he can only gurgle. Faintly he hears, "Wait!" and a face swims before him, pale and worried, a face he knows. One of his men! Which—he can't think.
The mouth is moving, the face asking him something, but he cannot make out the words and then there is fumbling at his coat, pulling it open, but he is too tired to ask, and when he tries to raise his hand to lay it on the man's arm, it falls back to— to—oh, to the stretcher.
Why is he on a stretcher? Konstin should be. Konstin was wounded.
It must be something to do with the pain.
The world fades into darkness, and as it goes Antoine hears, distantly, "…bandages shifted…morphine?" and then he hears no more.
Capitaine Dupuis frowns at Antoine. "The Commandant is ready to see you, sir. As you requested, I did not tell him who to expect, but I warn you, he is a little…sharp this evening."
Konstin, sharp? Well, it is to be expected. Surely he receives a hundred frustrating guests a day when he is behind the lines, no more than Antoine himself does. But he will settle when he realises just who has called on him.
"Do not worry about that, Capitaine. Commandant Daaé and I are old friends and I am sure he will be pleased to see me." Old friends is certainly one way of putting it, and inwardly Antoine chuckles. If the good Capitaine knew the nature of his and Konstin's friendship he would have an apoplectic fit!
The Captaine nods, and opens the door, and Antoine steps through into the room. Konstin does not look up from the letter he is writing, his dark hair falling over his face, pen scribbling furiously. It is as if they have walked in here and become invisible such is the lack of acknowledgement.
Well, until Konstin sighs and says, still without looking up, "Please be brief and to the point. I have a lot that I need to get through."
And that is all the encouragement Antoine needs to smirk and reply, "Hello to you too, Konstin."
The pen stills, and hovers over the page, and when Konstin's eyes meet his they are wide with shock. "Antoine?"
"In the flesh."
The next time he wakes it is to a swarm of faces and probing fingers. There is not pain, not this time, but there is the uncomfortable feeling of something digging inside of him, feeling and searching. He moans weakly, tries to twist away and that draws the attention of a pair of brown eyes.
"We've given you some morphine for the pain." The words make little sense as Antoine struggles to gather his thoughts. What pain? There is no pain! But there is something in him that should not be there and if they would take it out—
The feeling disappears, and he gasps a breath, his heart pounding hard. Faintly he hears, "…buried deep…needs surgery…" But none of it makes sense. He is off the stretcher, that much is clear, and there is no fog, no metal taste in his mouth.
No Konstin. Still no Konstin.
"Where—" his lips struggle to form the words, and the voice that spoke before speaks again, mentions a dressing station but Antoine cannot quite catch it. All he knows is Konstin isn't here and where is he? He has to be here somewhere, he has to. He can't have died, he can't have, he's not allowed to die and before Antoine knows it his breaths are short and shallow and his heart is so loud it drowns out anything that they say.
"Konst—Konst—"
Over his head he sees the doctors look at each other, or at least they must be doctors if it's a dressing station, and one, the one who spoke before, shakes his head ever so slightly, and tears burn Antoine's eyes, but Konstin can't be dead he can't be.
A needle pricks his arm, and he feels something cold slip into his bloodstream, and when tiredness tugs at his eyelids he is too weak to fight it.
Faces and voices. Voices and faces. Turning and indistinguishable. There is the sense of being carried, of being held down, of needles piercing his skin and warm water. Of constriction around his stomach. Of fingers fumbling at his throat and something pressed cold to his chest. And Konstin's face, as familiar as his own, smiling, laughing, frowning, pale. His face over and over again, interspersed with strangers. All so distant and far away.
Antoine blinks, and the impression of golden eyes dissolves, and the voice asking him a question is so faint he only groans.
The jolting rattle of a van is what wakes him, the wound beneath his ribs burning deep. His eyelids flicker in the darkness of the van, too dark to see much of anything, too closed in. His breath catches in his throat and he gasps, but the breath is too deep for his lungs and he finds himself coughing. Gasping and coughing and gasping and coughing and his heart pounding hard in his throat until he manages to get a proper breath and feels his lungs begin to settle.
A whimper from his left side draws his attention and Antoine turns his head to find Konstin lying there on a stretcher beside him, his face pale and head bandaged and a patch over his eye. Tears of relief prickle Antoine's eyes, and he blinks rapidly to clear them. He will not have his vision clouded by tears now! Not when he can see Konstin and Konstin is beside him!
Konstin does not wake, not even as they go over another bump that makes Antoine gasp and almost precipitates another coughing fit. As the pounding of his heart eases, Antoine aches to go to him, aches to take him in his arms and hold him and promise him that he will be all right, but he is too weak to move and he is strapped onto the stretcher under heavy blankets and he can't move he can't.
More tears prickle his eyes, and Antoine swallows hard against the lump in his throat. "Konstin," he whispers, "Konstin," but Konstin does not stir, and Antoine did not really think he would.
He blinks away the tears, too weak to raise his hand and wipe them, too tired and too sore. Even his eyes are sore, stiff, and even as they adjust further to the darkness he can see that Konstin's body, too, is hidden by heavy blankets, only his face visible, and Antoine's stomach churns again as they rattle over another bump but he can't get sick now he'll only make a mess everywhere he can't.
He swallows down the bile in his throat. It is probably for the best that Konstin is unconscious. If he were to see Antoine lying beside him like this he would worry, and when he is in such a state it is best that he not worry.
Still. It would be nice if he were awake. Nice to just…hear his voice. Konstin has always had such a lovely voice. Christine, said once, with that sad look in her eyes that Konstin says she gets sometimes, that he got it from his father.
His father. Konstin's father. The Erik that Antoine has often heard referred to, but who died before either of them were ever born. A vague memory drifts to him, of Konstin bundled up in his dark cloak, and a hat tilted down over his eyes, whispering, sometimes I think I see him in the mirror, when I glimpse my eyes before anything else. Gold hazel eyes, in the fog of a battlefield, the memory incongruous in this darkness.
And in that moment, through the thick soup of his thoughts, Antoine knows who led him to Konstin.
The fact that it was surely Erik, could only be Erik, clicks in Antoine's brain, and a strange sense of reliefwashesthrough him, carrying him back to sleep.
"I used to think he was a ghost." Konstin's voice is faint, his head heavy on Antoine's chest. "I asked Maman once, when I was very young, if he was a ghost haunting the Garnier. And she got this funny look on her face, as if she might faint, and said no he's at peace now." Konstin's ability to make his voice light and slightly tremulous as Christine's must surely have been is uncanny and in spite of himself Antoine struggles to contain a smile. "And I never asked her again," Konstin goes on, and Antoine sighs, cards his fingers through Konstin's hair, "but I always wondered and now, now I think there must be a part of him, left behind there, and sometimes, when I turn a corner, I think I can see glowing eyes vanishing back into the shadows."
"It's your imagination, darling." Antoine keeps his voice steady, but he cannot deny that he is a little perturbed by Konstin's words. "You want him to be there, so you dream that he is. There is nothing wrong in that."
The weight shifts off Antoine's chest as Konstin raises himself, and his eyes are troubled as they meet Antoine's. "But what if he is there? What if he is?"
A/N: Please R&R and let me know what you think!
Up next week: Marguerite receives some unexpected patients