Series: « L'histoire française », 20 historical Francis Bonnefoy drabbles. Written for lj/hetachallenge. Find my table at lj/coeurgryffondor.

L'histoire française
Assassination

He lays in Francis's bed for days. He doesn't speak, he doesn't eat, just lays on his stomach, staring out the window. Francis likes to imagine the warmer weather will be good for him but perhaps it would have been better if it'd been the dead of winter, snow fluttering past as if all was still right with the world.

Which it wasn't. Between the war going on all around Francis and worrying after Arthur and the boys and his sister, the worst by far was Ivan's pain.

Because they made him watch, marched him into the room where the Romanovs sat waiting for their portrait to be taken. He watched that realization dawn on their faces, watched the guns be fired, watched the men stab the women with their bayonets before shooting them in the head, heads Ivan had kissed, had loved, children he had raised and a tsar he had considered like a brother.

They had made him watch.

Then they let him go, back to the White Army, to be with them when the bodies of the extended family were found, to flee his own country, to seek sanctuary elsewhere. Who would give the feared Ivan Braginski shelter? Everyone had their own problems to deal with.

Francis hadn't been surprised when he'd opened his door to find Ivan, clothing tattered, hair dirty, tears streaming down his face, a crumpled up photograph in his hands. He'd managed to get the Russian to bathe and change into a new pair of clothes, or at least he'd gotten him to lay in the bath and to pull on new underclothes. Since then he's been laying in Francis's bed.

The French nation understands as he lays beside Ivan, his chest pressing into the large Russian back that's pale and scared, a little dot for every bullet fired upon the royal family, a slash for each time his girls were stabbed. Francis lays with him and holds him in his arms, at a lost for what else to do.

Ivan makes no sign to show anything's changed; he doesn't look up, doesn't relax, doesn't stiff, just stays the same, as if nothing matters anymore.

When he looks at those violet eyes once so full of life, they are dead.

The Russian nation had been frightening before; with nothing left to loose, Francis fears the newly transformed Ivan that will emerge from the ashes.

Yet in his arms is not that nation with its new government and new society. In his arms is a little Slavic boy who grew up alone in a snow storm, dreaming of sunflowers and friends. A little boy who grew too quickly and loved too much and Francis starts to break down at the thought, burying his head between Ivan's shoulder blades. The day of the French king and queen's execution had been known before hand but this, the assassination of the Romanovs….

Rolling onto his back Ivan pulls Francis to his chest and looking up he sees silent tears rolling down those white cheeks, purple eyes searching for something in him. Francis leans forward and kisses Ivan, passionately, holding his face between his hands. Their legs tangle together and he tries so much to give the Russian life he barely has left in himself just to keep him alive.

It's always been complicated for the Russian, but Francis has more often than not counted him a personal friend. They used to go to the ballet, send each other books, play chess via letters. And it was nice to have that camaraderie, to have someone understand that it's not about whether or not you liked the old or new government, it was about the family you loved that died in the process.

Strong arms pull Francis to Ivan's chest and finally the man beneath him breaks down, crying and moaning and letting go of some angst that will never leave him, now as much a part of his bones as the cold Russian winter. And that kills a part of Francis, a wound that will never heal for either of them.