Work Text:
I knew she wouldn't talk to anyone. Her candle was still alight in her temporary chamber from what I could make out, but my vision was blurred by the winds of battle where, had there not been rain, would have carried the musty scent of soldiers' blood. My bones were chilled from the water hitting against my evening gown (which I ever so loathed, if we're all being honest) and made my legs shake. I did not shiver from the cold air or even the rainclouds that darkened the soldiers' already blind spirits, but from knowing that she could not sleep, and I couldn't either. I knew she was angry. She was always angry.
Lucky for her, I'm quite the cunning woman when it comes to sneaking in uninvited. I think I had already passed the stage then from "you absolutely cannot do this, you are a woman," skirting on "you really shouldn't do this, you are a woman." But really I'd believe the stage I was really at when it came to coaxing these old geezers would boil down to, "it's highly frowned upon that you do this but you are a fucking terrifying woman." Which was perfectly alright with me, just as so I could keep my uniform and kick some Hungarian ass. But I wasn't really in the mood for fighting in the rain, especially when she'd lock herself in her chamber when the body count reeled in.
The good thing about the storm was that I could sneak around under a cloudy veil of protection, just so that I was careful to keep my head down and my coat hugged tightly around my figure. My hair was tucked between my coat and my gown as to keep it from fluttering into the wind and weaving it into the wind like a tattered Prussian flag. Our camp was back a ways from my dear friend's house, so it had been a long haul getting here. But if I could convince the colonel to let me join his regiment despite my gender and, ahem, "condition" (which I knew they really meant that as "her strikingly pure beauty and awesomeness"), I could damn well force my numb fingers to wrap around the dying rose vines that wove up to her window. I scraped my boots against the wooden walls, hoping to get a hold so I could ease my way up, but alas, the rain made this quite a difficult task. I slipped a few times but managed to regain my composure, trying a new tactic by pulling myself up, gripping the vine with one pale hand behind another. It wasn't a largely challenging task, as I didn't just lollygag my way through boot camp, but I did struggle a bit on getting my foot to reach her window sill once I made it that far. I let the vine swing a bit, whispering a silent prayer for it to not break. After a few misses, I finally managed to wedge the toe of my boot onto the sill all while pulling the vine with me for support. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but I succeeded in making it to her window, and a very brief look around confirmed that no one had seen me. Another victory!
I pried my fingers from the vine to knock against the window. The candle could be seen clearly now through a break in the window's curtain, sitting on a desk. It was hard to hear over the rain that had seemed to meddle in and out of my ears, but after a bit I could feel a slight rumble as the window was slammed to the top of the frame. A lovely if bedraggled woman eyed me, her sleepy eyes dulled in confusion. I grinned, struggling a bit to keep my balance against the frame.
"Good evening pretty lady! Mind if I drop in?" I snorted at my hilarious almost-pun. Because I was dropping into her window right? Dropping in?
"Julchen!" she began to shout before covering her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror, "By God is that you? How the hell are you even here?!"
My foot slipped against the window sill, but I quickly regained its grip. "I'd love to answer your questions sweetie but I'm in a bit of a fix here. Would you min---" The vine cracked just a foot above my grip, "Hold out your hand, I know you've got the strength!"
Without thinking, the other woman reached her hand to grab my own, giving me only one hand on the vine. Perhaps the darkness had made me dazed or the rain had managed to kick my foot off the window sill, but my foot slipped again and my grip on the vine went weak. I was fully expectant of falling to the ground and probably breaking my ankles, but a warm hand grasped my own and yanked it with such strength that I had forgotten about over these years. My numbingly cold body awkwardly tumbled through the window, the latch scratching at my ribs before my face met a wooden floor. I tried to move my arms and legs. Nothing appeared to be broken.
"Aha!" I began to shout, before realizing the whole purpose of my grand entrance through the window. "I mean, I did it! I kept my promise!" I whisper-shouted, jumping to my feet.
The other woman's face remained a twisted mix of confusion and anger as she ran her fingers through her tangled hair. "Julchen how the hell did you --"
"An army's life for me!" I replied, a string of pride in my voice. "Knocked them dead with my skills and intimidation! God Liz if you would have seen me train you would have ---"
"Julchen ---"
"But I return ---"
"Julchen you're hurt! Damn you!" my friend sat me down on her bed, paying no heed to the fact that my coat was soaking her quilt. Dazed, I looked down at my coat for a little bit before realizing that my hands were the part of me bearing injury. Elizaveta - sometimes I forget that was her real name - reached for a glass of water that had remained untouched on her nightstand. I said nothing as she kneeled before me and ripped a piece of her night gown off, soaking it in water before wrapping it around my wounds. The cuts were fairly deep, but I had seen worse. I chuckled a bit.
"You seem so worried."
"Of course I'm worried!" Elizaveta snapped, "As if cutting up your hands to get into my window isn't dangerous enough, I have to hear that /you/ joined the goddamn Prussian /army/?" She tied a neat knot around my injured hands. I moved my thumb over the improvised bandage.
"These look like a beggar's mittens." I gave a weak smile, waving my fingers on each side of me.
Elizaveta sighed, sitting down on the floor and burying her face in her hand. "You're impossible."
"Nothing's impossible."
"How!" Elizaveta cried. Her hands found the sides of her head and tugged at her hair. She looked toward her feet. I looked toward my own. The mud on my boots dirtied the floors that before looked like they had just been swept.
"How do you even manage to do that? How did you find my house again?" The questions poured out of the woman as the rain would from the clouds. They boomed outside the window. Walking back would certainly be a journey. We listened in silence for a bit before I even decided to contemplate a response...
"You know why," I smiled, adjusting her hair that laid in untidy patterns on her head.
"If you're telling me you joined a war and walked across the border to Hungary in the pouring rain just to see me, I'd accuse you of lying."
"Then call me a liar."
"Argh!" Elizaveta rose from the ground, a small smile creeping on her face. I mimicked her move, rising from her now damp bed.
"Jules, you haven't changed at all." She sighed. As quickly as it had come, her grin faded as she cupped my chin in her hands. I looked back, unmoving, trying to be blind to the worry my old friend's stern eyes held.
"I want you to listen to me," she said evenly, not breaking eye contact. "Quit the army. It's too dangerous, especially for you. I don't know why you came to Hungary, but you need to leave. It's unsafe for you here. They will kill you." She winced at how her voice cracked at the end of her sentence. I was too blind to notice, so I smiled.
"Liz! You're missing the point," I gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder. She didn't smile, so my own grin weakened. "I'm good, Liz. I'm strong. And I did all of this for a reason, and that reason was you. I returned for you. I fulfilled my promise." My eyes met the floor in realization.
"I still don't see why you would --"
"God! It's because, gee I don't know, I miss you?" I struggled to keep my composure, but everything was coming out at once. The rain was falling, and the only direction the drops could travel now was the ground. So I continued.
"It's been three years of not seeing you and I haven't been able to breathe. I can't think, I can't function, I haven't been able to cleanse my mind of you ever since this war started three years ago. God Liz! You were my blanket when I was shivering, my mind when I couldn't think, and the sun when I was trapped in the dark, and I guess I was just unhappy with all that going away. I was alone; none of my family cares for me. Do you think they said to me, 'Hey Julchen, you really shouldn't go for the army because you'll get killed?' No. They don't care about whether I live or die. Oh no, it was 'You can't go for the army Julchen. You're a girl Julchen. You're weak.' Do you know how sick I am of people looking at me and telling their children to stay away from me because I'm not a goddamn 'lady'? Do you know how great it was for me to finally have someone who would understand that? Now I'm just sick to my stomach because we had to move and I would never see you again. I couldn't deal with that, Liz. That's why I promised I'd return. I guess I forgot to consider that you'd forget about me."
I didn't even notice I was shaking against the wall until Elizaveta's stable fingers filled the spaces between my own. She brought my hand to her lips, pressing them gently onto my cold fingers. I watched as she moved my hand, steading it between us to unlock our fingers, palm to palm. Her gaze left our hands to meet my eyes. I had to do something, I had to fix this somehow, but my lips remained sealed. There was just one other thing....
"I could never forget who you are to me," Elizaveta whispered, "And I am selfish in being glad that you came." Her forehead was close enough to meet my own with a gentle touch. Tears formed in the Hungarian's eyes.
"If you want me to, I can go," I averted my gaze to the candle. It still burned bright. How long had it been burning? "And I can never bother you again ---"
My voice was cut off suddenly as I felt soft lips meet insistently against mine. I moved mine with hers in effort to make sense what was going on before my dull head recognized that she was kissing me. It registered a bit too late, as her lips parted.
"I need you," she breathed, trying to choke back a sob, "I need you, and I need you to not die." Her lips quivered, and her hand clasped mine again, this time in a more firm grim than a comforting one. Then it echoed through my mind just how badly I had wished for this moment. This is what I had been hoping for. I needed her too. With a pointing finger, I lifted her chin and returned a kiss of my own, desperate in a selfish attempt to keep her as my own. I needed her too. I needed her soft voice, her tangled hair, her fiery independence, her soft lips; I needed it all. She returned my gesture, and our lips moved in a steady rhythm in the darkness. I licked her bottom lip with a seemingly innocent tune before she answered my request, and I deepened the kiss. Removing my hand from hers, I wrapped my arms around her waist, causing her to break the kiss in a giggle.
"W-What?" I stammered in question, thankful for the darkness. Blushing cheeks looked like roses on pale skin.
She just giggled, unbuttoning my wet coat to which I was still wearing my gown underneath. "You hate nightgowns."
"You hate rain." I smirked, pecking at her lips. My thoughts whirled through my head in a frenzy of loose wires, trying to make sense of it all. How good it was to be back in her arms will be a bliss I’d always remember, and I’d cherish it to my battle coated heart. She slipped my army coat over my shoulders, hanging it neatly on the door of her closet. I laughed, taking my chance to grab her waist again from behind. She squeaked when she felt herself pulled back to me, covering her mouth from the sound. It was hard for me not to burst out in laughter.
“If my parents come back here and see you they’ll think I truly have gone mad!” Elizaveta snapped, her old self returning. God how I had missed that.
“Maybe you should get your own place!” I teased, making a move for her lips again. She obviously would have none of it. Grabbing my wrist, she pulled me to her bed, managing to straddle me and pin my arms down despite my attempts at resistance. Damn. I had forgotten how strong she was.
“Hey what ever happened to keeping quiet?” I laughed as she glared at me. She grinned, and my heart felt like it would just float away.
“I forgot how much I missed your dickish ways,” she scoffed, letting go of my wrists to get down on her elbows. She rolled her eyes before kissing me again lightly at first, and then deeper still. My arms resumed their place on her hips. Everything around me – the storm, the furniture, my coat that still smelled of smoke and rain – faded to dark. It was irrelevant, missing, gone. Soon the bed disappeared, and all that was left to my senses was Elizaveta. Elizaveta’s hair brushing against my neck, her dark eyelashes fluttering against my white ones, her tongue chasing my own. Elizaveta. My friend Liz. My Liz.
After a while, our lips parted, and all that was left was our breathing. She came down from her elbows to rest her head beside mine, nuzzling her forehead into my neck. I ran my fingers through her hair absently, lost in the bliss of soft breathing and a still steady rainfall. We lay for a while, but I wasn’t sure of the time. Dark was something of eternal when storm clouds were present. I didn’t care about the time. I realized in that moment, I really didn’t care about anything. The only thing I cared about was lying beside me, her breathing steady in her chest. But something seemed to click. She jolted up.
“Jules…” she sat upright, but her voice trailed off.
I sat up myself, a puppet to her every move. “Hm?”
“Are you really going to fight?” she spoke hesitantly. The coldness of the air returned. I rose to my feet stiffly, looking toward the window. Though the rain was still present, it was lighter now.
“Yes,” I replied neutrally, “I am going to fight. And I’ll win too, you watch!” I turned back to her, my arms extended like a small bird who thought they were an eagle.
She gave a weak smile, her eyes dulling at the sight of the growing morning. Taking a step forward, she lifted my chin to meet her lips, as I had done before. “Please be safe.”
I chuckled, kissing her forehead. “I’ll always return to you, my dear.”