Julie shifts around on the bed, finding a position that is more pleasing to sit in, and she draws in a deep breath. Her vision is towards her lap for the moment, her mouth partially open for a few seconds before beginning. "Olivier, mon chéri, you really need to stop thinking about this whole war thing that's been stuck in your head for so long." Julie beholds me with eyes that to anyone else would seem caring, but all I see in them is pity. There is no empathy for my situation in Julie's set of emotions. She only retains the ideology of "wow, what a poor boy," an ideology that I have no need of. She has no intention of helping me work through my struggles, and I have no intention of marrying her or even considering liking her.

My parents, deciding that I need a break from all of my depressive thoughts and from my trauma, have also decided to invite Julie over to the house. They say it's to help me feel better and more connected to the world, but I know they're just doing it so that I might become more acquainted with Julie and actually start to not hate her. Being from a noble family, my parents are worried about how their social reputation will be affected by my solitude. The early twenties are a good age to start considering a suitor and then marrying them, and since I am of that age, my parents are becoming more and more desperate for me to spark an interest in Julie. I don't know why they don't just move on to someone else besides Julie, as it is clearly not working out between us. Maybe they just don't know it, and think that we are going steady. But after what she said about Alexei at the ball in Saint Petersburg, my forgiveness of her actions is far from my to-do list. I can usually manage to sit with her long enough to appease my parents, but it is becoming harder and harder to tolerate her.

"And how do you propose that I just simply forget all of the horrors that I've seen?" I challenge her, but she does not accept my challenge, only continues to spew out that same ridiculous bullshit that she's been spewing out for years. She is a noble, after all.

"I think you're being a tad dramatic, love," Julie counters, stroking my arm with that same pitying expression that is as thick and disgusting as her makeup.

"You have not seen what I have seen." Done with everything that Julie has to offer, I rise from the bed and storm out of the room. I don't even give a shit that this is my house and that she is now alone in my bedroom, because I am sorting through too much animosity to care. I don't want to see her repulsive face any longer. I have to get out of the house, no matter the consequences of what lies beyond our doors.

The streets are a danger for me because of the people who roam them. The little children who have no filter will explicitly ask their parents if I am the man who ran away from the battlefield of Borodino, and their parents will hush them to avoid provoking me or making a scene or being seen as impolite. The teenagers and young adults will size me up with their friends, watching me with sneers as they report to their buddies all of the violent things that they would like to do to me. Other teenager and young adults will shout at me to make themselves feel important. I find that it's best to ignore them. The adults won't actually say anything to me, but they will look at me for longer than what is considered polite, then they will whisper to the person next to them while they continue to look, or look back and forth between me and their companion. It feels icky to be the talk of the town and to be recognized wherever I go, to have everyone's eyes on me at all times. I have no peace in France, but it's not like I can return to Russia with my identity as a Frenchman, let alone a former French soldier.

I have been ignoring these imbeciles for the entire time that I've been back in France, so one more day doesn't hurt me. Besides, it's better to be taunted on the streets to be told that my experience is invalid by an idiotic girl who knows nothing of war, by a girl who has never stepped outside of elite civilization, by a girl who has always been entitled to what she wants. I will risk the streets if it means that I don't have to risk Julie. I don't expect the conditions out here to be perfect, but I do expect them to be better than what I have left inside my house.

Obviously they are far from perfect, which I understand once again, two minutes away from the house, as I am approached by a gang of boys around my age who clearly want to start some shit with me. I don't pay them any mind before they speak.

"You're Olivier Renaud, non?" one of the boys asks. His face is a nasty one, stretched into a sneer as if he has any sort of authority over me. This is the same type of boy that would be killed in an instant on the battlefield, his last thought one of hatred for his enemy, still convinced, even after he's been ushered to death by them, that he can beat them. He appears to be the leader of the group, and he's definitely the one with the most guts, judging from the way that he approached me on the street despite having only met me with a layer of falsity through the twisted gossip spiraling all around his ears.

"Oui, that would be me," I answer.

I prepare myself for trouble, but I don't jump to anger yet. I let these boys play out their little fantasies in their heads. How glorious it feels to be naive like them. I can distinctly remember those days when war had not yet hardened my soul into stone.

None of the boys provide me with their names, so I subtly push the demand. "Am I going to becoming acquainted with you lot, or do you prefer to remain anonymous just in case you don't actually have as much power as you think you do?"

The boy looks to the side, smiling to himself for a moment as a slight acknowledgement of how my comment affected him, then shifting his head back towards me. "You're tough, aren't you?" A slight chuckle, sarcastic. "Though I guess not tough enough to not abandon your country in the military."

My emotional state regarding anger is at an interesting point right now. Julie pulled me over the line from calmness to anger, and now these boys are pulling me so far through the anger spectrum that I have reverted back to calmness again. I do not yell at them, only speak in a level tone. I'm sure they would feed off of my anger if I showed it anyway. My goal is not to fight with them. My goal is to set them straight. I hope they learn something from it.

My face slightly moving only to talk, I deliver a piece of information that these boys need to grasp. "You evidently haven't experienced the military, because if you had, your attitude would've gotten you killed, and unfortunately you're still here living, so tell me" -- I set my jaw tight for an instant, then unlock it to speak -- "what makes you think that you have the right to judge what you do not comprehend, what you cannot comprehend?"

"I know well enough what happened," the boy claims, with that tone of entitlement that has always put me on edge. "I heard about that little Russian boy, too." He smirks in the same way that someone who has delivered the winning piece of an argument would smirk.

And in some ways, he has delivered the winning piece of the argument. I can deal with when an ignorant fool makes comments about me, because I am not affected by them. But when they make comments about Alexei, who has already suffered too much in his lifetime and should not suffer from within the grave, that is where I draw the line. Alexei has done nothing to deserve these remarks, but he has no way to defend himself if he's dead. I have to do it for him.

However, as I said before, these boys feed off of my angered reactions, therefore it is my duty to provide them with none. I say nothing in defense of neither myself nor Alexei.

The boy is able to interpret my silence with his own filter, and he infers all that can be inferred by someone who doesn't know the complete story. "What, was he your little prostitute or something, and that's why you didn't want to shoot the Russian bastard?"

His gang of morons behind him snickers, while I continue to say nothing. This boy has pulled me back around into calmness, but I have commenced the cycle once more, and he pulls me into the anger section again. I begin to shake with rage.

The boy notices my clear signs of fury, and he takes them as an indication of his success in triggering me. "Oh, excuse-moi, did I hit a soft spot?" he asks in a condescending voice so typical of young rich boys.

I cannot hold my rage inside of me for any longer, even after testing out all of the methods that I usually test out. I approach real life topics in the same way that I approach war, and I have concluded that my next option is to go to metaphorical war with the boy. I have tried to reason with this kid, but he is so blinded by his obnoxiousness that he will not listen when I say that he does not understand what actually happened. The negotiation phase is over. It failed. Since he is so obsessed with fighting, I'm sure he will find this useful. Maybe I can give him a taste of what actual war is like, seeing as he doesn't understand it in the slightest. I do what I have to do.

While he's still cackling with his buddies and soaking in his new found glory, I take the opportunity to drive my fist right into his face, swinging from the right side to hit his left cheek. It definitely takes him by surprise, and his friends go dead silent, their faces suspended in astonishment and a supplementary portion of fear of what I could do to them.

This isn't what I usually do to people that I disagree with, but this is a new Olivier Renaud with whom I live, the Olivier Renaud that made it through intense military training and that won't condone rich boys' notions of dominance when there is none in the harsh reality that they inhabit.

The boy feels the left hemisphere of his head for any damage to his pristine face that he often uses in his elite settings to cheat unsuspecting, gullible women out of an orgasm. Pretending to be focused on surveying himself, he suddenly attempts to punch me in return by swinging an arm that I block easily. In response, I knock him to the ground as if it's child's play.

By this point, his gang has retreated from the street to hide who knows where, and the citizens around us all scurry to get away from the scene, fearing that they will be next. I don't even notice that the boy's friends are gone or that the people on the streets are rushing away from me, though, as I am too engrossed in my moral mission of teaching this kid a lesson that he will always remember before considering assuming things about other humans before he knows the complete story.

The boy looks up at me from his inferior position on the cobblestone, one arm poised as a weak barrier between me and him, and using the other one to slowly and unsuccessfully scoot away from me. Blood winds down his septum and onto his swollen lips, some of it slipping inside to give him a taste of the putridness that he is made up of. "Please," he sputters through his now fragmented voice. He looks too much like Alexei in this stance, so much like when Alexei was pleading for me and Gauthier to spare him but was denied. I can't bear it. I let the boy off with a warning that will hopefully guide him into better judgment.

"You don't fucking know me," I spit, spinning my back away from the boy and leaving him to recover on the ground. It is my hope that he has learned something from this experience.

~~~~~

A/N: who knew Olivier was such a savage gotDAM

but seriously, I really hope that bitch ass hobe learned smth

~Dakotobe