#wp fic

the thing is that no one had expected andrei to survive the aftermath of borodino.

but he did, and so did pierre, and when all was said and done they found each other, as they always did. they were the both of them changed- andrei had been brought to the very edge and pulled back, and pierre had lost everything and then found it again- into strange, fragile creatures, like broken china mended with gold.

“i saved the letters,” pierre says abruptly one night, as they take dinner in his study. they do that sometimes, just the two of them; pierre’s house too empty and andrei’s too full, leaving the both of them feeling wrong and out of place.

“whose letters?”

pierre flounders for a moment, pushes his food around on his plate and picks at his napkin before saying, “the countess’s. natasha.”

he had thought, years ago, that her death would set him free. he had thought that he would not miss her, that when he was rid of her he would find it in him to feel joy again. once, he had even hoped for it. 

now though, now he just feels empty, and cold, as hollow as the house around him. it felt quieter now than it did even during their separation. he sleeps in a guest room rather than the one he had shared with his wife; though the mattress has been replace and the bedding since changed, he finds that all he could see when he stepped into the room is what she might have looked like, silent and unmoving in death, her skin porcelain pale.

out of all the ghosts that trail him now, helene haunts him the most.

he will think of helene and how sweet she had been to him, before their marriage, the way she would slip her delicate hand into the crook of his arm, the coy smile that so often lurked about her pretty mouth, the way she would glance at him through dark lashes. there had been rumors even then, rumors that even he had heard, about her insipidness and her passions, but he had always been too enchanted by the way her gowns hugged her body or the way the candlelight flickered across her skin.

he will think of andrei and the somber sternness of him, of how he had been haunted by regret, of the ways his rare smiles would fill pierre up inside. andrei had been kind, in his own way, conservative in his words but tender in his touches, and they would stay up late into the night and talk about books and life and god. their first kiss had been awkward and clumsy and so very right that pierre had nearly called it holy.

54. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. That’s the problem.”

pierre had done many things that he regretted, but none so much as his duel with fedya.

he’d oscillated for some time between vicious satisfaction and wretched grief, in those first few days afterwards, the house empty and quiet with helene’s flight. eventually a letter had been sent informing him of dolokhov’s survival, but until then he had wallowed, thinking that he had killed one of his closest friends and half-believing that he had been justified in doing so.

and then borodino, and fedya, healthy and hale, kissing him and asking him for his forgiveness, expression twisted in some approximation of earnestness. it was the first time they had seen each other since the duel and pierre leans into him- familiar, familiar- and forgives him wholeheartedly.

(he closes his eyes and he can still see the blood in the snow, smell the gunpowder, watch as fedya was hauled away in a sleigh, half-sensible.)

“you could hate me,” fedya tells him some time later, after everything, as they sit in pierre’s study. they take their dinners there, most times when dolokhov visits, the dining room too large for just the two of them. “i wouldn’t mind.”

he says it so flippantly that it makes something in pierre’s chest twist, and he frowns, lowering his wine glass. he hears fedya hum- almost amusement- but ignores it.

“i don’t hate you,” he says in response, too serious by half. “i don’t believe i ever could.”

he looks up and fedya’s eyes are on him, cold, cold blue, but his brows are furrowed in a curious way that pierre has never seen before, his expression considering. he leans back in his chair and pierre fights the urge to squirm under such intense scrutinization.

he did not suffer in silence because he thought to make himself some sort of martyr. love was meant to be this gentle, understanding thing but instead it gnawed at him, painful, hollowing him from the inside out. it crowded his tongue every time he spoke, that awful longing rising up and choking him.

now, though, they teeter on a knife’s edge. andrei, flush with the joy of new love, watches pierre flounder, his smile fading into something that pierre fears is understanding. andrei sighs, “oh, dear friend.”

pierre says, “don’t-”

“i am truly sorry, pierre,” is what andrei cuts him off with, “you love her as well, don’t you?”

“what?”

“it’s in your eyes.”

and yes, pierre supposed that he did care for natasha, in some way- she was a lovely girl, bright and kind and lively, and he adored her, could see himself loving her- but natasha hadn’t been his friend of over a decade, natasha hadn’t been the one to at up with him late at night reading by the fire, natasha wasn’t the person he dreamed of waking up next to and kissing and loving. 

“no, no, dear andrei,” he says with pursed lips, almost upset. “no, i’m very fond of natasha, she’s a sweet girl, truly, but… no.”

“pardon, what-”

he can’t help it, really, the way the words burst from him in a rushed gust of breath, trembling at the back of his throat. “it’s you.”

abrupt, sudden. they stare at each other in silence for a heartbeat before pierre looks away, shoulders sagging. his knees felt weak, his throat tight- this was surely the end, then. he felt sick with it; andrei would leave, disgusted, because while he may not be particularly pious, this depravity must have been more than any man could bear.

“me?” andrei asks, quiet, as pierre sinks back into his chair, elbows on his desk. he seemed discomfited; emotional confrontation had always been out of andrei’s depth.

“it’s always been you,” pierre says, and he just feels tired. he pushes up his spectacles, presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “god above, andrei, it’s always been you.”

they are quiet for so long that pierre is almost sure that andrei has left, and he gives a gusty sigh. he aches, feels raw and wrung out, even from just that short interaction; he needed a drink, or three.

but then a hand settles on his shoulder, and andrei sighs, says in that same pitying, uncomfortable way as before, “dear pierre.”

and, oh, the hope that wells in him then is pathetic and burning. andrei hadn’t left, didn’t seem disgusted with him. pierre looks up, slow, and meets his eyes; andrei had always been intense, almost unbearably so, but there was something warm in his gaze, his expression soft in a way pierre rarely saw it.

“do you think,” pierre starts, then stops, his voice cracking. his places his hand over andrei’s on his shoulder. “do you think, if things had been different, that you could have loved me, as well?”

he watches them, sometimes, and can’t help but think about how he deserves neither of them.

natasha and pierre are each gentle creatures, defined by sweet words and soft touches, curled tenderly around each other in sleep. andrei isn’t sure how to allow himself that vulnerability, how to be soft around them.

all he knew of love was that it hurt, that it came paired with loss or distance. he had thought that he loved lise, once, and now she was dead; his father loved him, in a way, but he was a cold, cruel man; he loved his son, little nikolushka, but was so terrified of losing him that he hardly knew him.

but sometimes, sometimes natasha will look at him, her golden hair catching the sunlight, and her smile will be so bright and radiant that he nearly allows himself to smile back. or pierre’s hand will brush over his own, lingering just a moment too long to be unintentional, and andrei will look up and see the affection in his gaze and he almost laces their fingers together. 

there is nothing gentle between them because dolokhov is not a gentle man, never has been, and denisov is far too rough to mesh into society in the way that nikolai rostov does, effortless and clean and graceful. and certainly neither of them were nikolai rostov, neither of them what the other truly wanted.

but they are both soldiers, calluses and bloody hands, hearts that have known loss. 

they work well together, at the end of the war, but at odds; denisov was a cautious, tactical man who knew the cost of war and cared regardless, but dolokhov was like a rabid dog, eager to be let off his leash and pointed in a direction to attack. 

it was that rashness that had gotten petya rostov killed and denisov lashes out with the grief of it, the pain; the rostovs were his family, bright and welcoming and gently loving, and he ached with the knowledge of the pain that petya’s loss would bring. he’d insisted on writing the letter himself and scrapped draft after draft, the ink bled with tears.

“vasily,” dolokhov says, taking denisov’s face between his hands, skin rough and cracked from the cold. denisov pushes against him, half-hearted; he wanted simultaneously to beat him and to melt into the strange sort of solace he offered. 

“don’t,” is what vaska responds with, harsh and bitten-off, instead of the myriad of other things he wished to say, instead of this is your fault, you bastard, or he was just a boy and now he’s dead and his blood is on both our souls. 

“vasily,” dolokhov says again, sterner this time but not hard, not in the usual way he spoke, all sharp callousness and teeth. there seemed to be something almost tender about him but that wasn’t quite right, because fyodor dolokhov was not in any way a soft man. “breathe, vasily.”

and vaska listens and takes a deep breath because there was little else he could do, with dolokhov’s thumbs pressed almost too hard to his cheekbones, cradling his face in just the right way to break his neck. he’s keenly aware of the fact- has seen him do it before, to some poor french bastard prostrate in the bloody snow- and so he just breathes. 

“there, see?” dolokhov’s voice is sweet, condescendingly so, crooning in that oozing, patronizing way that he knows denizov hates. “now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

he wants to bare his teeth at him in mingled grief and anger, but though the pain is still there it is less so, as if weakened by company. denisov swats dolokhov’s hands away and dolokhov releases him without a fuss, watching with cool blue eyes as the other man paces away from him, greatcoat wound tight about him to fend off the cold that the canvas tent couldn’t ward off.

“he’s dead, fyodor,” vaska says, a touch of despondency to his tone, “petya rostov.”

“yes, sweet boy.” the condescension is less, replaced by something more neutral. “those noble rostovs. but it was a brave death, denisov; he died in battle. a warrior.”

“come now, petrushka,” comes dolokhov’s voice, cajoling and deceptively amiable, “just a kiss for a friend?”

and pierre flushes- beyond the alcohol, beyond the heat of the room- because nothing with dolokhov was ever friendly. he was a hard man, a cruel man, pierre had no illusions about that; each and every single one of them that followed after kuragin like dogs had succumbed to their vices in one way or another.

dolokhov, pierre thinks, was one of his. 

his eyes are a cold, cold blue as he peers at pierre from over the rim of his wine glass, something strange lurking in his expression that makes pierre’s stomach twist nervously. he reaches for his own glass and throws it back, swallowing the bitter taste of red wine. the alcohol is fortifying; he doesn’t wither beneath fedya’s gaze.

“alright,” he says finally, though his voice shakes a bit and something quails inside of him. “i’ll kiss you.”

for the first time fedya seems surprised, and it’s strange how it seems to soften the hard angles of his face, smoothing away his meanness. they stay there a moment, silent in limbo- someone hollers in the next room over, followed by ragged cheers, banging, a smattering of applause and the sound of shattering glass.

fedya surges forward- and, oh, his hands are warm, why hadn’t pierre thought his hands would be warm?- calloused palms sliding around the back of pierre’s neck as he jerks him down into a kiss. it’s nothing romantic, too hungry, too demanding. fedya bites down hard on pierre’s lip and he can’t help the soft noise that he makes, or the way that his hands go to fedya’s shoulders, fingers curling tight into his blouse.

h can feel the sharp cut of fedya’s smirk against his mouth, then, and the embarrassment rears its head again, the shame the bubbles up in him. he shoves him away and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, studiously ignoring the way that fedya laughs at him as he forgoes his glass and reaches for the bottle to wash away the taste of him. 

fedya crowds close to him again, presses a sound kiss to pierre’s cheek, and pierre tries not to seem too perturbed though he knows that he fails rather miserably.