FIC: "Seulement pour oublier" - Saint-Just/Robespierre, Saint-Just/OCs - Rated R
Unsubtle oral fixation icon is unsubtle ---------------->
In other news, I am a monster. But this fic is hot, amazing and exceptionally well-written too. I win. Even if my virtue suffers greatly from it. /self-flattery.
I want many "alskdjfs" and all variations from it. Feed the hypocritical and objectifying pornographer here, and don't fear to comment on what it is. Yes, yes: it just is.
Title: Seulement pour oublier
Author: Maelicia
Rating: R
Era: Novembre 1793 (Brumaire An II).
Pairings: Saint-Just/Robespierre; Saint-Just/OCs.
Word Count: 3453
Summary: "Saint-Just had always told himself that only one man would be allowed to touch him... that way."
Warnings: masturbation; sexual fantasies involving many men... (I’m keeping the suspense here.)
Beta'ed by estellacat.
Seulement pour oublier
~By Maelicia
Saint-Just woke up too early again, long before Le Bas would even start moving dreamily in his sleep. He dressed quickly and walked out, always eager to discover the streets of this city, which appeared to be completely new to him. One month he had been in Strasbourg. Wasn’t it strange how time could pass both fast and terribly slowly, just like the approaching dawn: when the black ink of the night sky progressively faded into a clearer blue, so that the sun finally announced itself. Then the sun always came and the long wait was immediately spoiled by its rapid race into the sky.
Saint-Just passed a few people in the still mostly deserted streets: busy people, some preparing their shops for their customers; others preparing themselves for the patrie. In this new age, the two had merged almost entirely and it was difficult to remember that it hadn’t always been so. Maybe there would be a time when they indeed would be, and the man couldn’t quite decide his opinion on this. There were strange moments like these, when he couldn’t settle his mind on a single idea, when he couldn’t isolate it like all the other times. Usually, he would take his carnet in his pocket and note down a few ideas: this always helped to make them clear. Almost definite. Yet not quite immortal.
But he would not write now: it was still too dark, and Saint-Just wanted to linger in the chaos of his mind, at least until dawn. Because light would sort out everything.
He had had strange dreams again - fortunately noiseless. The week before, he had considered preventively choking himself into a pillow as he slept, fearing that Le Bas might hear more than inappropriate sounds. A part of him missed Paris. Odd, because he never missed the places he left. But Paris. So many memories there: nightmares and yet the warmth of a certain person’s arms. The comfort of a smile. The touch of a delicate hand on his cheek, in his hair. Fingers twining in his curls. And this morning was so chilly, he could definitely use that.
And am I not a pathetic hypocrite, he suddenly berated himself. He, who exhorted (or ordered; reactions to his laconic sentences always depended on whether it was a patriot or a potential traitor who heard and interpreted them) the citizens to sacrifice, to austerity, and to rigor, was now missing the warmth and comfort of his... of a... I am weak, his mind repeated. I should know better.
Yet, he was somehow satisfied with his dreams. With their tenderness anyway, which was so unusual. Maybe missing him wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. The memory of him, the lack of him, could finally supersede and erase the bad memories... and the lack of harshness. Harshness and anonymity: he had never thought he could ever wish for them, entirely wilfully, one day. Only to forget. Always to forget. But how to forget who he was when everyone he crossed saluted him and glanced nervously and fearfully at him? Why this fear? Why this nervousness? Did they all have something with which to reproach themselves? Something they were guilty of? Like him? Was no one innocent? But Maximilien? Poor Maximilien. Who hoped and believed so much. And he, Saint-Just, offered him all he had ever wanted to see, the only proof he needed of the balance and logic of the universe: that humanity could be saved. But Saint-Just was a bad example, and Maximilien would never truly know those depths from which he had saved the younger man. Nor those from which he hadn’t exactly saved him.
Yet, Saint-Just knew this was an unfair judgement: not everyone looked at him this way. Among them there were the children, and the young widows, and a few elderly people. The nervousness and fear hiding in their glances or hollow stares weren’t quite the same: theirs were about themselves, not for the things they possessed; theirs were for the things they knew they had lost or would never have. Generally, there was something resolute in their eyes, a sense of understanding, of acceptance and of fatality that the first never had. Was that the innocence Maximilien saw? Saint-Just would recognise it as such, but the things he read were more troubling and upsetting than soothing.
He turned the corner of a street and saw five soldiers, filling a cart with supplies he had very likely signed a decree about on the previous day. He observed them and then remembered: the soldiers too had an entirely different way to look at him. Some, the youngest, seemed to be looking at him the way he, himself, had once looked at his father. It was strange, considering he was barely older than most of them; considering he was not a soldier himself, but a representative of the People, of the Convention, of the Committee of Public Safety. He could read it in the way they stared at his distinctive blue costume, at his tricolour sash and the plumes on his hat.
The world of his father: a world he half belonged to, a world his own mother had tried to make him forget with all her social gatherings with notaries, marrying his sisters to notaries.
If he crossed these five soldiers, they’d call him Citoyen-Représentant and he’d call them Citoyens-Soldats. The oldest one, with the broad shoulders, was barely thirty. They were young and brave, around his own age, though two of them still lacked the developed features of maturity. They still had the traits of adolescence that had barely started to fade from Saint-Just’s own face from his many sleepless nights. In the distance, Saint-Just noted that one of the soldiers, who was in his late twenties to early thirties, seemed to have the same hair colour as Maximilien. How futile, Saint-Just scoffed, cursing the free wanderings of his mind. He wondered if they had been in a battle already. Certainly. He wondered how many enemies they had killed, how many friends they had lost, how long they would survive, what horrors they would see, what wonders of the new era, of peace, they would witness. And then... then he noted that one of them had very long hair, brought together in an old-fashioned ponytail. He frowned and grimaced, disapproving of this sudden thought, and especially of the way he suddenly wished to touch it. And why would I? He disdainfully rebuked himself again. Why would he want to touch him? Why would he want them to touch him? He felt himself flush, suddenly, and he quickly glanced at his feet, shaking his head and hoping this could look like a mere reaction to cold. Where was this thought coming from? Saint-Just had always told himself that only one man would be allowed to touch him... that way.
He could have continued down the street; he could have met these five soldiers and saluted them. However, he did not. He walked back down the street one block, and turned another corner. You’re ridiculous, he immediately reproved himself. Yet he knew it was the only way to chase these sickening and objectionable thoughts from his mind. If someone knew... If Maximilien knew...
As he was trying to reason himself that no one - including Maximilien - would obviously ever know, he crossed the path of an officer. They nodded to each other, and Saint-Just resisted turning back to see the street he was taking, because he was certainly going to meet up with the five soldiers, or perhaps not, and this would not interest Saint-Just. It would be childish.
The dawn was long in coming, maybe because there were clouds that Saint-Just hadn’t noticed. Rain wouldn’t bother him.
***
Indeed there had been rain, all through the very long day. He wasn’t requested to remain outside as he had been, to supervise an important requisition and to read a proclamation. But Saint-Just wouldn’t appear like one of these unpatriotic representatives who had deceived the soldiers and the people by pretending to be very brave and yet hiding in their official houses. Saint-Just knew the fancy banquets some of these corrupt and rotten ones had enjoyed while the people starved. He knew of their tastes, how opulence enthralled them under their masks of austerity. Weak-willed and fragile representatives who would be afraid of the rain, no doubt.
But not Saint-Just: he would bear it like anyone else.
Nevertheless, that evening he did get a few comments from Le Bas, who seemed to have found it quite unnecessary and clearly didn’t understand the pertinence of a good example. So he probably did, Saint-Just then conceded. But Saint-Just didn’t want to argue with him anyway. He wouldn’t catch cold, even if the weather of Alsace wasn’t exactly that of Paris. It wasn’t any colder than the weather of the Aisne - and Le Bas should know that it clearly couldn’t be any colder than that of the North.
He did take off his clothes at last, so that Le Bas fell silent. Saint-Just had to recognise, however unfortunately, that Le Bas was quite right: his clothes were really drenched. No, he had had to repeat Le Bas a few times, he hadn’t fallen in the river Ill or in the Rhine.
Saint-Just slipped into warmer (and dry) clothes, and sat at the table near his colleague. They worked for a few hours before they ate a meagre (yet sufficiently healthy) meal; then they worked late into the night, as they usually did. Finally, they resolved to go to sleep and to continue with the demands and appeals the next morning, before they met with General Pichegru, as was planned.
From the day he had arrived, Saint-Just had considered the fact that the two men would have two personal rooms in their lodgings to be overly capricious. However, after he had heard Le Bas detailing very carefully each of his feelings and whining and rambling about his wife for a few, very long days, Saint-Just was glad to have a door he could shut at nights.
There was something else as well. For one thing, he couldn’t lock the door of his own room. He didn’t really understand why; this wasn’t very safe. Not that he couldn’t defend himself - and thus he always kept his pistol nearby - but being assassinated in his sleep was obviously not the way he imagined his own death. However, he was more afraid about his colleague entering his room than an assassin - as bizarre as this would sound. He always wondered how much the walls and door would actually stifle the noise (or screams) he could make in his sleep, and he would truly hate to see Le Bas rushing in his room to see if he was all right. He was fine. Always. Everybody had a few nightmares.
Yet, at the moment, nightmares were not what was bothering Saint-Just, but insomnia. Insomnia. It happened. Usually, he would go back to work. Sometimes, he would not sleep at all. He had started doing it a few weeks ago, from time to time. It was rare, and he always remembered to sleep a bit more, because it couldn’t be healthy, and couldn’t make him, in the long-term, as efficient and vigorous as he needed to be for his duties. It always made him feel so strange. Yet, he liked to try it, only to know he could fight this corporeal need of sleeping. He could beat it down; it always happened around the same hour, when he no longer felt the weight of exhaustion. The urges to sleep vanished, and he almost felt a sort of euphoria, his mind growing giddy and so light. His whole body felt light, like a feather... and then his limbs grew heavier through the day, suffering from the lack of sleep and reminding him of the cruel demands of life.
Insomnia. Usually, it happened when there was something he couldn’t get off his mind, when he couldn’t void his thoughts. This time, it was a desire he couldn’t rid himself of. He was barely starting to feel warm under the heavy blankets, the fire in the hearth fortunately helping. Yet, it could be better... He tried to remember what the presence of Maximilien felt like, the warmth and the scent of his body overwhelming him. But imagining wasn’t quite the same. How could he already seem to be forgetting? How could these things simply vanish? He had been separated from him for only a month.
Slowly, Saint-Just’s right hand wandered down his body and slid under the bottom edge of his shirt. He reached for his thigh, brushing up lightly to his groin, anticipating and delaying what he truly desired until he could finally feel the hair rising with his shivers. He pursed his lips, determined not to sigh, because granting a sigh was the direction to take toward then allowing a moan, and so on. His body was warm, almost feverish - possibly the result of being exposed, so long, to the rain. But maybe it was just the result of his urges.
Saint-Just thought of all those who argued that it was a corrupting habit. Obviously ludicrous. Then he thought of those who argued it procured a perfectly healthy release. Obviously these were hypocrites, for rarely was there anything perfectly healthy in the images he imagined as he did it. Of course, he wouldn’t necessarily need them, but everything seemed to be far more thrilling when he did, when he tried to picture vivid scenes.
And... his urges suddenly compelled him to remember those soldiers he had seen that morning. He hadn’t entirely forgotten them through the day, even though he hadn’t seen them again, even though he would probably never see them again. Never seeing them again... the thought had something charming. Entrancing. Never seeing them again would mean that they had barely existed in his life. Only once. Like a dream. Like ghosts. Appearing and disappearing. And he hadn’t talked to them, they hadn’t seen him... There was nothing wrong with this: almost like they didn’t really exist, like he had imagined them in the gloomy light of dawn. And if they didn’t exist, he could imagine, perhaps, only in his mind, what he could have done if he had met them. He could let them touch him. Maybe just one of them. He wouldn’t need to speak or explain. It would just happen, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. Even though it wasn’t logical at all. Or so would Maximilien say. But Maximilien wasn’t exactly involved here, and thus he would have nothing to say about this, because he wouldn’t know.
He wished there was someone in his bed, it was true, and he wished it was Maxime. What if someone else were there? Right now? How would he feel? If it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t really feel like he was being touched by someone else, someone nameless, whom he didn’t know, whom he didn’t love. Someone who didn’t love him back or worry about him all the time, about his wellbeing and his comfort. He felt himself growing harder suddenly, and the strokes of his hand built up, firmer.
No, it couldn’t happen in this room; he couldn’t be touched here, it seemed too real, and he feared reality. He needed to imagine it in a place where it could never happen, where it was impossible. So that it would never be true, like those soldiers who didn’t really exist. It could happen in the street where he had seen them, or in the barn where they had taken the cart. One, or all of them, could take him there. Yet, even these scenarios seemed too realistic, too attached to his real memories. It needed to be farther away, somewhere he had never been... not yet. Like those great fields towards the frontier, which he had seen at the horizon when he had arrived in the carriage, those fields where the armies fought.
He could see himself walking in the muddy rows, where the dying, remaining crops had been destroyed by the walks of many men, of horses, of carts and of cannons. It would be a day like today, when the rain would soak Saint-Just’s clothes until they tightened around his body. He didn’t know what he’d be doing there, but, again, logic didn’t really matter. He’d finally be on a battlefield - even if it were a deserted battlefield - with only five soldiers to meet him, to embrace him, to push him against the ground, in the mud, and there was no mounds, no bushes where he could hide: but there was no one to hide from, because there was no one at all but him and those five soldiers, and there was no one but them to hear him moan and scream. And he would forget whose hands would be touching him, as long as they were working to remove (or at least loosen) his cravat, his breeches, his coats. He could hear the characteristic sound of his clothes being torn and he knew some buttons were being carelessly pulled out, falling and disappearing in the wet soil. He would shut his eyes and enjoy the different types of lips on his body: lips on his own, parting to intrude with a tongue; lips on his stomach, slowly and teasingly and maddeningly going down on his erection; lips on his throat, soon revealing ravenous teeth nibbling against the nape. He couldn’t count all the hands on his body - there were too many - and yet he felt that some were missing. He knew one of the soldiers was holding him, kneeling behind him and forcing him to rest against his lap. Thus not touching him so much, apart from clawing his fingers into his ribs. Yet he felt there was someone missing, someone not touching him yet: it would be the oldest of them. He knew that for sure when he started spreading his arms, reaching out for the men around him, wishing to touch them as well, to kiss them back. This was when two pairs of hands gripped him (and gripped at what remained of clothing) and shoved him around, on his stomach. The contact between his face and the soil was abrupt, and he only realised it as he took a deep breath to refill his lungs with the air that had escaped from them: that was when he was overcome with the unpleasant smell of the mud. Yet he didn’t have much time to think about it, for there were hands everywhere again, some pulling down at his breeches - and he suddenly felt a very cool breeze against his buttocks which the kneading hands couldn’t warm up - others holding down his arms or tugging at his hair. He felt himself being pushed forward, landing in the lap of the soldier upon whom he had rested earlier and he knew, from the strong scent, that he was now nuzzling the man’s crotch. He felt a sudden, striking pain behind him - he knew there would be pain. He was brought into a rhythm and his gaping, gasping mouth was filled with something he’d accept to swallow, as he clawed into uniforms, uniforms of those who were all waiting their turns...
Saint-Just came. His hand spread the hot and sticky semen on his stomach and on his chest, drawing a strange pattern, and he shivered and moaned incoherently, madly, not even caring about smothering himself into pillows.
He caught back his breath, slowly, dreading the moment he’d have to open his eyes to meet reality again. It would remain here, in the silence and the shadows of this room, where no one could find it. He wished Maximilien were here; but then, Maximilien would want to know, and Saint-Just would not tell him, so Maxime would continue to worry as he always did, possibly imagining the worst even if he had no idea what ‘the worst’ could be like.
Saint-Just turned on his side. He was exhausted. Had his insomnia passed? He wouldn’t think about it, in fear that it might return and stop him from reaching the dark oblivion of sleep.
He wouldn’t think about anything else.
Especially, he wouldn’t think of that.
Now, forget about it.
The next morning, after he had met Pichegru and left for his walk through Strasbourg, Saint-Just tried not to think about the still humid mud packed down under his boots. Keeping his head high as he always did, he didn’t have time to bother with looking down at his feet.
The End.
Author’s Notes:
I repeat: I am a monster.
Apart from this, I’m not entirely satisfied with the final sexual position shown in the fancy. I’m not sure they fancied about it back then. It seems too modern. But then it’d be surprising to see how much humanity had always been very modern as far as sex is concerned, starting in the Neolithic. Besides, I’m not going to start googling around for references from illustrated libertine books to know if it could be part of their sexual imagination/imagery or not. Last time I did that, it ended dramatically.
Oh well. >.>
In other news, I am a monster. But this fic is hot, amazing and exceptionally well-written too. I win. Even if my virtue suffers greatly from it. /self-flattery.
I want many "alskdjfs" and all variations from it. Feed the hypocritical and objectifying pornographer here, and don't fear to comment on what it is. Yes, yes: it just is.
Title: Seulement pour oublier
Author: Maelicia
Rating: R
Era: Novembre 1793 (Brumaire An II).
Pairings: Saint-Just/Robespierre; Saint-Just/OCs.
Word Count: 3453
Summary: "Saint-Just had always told himself that only one man would be allowed to touch him... that way."
Warnings: masturbation; sexual fantasies involving many men... (I’m keeping the suspense here.)
Beta'ed by estellacat.
Seulement pour oublier
~By Maelicia
Saint-Just woke up too early again, long before Le Bas would even start moving dreamily in his sleep. He dressed quickly and walked out, always eager to discover the streets of this city, which appeared to be completely new to him. One month he had been in Strasbourg. Wasn’t it strange how time could pass both fast and terribly slowly, just like the approaching dawn: when the black ink of the night sky progressively faded into a clearer blue, so that the sun finally announced itself. Then the sun always came and the long wait was immediately spoiled by its rapid race into the sky.
Saint-Just passed a few people in the still mostly deserted streets: busy people, some preparing their shops for their customers; others preparing themselves for the patrie. In this new age, the two had merged almost entirely and it was difficult to remember that it hadn’t always been so. Maybe there would be a time when they indeed would be, and the man couldn’t quite decide his opinion on this. There were strange moments like these, when he couldn’t settle his mind on a single idea, when he couldn’t isolate it like all the other times. Usually, he would take his carnet in his pocket and note down a few ideas: this always helped to make them clear. Almost definite. Yet not quite immortal.
But he would not write now: it was still too dark, and Saint-Just wanted to linger in the chaos of his mind, at least until dawn. Because light would sort out everything.
He had had strange dreams again - fortunately noiseless. The week before, he had considered preventively choking himself into a pillow as he slept, fearing that Le Bas might hear more than inappropriate sounds. A part of him missed Paris. Odd, because he never missed the places he left. But Paris. So many memories there: nightmares and yet the warmth of a certain person’s arms. The comfort of a smile. The touch of a delicate hand on his cheek, in his hair. Fingers twining in his curls. And this morning was so chilly, he could definitely use that.
And am I not a pathetic hypocrite, he suddenly berated himself. He, who exhorted (or ordered; reactions to his laconic sentences always depended on whether it was a patriot or a potential traitor who heard and interpreted them) the citizens to sacrifice, to austerity, and to rigor, was now missing the warmth and comfort of his... of a... I am weak, his mind repeated. I should know better.
Yet, he was somehow satisfied with his dreams. With their tenderness anyway, which was so unusual. Maybe missing him wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. The memory of him, the lack of him, could finally supersede and erase the bad memories... and the lack of harshness. Harshness and anonymity: he had never thought he could ever wish for them, entirely wilfully, one day. Only to forget. Always to forget. But how to forget who he was when everyone he crossed saluted him and glanced nervously and fearfully at him? Why this fear? Why this nervousness? Did they all have something with which to reproach themselves? Something they were guilty of? Like him? Was no one innocent? But Maximilien? Poor Maximilien. Who hoped and believed so much. And he, Saint-Just, offered him all he had ever wanted to see, the only proof he needed of the balance and logic of the universe: that humanity could be saved. But Saint-Just was a bad example, and Maximilien would never truly know those depths from which he had saved the younger man. Nor those from which he hadn’t exactly saved him.
Yet, Saint-Just knew this was an unfair judgement: not everyone looked at him this way. Among them there were the children, and the young widows, and a few elderly people. The nervousness and fear hiding in their glances or hollow stares weren’t quite the same: theirs were about themselves, not for the things they possessed; theirs were for the things they knew they had lost or would never have. Generally, there was something resolute in their eyes, a sense of understanding, of acceptance and of fatality that the first never had. Was that the innocence Maximilien saw? Saint-Just would recognise it as such, but the things he read were more troubling and upsetting than soothing.
He turned the corner of a street and saw five soldiers, filling a cart with supplies he had very likely signed a decree about on the previous day. He observed them and then remembered: the soldiers too had an entirely different way to look at him. Some, the youngest, seemed to be looking at him the way he, himself, had once looked at his father. It was strange, considering he was barely older than most of them; considering he was not a soldier himself, but a representative of the People, of the Convention, of the Committee of Public Safety. He could read it in the way they stared at his distinctive blue costume, at his tricolour sash and the plumes on his hat.
The world of his father: a world he half belonged to, a world his own mother had tried to make him forget with all her social gatherings with notaries, marrying his sisters to notaries.
If he crossed these five soldiers, they’d call him Citoyen-Représentant and he’d call them Citoyens-Soldats. The oldest one, with the broad shoulders, was barely thirty. They were young and brave, around his own age, though two of them still lacked the developed features of maturity. They still had the traits of adolescence that had barely started to fade from Saint-Just’s own face from his many sleepless nights. In the distance, Saint-Just noted that one of the soldiers, who was in his late twenties to early thirties, seemed to have the same hair colour as Maximilien. How futile, Saint-Just scoffed, cursing the free wanderings of his mind. He wondered if they had been in a battle already. Certainly. He wondered how many enemies they had killed, how many friends they had lost, how long they would survive, what horrors they would see, what wonders of the new era, of peace, they would witness. And then... then he noted that one of them had very long hair, brought together in an old-fashioned ponytail. He frowned and grimaced, disapproving of this sudden thought, and especially of the way he suddenly wished to touch it. And why would I? He disdainfully rebuked himself again. Why would he want to touch him? Why would he want them to touch him? He felt himself flush, suddenly, and he quickly glanced at his feet, shaking his head and hoping this could look like a mere reaction to cold. Where was this thought coming from? Saint-Just had always told himself that only one man would be allowed to touch him... that way.
He could have continued down the street; he could have met these five soldiers and saluted them. However, he did not. He walked back down the street one block, and turned another corner. You’re ridiculous, he immediately reproved himself. Yet he knew it was the only way to chase these sickening and objectionable thoughts from his mind. If someone knew... If Maximilien knew...
As he was trying to reason himself that no one - including Maximilien - would obviously ever know, he crossed the path of an officer. They nodded to each other, and Saint-Just resisted turning back to see the street he was taking, because he was certainly going to meet up with the five soldiers, or perhaps not, and this would not interest Saint-Just. It would be childish.
The dawn was long in coming, maybe because there were clouds that Saint-Just hadn’t noticed. Rain wouldn’t bother him.
***
Indeed there had been rain, all through the very long day. He wasn’t requested to remain outside as he had been, to supervise an important requisition and to read a proclamation. But Saint-Just wouldn’t appear like one of these unpatriotic representatives who had deceived the soldiers and the people by pretending to be very brave and yet hiding in their official houses. Saint-Just knew the fancy banquets some of these corrupt and rotten ones had enjoyed while the people starved. He knew of their tastes, how opulence enthralled them under their masks of austerity. Weak-willed and fragile representatives who would be afraid of the rain, no doubt.
But not Saint-Just: he would bear it like anyone else.
Nevertheless, that evening he did get a few comments from Le Bas, who seemed to have found it quite unnecessary and clearly didn’t understand the pertinence of a good example. So he probably did, Saint-Just then conceded. But Saint-Just didn’t want to argue with him anyway. He wouldn’t catch cold, even if the weather of Alsace wasn’t exactly that of Paris. It wasn’t any colder than the weather of the Aisne - and Le Bas should know that it clearly couldn’t be any colder than that of the North.
He did take off his clothes at last, so that Le Bas fell silent. Saint-Just had to recognise, however unfortunately, that Le Bas was quite right: his clothes were really drenched. No, he had had to repeat Le Bas a few times, he hadn’t fallen in the river Ill or in the Rhine.
Saint-Just slipped into warmer (and dry) clothes, and sat at the table near his colleague. They worked for a few hours before they ate a meagre (yet sufficiently healthy) meal; then they worked late into the night, as they usually did. Finally, they resolved to go to sleep and to continue with the demands and appeals the next morning, before they met with General Pichegru, as was planned.
From the day he had arrived, Saint-Just had considered the fact that the two men would have two personal rooms in their lodgings to be overly capricious. However, after he had heard Le Bas detailing very carefully each of his feelings and whining and rambling about his wife for a few, very long days, Saint-Just was glad to have a door he could shut at nights.
There was something else as well. For one thing, he couldn’t lock the door of his own room. He didn’t really understand why; this wasn’t very safe. Not that he couldn’t defend himself - and thus he always kept his pistol nearby - but being assassinated in his sleep was obviously not the way he imagined his own death. However, he was more afraid about his colleague entering his room than an assassin - as bizarre as this would sound. He always wondered how much the walls and door would actually stifle the noise (or screams) he could make in his sleep, and he would truly hate to see Le Bas rushing in his room to see if he was all right. He was fine. Always. Everybody had a few nightmares.
Yet, at the moment, nightmares were not what was bothering Saint-Just, but insomnia. Insomnia. It happened. Usually, he would go back to work. Sometimes, he would not sleep at all. He had started doing it a few weeks ago, from time to time. It was rare, and he always remembered to sleep a bit more, because it couldn’t be healthy, and couldn’t make him, in the long-term, as efficient and vigorous as he needed to be for his duties. It always made him feel so strange. Yet, he liked to try it, only to know he could fight this corporeal need of sleeping. He could beat it down; it always happened around the same hour, when he no longer felt the weight of exhaustion. The urges to sleep vanished, and he almost felt a sort of euphoria, his mind growing giddy and so light. His whole body felt light, like a feather... and then his limbs grew heavier through the day, suffering from the lack of sleep and reminding him of the cruel demands of life.
Insomnia. Usually, it happened when there was something he couldn’t get off his mind, when he couldn’t void his thoughts. This time, it was a desire he couldn’t rid himself of. He was barely starting to feel warm under the heavy blankets, the fire in the hearth fortunately helping. Yet, it could be better... He tried to remember what the presence of Maximilien felt like, the warmth and the scent of his body overwhelming him. But imagining wasn’t quite the same. How could he already seem to be forgetting? How could these things simply vanish? He had been separated from him for only a month.
Slowly, Saint-Just’s right hand wandered down his body and slid under the bottom edge of his shirt. He reached for his thigh, brushing up lightly to his groin, anticipating and delaying what he truly desired until he could finally feel the hair rising with his shivers. He pursed his lips, determined not to sigh, because granting a sigh was the direction to take toward then allowing a moan, and so on. His body was warm, almost feverish - possibly the result of being exposed, so long, to the rain. But maybe it was just the result of his urges.
Saint-Just thought of all those who argued that it was a corrupting habit. Obviously ludicrous. Then he thought of those who argued it procured a perfectly healthy release. Obviously these were hypocrites, for rarely was there anything perfectly healthy in the images he imagined as he did it. Of course, he wouldn’t necessarily need them, but everything seemed to be far more thrilling when he did, when he tried to picture vivid scenes.
And... his urges suddenly compelled him to remember those soldiers he had seen that morning. He hadn’t entirely forgotten them through the day, even though he hadn’t seen them again, even though he would probably never see them again. Never seeing them again... the thought had something charming. Entrancing. Never seeing them again would mean that they had barely existed in his life. Only once. Like a dream. Like ghosts. Appearing and disappearing. And he hadn’t talked to them, they hadn’t seen him... There was nothing wrong with this: almost like they didn’t really exist, like he had imagined them in the gloomy light of dawn. And if they didn’t exist, he could imagine, perhaps, only in his mind, what he could have done if he had met them. He could let them touch him. Maybe just one of them. He wouldn’t need to speak or explain. It would just happen, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. Even though it wasn’t logical at all. Or so would Maximilien say. But Maximilien wasn’t exactly involved here, and thus he would have nothing to say about this, because he wouldn’t know.
He wished there was someone in his bed, it was true, and he wished it was Maxime. What if someone else were there? Right now? How would he feel? If it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t really feel like he was being touched by someone else, someone nameless, whom he didn’t know, whom he didn’t love. Someone who didn’t love him back or worry about him all the time, about his wellbeing and his comfort. He felt himself growing harder suddenly, and the strokes of his hand built up, firmer.
No, it couldn’t happen in this room; he couldn’t be touched here, it seemed too real, and he feared reality. He needed to imagine it in a place where it could never happen, where it was impossible. So that it would never be true, like those soldiers who didn’t really exist. It could happen in the street where he had seen them, or in the barn where they had taken the cart. One, or all of them, could take him there. Yet, even these scenarios seemed too realistic, too attached to his real memories. It needed to be farther away, somewhere he had never been... not yet. Like those great fields towards the frontier, which he had seen at the horizon when he had arrived in the carriage, those fields where the armies fought.
He could see himself walking in the muddy rows, where the dying, remaining crops had been destroyed by the walks of many men, of horses, of carts and of cannons. It would be a day like today, when the rain would soak Saint-Just’s clothes until they tightened around his body. He didn’t know what he’d be doing there, but, again, logic didn’t really matter. He’d finally be on a battlefield - even if it were a deserted battlefield - with only five soldiers to meet him, to embrace him, to push him against the ground, in the mud, and there was no mounds, no bushes where he could hide: but there was no one to hide from, because there was no one at all but him and those five soldiers, and there was no one but them to hear him moan and scream. And he would forget whose hands would be touching him, as long as they were working to remove (or at least loosen) his cravat, his breeches, his coats. He could hear the characteristic sound of his clothes being torn and he knew some buttons were being carelessly pulled out, falling and disappearing in the wet soil. He would shut his eyes and enjoy the different types of lips on his body: lips on his own, parting to intrude with a tongue; lips on his stomach, slowly and teasingly and maddeningly going down on his erection; lips on his throat, soon revealing ravenous teeth nibbling against the nape. He couldn’t count all the hands on his body - there were too many - and yet he felt that some were missing. He knew one of the soldiers was holding him, kneeling behind him and forcing him to rest against his lap. Thus not touching him so much, apart from clawing his fingers into his ribs. Yet he felt there was someone missing, someone not touching him yet: it would be the oldest of them. He knew that for sure when he started spreading his arms, reaching out for the men around him, wishing to touch them as well, to kiss them back. This was when two pairs of hands gripped him (and gripped at what remained of clothing) and shoved him around, on his stomach. The contact between his face and the soil was abrupt, and he only realised it as he took a deep breath to refill his lungs with the air that had escaped from them: that was when he was overcome with the unpleasant smell of the mud. Yet he didn’t have much time to think about it, for there were hands everywhere again, some pulling down at his breeches - and he suddenly felt a very cool breeze against his buttocks which the kneading hands couldn’t warm up - others holding down his arms or tugging at his hair. He felt himself being pushed forward, landing in the lap of the soldier upon whom he had rested earlier and he knew, from the strong scent, that he was now nuzzling the man’s crotch. He felt a sudden, striking pain behind him - he knew there would be pain. He was brought into a rhythm and his gaping, gasping mouth was filled with something he’d accept to swallow, as he clawed into uniforms, uniforms of those who were all waiting their turns...
Saint-Just came. His hand spread the hot and sticky semen on his stomach and on his chest, drawing a strange pattern, and he shivered and moaned incoherently, madly, not even caring about smothering himself into pillows.
He caught back his breath, slowly, dreading the moment he’d have to open his eyes to meet reality again. It would remain here, in the silence and the shadows of this room, where no one could find it. He wished Maximilien were here; but then, Maximilien would want to know, and Saint-Just would not tell him, so Maxime would continue to worry as he always did, possibly imagining the worst even if he had no idea what ‘the worst’ could be like.
Saint-Just turned on his side. He was exhausted. Had his insomnia passed? He wouldn’t think about it, in fear that it might return and stop him from reaching the dark oblivion of sleep.
He wouldn’t think about anything else.
Especially, he wouldn’t think of that.
Now, forget about it.
The next morning, after he had met Pichegru and left for his walk through Strasbourg, Saint-Just tried not to think about the still humid mud packed down under his boots. Keeping his head high as he always did, he didn’t have time to bother with looking down at his feet.
The End.
Author’s Notes:
I repeat: I am a monster.
Apart from this, I’m not entirely satisfied with the final sexual position shown in the fancy. I’m not sure they fancied about it back then. It seems too modern. But then it’d be surprising to see how much humanity had always been very modern as far as sex is concerned, starting in the Neolithic. Besides, I’m not going to start googling around for references from illustrated libertine books to know if it could be part of their sexual imagination/imagery or not. Last time I did that, it ended dramatically.
Oh well. >.>