#me barging in with donuts and a cigarette hanging out of my mouth: FIVAN RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AU? ANYONE? I GOT YOUR AUS RIGHT HERE!

[qqueenofhades]

Fivan + 2 please ❤ in your modern au or in canon, idc

2. “Stay here tonight.”

It is the night of October 25, 1917, in the Old Style, and outside the windows, the streets of Petrograd are in total chaos. The telegraph lines of the Winter Palace have been cut, even as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's proclamation, To the Citizens of Russia, clatters across the wires to every corner of the country, proclaiming the overthrow of the Provisional Government established in February and the total victory of the Bolsheviks and their Military-Revolutionary Committee. Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky is one of the few soldiers still at his post, even though he knows that it's only a matter of time. He can hear the distant, surging roar of the revolutionaries coming closer and closer, the boom of the cruiser firing shots in the harbor, the song of angry men. They will be in here before the night is out.

His hands are slick with sweat, but he holds his gun as tightly as he can. The cabinet of the Provisional Government is closeted within, leaving a scanty force of soldiers, officers, Cossacks, and cadets to resist the imminent invasion, but it's clear they will have to flee, as Tsar Nicholas II and his family have already done. There are already whispers among the men that they should do the same, turn their coats and join the victorious rebels. Fedyor hasn't decided where he falls. He has a duty here. He can't just leave it. And yet.

The roar comes closer, something living and furious and savage, the crash of breaking windows and rattling iron, as the forty-thousand-strong Bolshevik mob surges against the gates of the Winter Palace and breaks them down. Minutes later, they're inside. There follows almost three hours of confused fighting among the glittering hallways and under the chandeliers where grand dukes and princes whirled their wives and mistresses by the bejeweled hand, in all the decadence and splendor of the imperial court. Priceless paintings are ripped to shreds, glass and woodwork smashed. Fedyor fights messily, hand to hand, whichever of them he encounters. Until he comes around a corner, runs straight into one of them and is caught clean off guard, and the next moment, backhanded viciously to the floor.

As the Bolshevik raises the butt of his rifle to smash Fedyor's face in, he discovers to his disgust that he is in fact, at the end, a coward more than he is a loyalist. "Don't," he begs. "Don't kill me. I surrender."

The Bolshevik stares at him grimly down his long nose, from a face that seems made for the express purpose of scowling. At this close range, Fedyor can tell from the insignia on his collar that he is a member of the Red Guard, the paramilitary people's organization drawn together to support the establishment of a supreme soviet socialist republic. In other words, the most dedicated and ruthless of all the Bolsheviks, and Fedyor has no reason to think this one will show him mercy. He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the end.

It doesn't come. He dares to open his eyes. The Red Guard is still glaring at him, but in frustration. Then he snaps, "What's someone like you doing here? How old are you? Twelve?"

"Nineteen." Fedyor bristles. To judge from his speech, this newcomer is from Siberia, which has probably been a fertile recruiting ground for long jeremiads about the excessive luxury of the urban elite, and Fedyor does not intend to be judged by some cowpoke. "If we're asking that question, why are you here? Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's treasonous to overthrow the government?"

To his surprise, the Bolshevik snorts, as if he didn't want to laugh, isn't used to laughing, and is slightly annoyed that Fedyor made him do it. "Get out of here," he advises tersely. "Or turn your coat and join us. I might not have killed you, but someone else will."

This is, in all respects, a fine idea, but something still makes Fedyor hesitate. "I, uh," he says awkwardly. "Thank you for, you know. Not doing that. I suppose."

"No honor in killing boys." The Red stares at him, flinty-eyed and imperturbable. This is not the moment, it really is not, to notice that he is rather handsome. "I said. Get out."

Fedyor mutters a prayer for the Almighty to forgive him, if God has not been asleep in Heaven for quite a long time now when it comes to Russia, and the devil, in the person of Grigori Rasputin, has been ruling instead. Then he dodges through the chaotic corridors, clambers through a broken window into the palace grounds, and makes his escape, with no idea what to do or where to go. All around him, the night resounds with sound and fury.

He finally finds somewhere in a side alley to dodge out of sight and await the inevitable. Just past two AM, he hears the bells ringing across the city, a sign that the revolutionaries have fully seized control of the Winter Palace, and it's done, it's over, his side has lost. Perhaps he should feel more upset about this than he does. It is abstract.

Fedyor spends the next two days adrift in the shattered sea of Petrograd, everyone completely agog and afraid and with no idea what will happen to them now. He sells his soldier's coat with its brass buttons for food and a blanket, reduced to no better than any other of the terrified refugees. He can't go back to the Winter Palace, and the revolutionaries are blocking any train he might take home to Nizhny Novgorod. He sits near the dock as the third evening is falling, shivering and hungry and scared. What now, what now, what --

"What are you doing here?"

He jumps out of his wits at the angry hiss, nearly drops his blanket in the water, and startles to his feet. It can't be, but it is, the Red Guard who spared him in the assault. They stare at each other. The Bolshevik looks like he has been on patrol, rifle on his back, and while it's not the wisest thing to say to such a terrifying-looking fellow, it comes out anyway. "Are you ever," Fedyor says, "going to ask me something besides what I'm doing somewhere? Such as my name?"

The humorless Red bastard scowls at him. Then he demands, as if he would in fact like to know the answer and is very annoyed about it, "So what is your name?"

"Fedyor." Fedyor folds his arms. "Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky. You?"

"Ivan." It comes after a long, reluctant pause. "Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov. You should get off the streets."

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

Ivan Ivanovich acknowledges that with a terse nod. He debates with himself, then thrusts out a hand. "This way."

Fedyor follows him warily, not sure if he's being lured off to be shot in the head like the rest of the White Russians, but Ivan leads him to a tiny hovel in the working-class districts of Petrograd, a small room lit by a gaslamp. "You can stay here tonight," he says brusquely. "Just one night, do you hear me? After that, I can't help you."

"All right." Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Fedyor warily sits down. "And you? Where do you sleep?"

"Since you are there -- " Ivan jerks his chin at the narrow bed -- "on the floor. Do not be mistaken. I do not like you. As I said. It is only a matter of honor. Even rebels have it, you know."

Fedyor isn't sure, but he doesn't want to disagree. He lies down and folds his hands on his chest, staring at the garret ceiling, as Ivan Ivanovich settles on the frayed rug. And so -- it is strange, impossible, but no more than anything else in this new world with no rules -- side by side, imperial soldier and Red revolutionary, they sleep.