Work Text:
PART 1
Hook
Artemy,
Often I have wondered the nature of the reception this letter may receive. If it falls to the waste bin--sealed or not--the fault can only be mine. In truth it was never my intention to postpone my correspondence to this degree. But I don't mean for this to become a list of excuses. There's too much to say. Even if I sent a journal full of all the letters I've wished to write, I fear my meaning would twist and fade by manner of the ink that binds it. The things I have to say cannot be given the opportunity to blur. I trust if you haven’t already thrown this out, you might understand.
If there is yet a remnant of the friendship you once spoke of in the midst of that cursed pestilence, or the barest desire to rekindle it, please listen to what I have to say. I have no doubt much has changed with you. As I write this I imagine your voice and all you might tell. What would you say if we were free from the need to rush our conversations? The idea has been with me for some time. All that I have to tell you will surely flow easier in a dim room, spoken directly to a present ear, once I am far from this wretched place I erred believing to be a glittering pin in our country. It has become to me an animated corpse wrapped in sagging gold paint. It flakes wherever I touch. It may always have been this way. Now that I've seen the rotten husk of my once beloved Capital I am unable to unsee it. It has taken time to reconcile with this bitter truth.
You see, I have reached the bottom of the page too soon and with too few words. What I mean to say is this: I return to Town-on-Gorkhon. I await the train with the same mix of eagerness and trepidation as that fateful day one year ago. It's my hope that the man I wish to see will be whole and living this time. My train departs tomorrow night.
Yours,
Daniil.
After some time Artemy sets down the letter, smoothing a wrinkle from the bottom left corner where his thumb gripped it too tight. The page resists his coaxing, warping the elegant loop of Dankovsky's signature. He removes his hand completely before the imperfection can spread to that accursed word above it, curling his fist around empty air as if reaching across space to wrap around the very man who wrote it.
Pushing a deep, slow breath from his nose Artemy peels his eyes away. Doing so feels like the slow deliberate tear of a bandage from a tricky, crusted wound. Swirling ice patterns cover the lowest window panes in his kitchen, cooling the pulsing burn radiating from his eyes. One year? Does time move slower in the Capital or has the punctual bachelor lost his sense of it? The first frosts of winter took root weeks ago. It is indisputably, wholeheartedly winter.
To say the presence of this letter is unexpected would undermine the meaning of the word. Artemy's hand returns to it, confirming its existence. Dragging his knuckles lightly over the textured surface he wonders if Dankovsky's hand was bare when writing it, if he felt this same texture drag against the side of his hand, the tips of his fingers as he folded and slid it into an envelope. Or if he still wears those ridiculous gloves that no doubt leave his hands pale as bone, hidden from the sun and filth of the world and any sensation that might touch them.
Yours.
That’s the word he wrote. Its script is clean and bold--one could even say intentionally weighted. There are no blurred lines to speak of. If the man’s intention was to avoid misunderstanding, the first thing he'll need to clarify after stepping foot off his train is the meaning of this word.
Turning himself bodily away from the table, Artemy marches his body to the door of his house and through it. It takes the biting chill of snow sticking to his feet to realize his mind is still sitting carelessly on the kitchen table. Swearing softly, Artemy roughly picks at the snow clinging to his woolen socks before giving up, peeling them off viciously and slumping against the wall in the entryway. The door slams shuts with a boom far louder than necessary.
It was the wind, he tells himself, that shut it so viciously. Not his own body--his own hand--turned traitorous. Turned aggressive, a live wire, building in frenzy until it touched something, anything, with a deadly spark. His hands are no longer that of a butcher's. He's clean now, a menkhu in name and rite, a healer. With his inheritance earned there’s no longer any need for this roaring in his ears, the quickening of his blood, the swift violence of his hands.
One year and three months. It was hardly a conversation when they’d agreed to write. Will I hear from you? As soon as I'm able. I've taken my father's house, you know the address? By heart, Artemy.
Lowering his hands from his face Artemy’s eye catches on a peeling curl of wallpaper. How long will it take for the train to arrive? How much time does he have to set his house right? Is it necessary to clean out the extra room? The Stillwater is still vacant. It had been that way since the Bachelor left and it would be easy for him to fill that space again, spirited away at the head of that spiral staircase. To step back into the shape he carved of himself in this town, a vacant silhouette that often caught Artemy's eye when he found himself in that part of town. A stone body that groaned unsettlingly in the wind now without an occupant to anchor it.
But does Dankovsky really think he can come back as if he never left? A year and three months, a different season, but Artemy still recalls as if it were yesterday the day the Polyhedron fell and cleaved the plague in two, opening its chest like two halves of a ribcage for his hands to plunge in and squeeze its heart until a river of blood burst free for him to take.
Something twists inside Artemy, something he thought he'd put to rest after weeks stretched to months stretched to a year without a word from the city doctor, as if by stepping onto the train he'd stepped entirely out of reach, outside the limits of the world Artemy knew. Outside the limits of his feelings.
His first instinct is to suppress this irregular twist in his gut. Like swallowing bitter medicine. All at once, plug your nose if you must, don't stop until your tongue is clean. Like burying his hands to the root in his pockets at the train station, watching Dankovsky board the steps, knowing that if he reached out for a parting touch he wouldn't be able to stop himself from pulling the man bodily off that wretched train. Like biting his tongue, avoiding the Stillwater, and repeating the same dismissal when faced with questions regarding the city doctor, until the barbs had worn smooth on his tongue.
But--Dankovsky chose to write that word. And Artemy is in the kitchen again, leaning over the table with the wrinkled corner of his letter under one hand, brushing his thumb over Dankovsky's name, and his blood--unrestrained, freshly exposed, unscabbed--burns.
---
Only once he's been reduced to ashes and fragile enough to scatter with a single word does Artemy begrudgingly remember his boots. The frozen snow beneath his soles seems to reject his personal opinion of his state of being, crunching with each step across town as if he is still a solid person. This deep into the season the snow can no longer be called fresh or idyllic. But today there isn't much of it, and the early morning frost sprinkles sharp glitters across muddy mounds and footpath trenches. Later it'll turn to brown and gray muck, lingering well into Spring, lining the walkways like soiled rags or bundled corpses.
It takes a moment of firm blinking to dispel the thought, and Artemy only narrowly avoids stepping on a slippery patch of exposed grass where one of the urchins took a tumble. Behind him a scrap of dogheads dashes by, earnestly engaged in snowball warfare with Notkin's pack. Their hollering laughter and imaginative threats muffle oddly as their battle takes them charging around the corner. Sticky's blue mitten lies abandoned among the wreckage. With a small frown Artemy pockets the casualty and pushes open the deli shop door.
The fisherman unloading his fresh catch at the counter briefly looks over at the bellchime. Artemy bypasses him and the owner in favor of the dry goods selection. It's still a strange phenomenon to see shelves stocked to decent capacity. To Artemy it feels temporary. It could all be gone again tomorrow. Or the next day. Bread and medicine are still too expensive for comfort, but prices are nowhere near what they were at the peak of the outbreak. Everyone shakes their heads and mutters at empty pockets these days, but not one of them forget how bad it had gotten for a time.
Artemy wonders if the habit of stocking up on essentials early in the morning would stick with him if he ever traveled back to a larger city. That train of thought leads to another, and Artemy spends an inordinate amount of time contemplating Dankovsky's refined Capital tastes. As a man who enjoys the simple pleasures of smoked meat and pickled goods, readjusting to the limited variety in his hometown wasn't a lingering issue for Artemy. He tries to imagine Dankovsky enjoying a humble dinner of skewered meat and diced potatoes and simply comes up blank. Settling for what he usually gets, Artemy decides then that if Dankovsky doesn't like his stew, he can eat at the pub.
At the counter, however, his traitorous hands gravitate toward a display of city-imported goods. It must have just arrived, not yet picked apart by those with hard to break addictions to the finer things in life. On any given day Artemy wouldn't spare it much of a glance. But if he has to send Dankovsky off to the pub for insulting his cooking, he can at least send him off with a familiar comfort.
Why are his comforts worth thinking about? If he insults my stew after a year-long absence the most he deserves is a kick to the rear.
His walk home is slow and muddled, thoughts meandering in slow circles like this. When he approaches the familiar building he slows until he's no longer moving. Strange, still, to call this his home. Not Isidor's house, not his family's house, but his. He tries to view it from an outsider's perspective, squinting this way and that. Here lives Artemy Burakh, senior of his line at age twenty seven; haruspex, menkhu, surgeon, plague-killer.
With a sour nausea creeping up his throat he remembers how it felt to stand here on the day of his return. Without key or father or inheritance. With no means of getting inside or claiming his place in this town. How disturbingly small it had seemed, shrunken compared to the memories of his youth, slouching between its neighbors and poised like a concealed blade in the rigid fingers of a freshly deceased corpse.
A blade that could still cut if handled improperly.
Today the door opens without his key. He walks past the kitchen table without a glance, setting his foodstuff in the small cupboard. An empty package of honey cookies on the counter and the light patter of footsteps above indicates Murky is home from her sleepover at Capella's house. Artemy drops Sticky's glove on the table--the other item next to it burning into the corner of his eye like an afterimage--and resolves to give the boy a thorough demonstration of the effects of frostbite. Boddho knows Stanislav has preserved samples of necrosized fingers and models stashed away in a closet somewhere.
With one hand Artemy sets his kettle on the stove, clicking the burner with the other. Once it sputters awake he leans his palms on the crumb-dusted counter, shuts his eyes, and breathes out slowly.
But how had Dankovsky signed off his previous letters? Half formed memories unwillingly rise to the surface, tainted with questionable validity. Your colleague, your disgraced acquaintance, your friend. Yours, still. Yours in duty and blood. Yours, for as long as I may write freely, Daniil Dankovsky.
Always enough to make his palms sweat, that word. To send his mind wandering toward places from where few men can return. On more than one occasion he had wondered, sat at his desk until dawn pinked the sky through his window--illuminating pyre ashes, army rifles, beaked executioners--if he should return the favor. But without knowing Dankovsky's personal meaning of the word, his intent, his tone of voice if ever he had spoken it, how could he dare to impose his own messy, splitting heart onto a parting scribble that--for all Artemy knew, was one he used with everyone?
Did he send that word in the direction of the Stamatins? Did Stakh think nothing of it? And what of Maria? Eva...? How could he begin to broach the subject? What is he to do if faced with evidence that his assumption is wrong, if the word only ever burned holes into the corners of letters addressed to a certain Burakh? If Dankovsky's meaning of the word aligned directly with Artemy's own itching, burning palms...
The kettle hisses. Gripping the handle with a towel, Artemy moves it aside. This is ridiculous. All of it. The only way to learn Dankovsky's stance on the matter is to see him, observe him, ask him directly. Soon he'll have the chance to do just that--'in a dim room, spoken directly'. If he wants to talk, talk he will.
With the practiced mien of a menkhu, surgeon, plague-killer, Artemy steels himself as one does in the moments before performing an unexpected operation on an open-heart.
Only--it remains to be seen just who, after all is said and done, the heart on the operating table will belong to.
---
One year ago Town-on-Gorkhon held its collective breath as the last days of summer melted, sticky as honey, into autumn. Uncertainty was a weight in the air, thick as overripe twyre, hanging around and collecting in every corner and crevice and frown line. Only when the days grew colder and the nights longer, and the steppe hushed to sleep at last did those who survived the Sand Pest understand that they would live to see another season.
Houses stood empty in rows like headstones. Urchins, kept alive with self-made shmowders, successors of deceased parents, kept to each other and moved in herds with grubby fists and hardened brows. The steppe became a cemetery of mass burial that touched the lines of every living being left behind. But summer gave way to autumn, and autumn crept toward winter. The kin cut meat, the days marched on, and the Sand Pest made no sign of reappearance.
Relief was heady enough to make some sick with it.
Typical seasonal ills followed; Injuries, headaches, emergencies. As the man who claimed the rite to defeat the plague, Artemy remained the sole guardian of the town's health. Who else could have taken up the reins? But from the beginning he'd been adamant about operating out of a clinic instead of his own home. Neither did he want to use the old shed from where he brewed every precious vial of panacea, where he slept with sweat stinging his eyes, his body as heavy as the dead silently echoing through the steppe beyond the rusting metal walls.
So a clinic was erected.
It made the walks to and from a miserable affair in the cold and rain, but Artemy doesn’t mind. He likes having his own space to practice medicine, a place where no one has the authority to bend his rules or word. A place unsaturated by the ghosts of menkhu who came before him. Andrei--the primary architect while his brother remained tetherless--suggested a living space to be built on top for the purpose of a less miserable commute. Artemy declined on grounds of needing the exercise. Really, once he'd finally been able to step into Isidor's house, he was loathe to leave it empty again.
The clinic is of a practical design; Not overly large, but with enough space for an operating room, a reception, a brewery station upstairs (the Stamatin couldn't keep from building skyward in the end), and an office for Stanislav to conduct his research when he isn't working the nightshift.
The man in question arrives while Artemy is drafting flyers about the basics of flu season. His long black coat is hung up in its place by the door, a shadow larger than most men by itself. As he bends down to unlace his tall boots Artemy notices his late hours have started to give his friend's skin a ghostly glow. "Dead or alive, we'll have to take you to the cemetery soon if you don't get some sun. Have you been taking your vitamins?"
"Of course," Stakh murmurs, fumbling laces with his cold-stiff fingers. "Good evening to you too."
Artemy smiles, bending down to resume his task. Once Stanislav is suitably stripped down and composed, he approaches and finds a stack of papers on the counter. "What's this?" he asks. The sketches are a series of anatomical studies made in Sticky's hand. The topmost displays a ghastly decaying hand rendered in studious detail.
"Oh. That. I'd meant to ask you to give a thorough demonstration of frostbite for Sticky, but he ran off with Notkin's litter a while ago. Not enough stimulation for his brain here once it gets slow."
With a grunt Stanislav sets down the sketches. "Better he gets out with the other kids than stay cooped up here all day. Might be he won't get wrinkles in his twenties like someone I know."
"Nothing to be ashamed of. You've aged well, Stakh."
Stanislav gives him an unappreciative look. "I wasn't referring to myself."
Unperturbed, Artemy shrugs. With a shake of his head Stanislav drops into the other seat, props his long legs on a crate of supplies, and changes his tone. "So," he says, "I hear Dankovsky is coming to town."
With strained effort Artemy turns his sudden cough into a casual clearing of the throat. "Where did you hear that?" he asks, carefully aligning the edges of his finished posters.
"I ran into Yulia on my way here. She heard it from Grace, who heard it from Capella, who heard it from Murky. Or something like that."
"If only accurate information on seasonal colds could spread so quickly..."
A large hand splays out on the desk as Stanislav leans closer. "So it’s true?"
No use in obscuring the fact now that half the town knows it. "I expect he'll arrive within the week."
"Is that so? And he didn't think to write to me?"
A frown tugs at the corner of Artemy's mouth. "No?" His eye drifts to his coat hanging next to Stanislav's, and the pocket containing a certain correspondence. "Maybe it’s still in the mail. You know how the trains are at this time of year. You'll likely see him at your doorstep a day before his letter follows."
"True enough." Stanislav assents, tapping fingers on wood. "But… what brings him around this time?"
The wariness behind the question doesn't come as a surprise. Artemy would be lying if he said he didn't feel any of it himself. There were some--in those days--who whispered the plague was dragged in under the shadow of Dankovsky's coattails, sickening the ground wherever his boots touched. There wasn't any truth to it, and Stanislav understood that better than most. But looking at it objectively, one couldn't help drawing connections.
"As there are no immortal men to catch his intellectual attention this time, I can only assume this visit has more to do with personal interest."
Stanislav raises a brow at that. "This isn't the kind of place I'd imagine him taking a vacation to. He hasn't gotten into any trouble, has he?"
"I don't know. He didn't say much in his letter. Only that he was displeased with the state of the Capital and would tell me more when he arrived."
Passing a hand over his mouth, Stanislav mulls it over. "I don't like it." he says. "The timing the least of it. I didn't expect him to go back to the Capital in the first place, but that man is a moth to a flame where his city is concerned. Why the change of heart? Why now?"
"Maybe he decided country life is for him after all." This barely earns him a response from Stanislav, as lost in thought as he is. Artemy frowns again, irritated by his own ignorance. "Your guess is as good as mine."
Stanislav says nothing else, only sits there with his brows knitting a new crease in his skin. Once Artemy returns to his work he excuses himself to his own research. Artemy waves him off, curling his hand around the edges of the latest flier. Was Dankovsky in trouble? Was there something more to his prolonged silence than the natural distance that grows between two people so far apart?
His joints protest as he stands to retrieve the letter. Having long since stared at the careful scrawl of words until his vision blurred, he doesn't learn any new insights. There's nothing there that he hasn't already stressed over in the day and night since he received it. All he gains is a growing anticipatory pit in his stomach.
By the time he finishes his flyers it’s late enough in the night for Artemy to consider resting his eyes on the couch in Stanislav's office. Made to the specifications of the other man's height, it's far from the worst place to sleep. And it hadn't taken long for them to acquire a spare blanket for cases like this. But ever since Murky's recent bout of respiratory infection she's had trouble waking up in the house alone. Not one to cause her any more undue stress, Artemy gathers up his weary-stiff bones, his things, and makes sure the letter is still tucked in his coat pocket after pulling it on.
Eyes heavy, hand still touching the letter, Artemy oddly remembers a string of parting words given to him earlier that day. Having been asked to leave after setting every one of his jars on their heads and loudly chewing her fingernails in the corner of the reception room, Clara fidgeted with the curtain by the door and imparted a hint about the earth's whispering veins. They've been trying to tell me something, she'd said with her vacant eyes wandering in his direction, smile hanging onto the edge of her voice. A message for you, only I'm not sure what it is... or if I'll tell you when the words run clear.
Artemy had corralled her out without much thought to her rambling. Moreover, he only had room in his mind for one cryptic message and until he could decode it he wasn't interested in any whispering veins. In any case it's been more than a few months since Clara has regaled him with riddles. He'd attributed her uncharacteristically quiet air to the shifting of seasons--that sleepy graying sky having its effect on every seer, drunkard, and weed alike.
But with his hand on the doorway he remembers the crooked way she'd stared at him when she thought he wasn't looking, and can't wipe away the itch that gathers in the back of his mind.
He finds Stanislav mid-dissection, some small slab of meat on his tray whose origins Artemy can't be sure of. The buzz of one of his instruments fills the room with a dull drone, but he still looks up at the creak of Artemy's approach.
"That old fisherman's hut, the one we played in as kids. Is it still standing?" he asks, scarf hanging from his fingers.
Stanislav blinks and lightly sets down his tools. "... Yes. I'm surprised you remember. Why...?"
Artemy can't speak of the vague itch, the feeling of wrongness in his gut. The apprehension in his stomach. It only rises as far as his throat and lodges there. "Thought I might take the good bachelor fishing." is all he says.
Some of his worry must leak through his pores anyway. Stanislav nods slowly and wipes his hands on a well-worn rag. "It might be drafty, but I know Young Vlad took it upon himself to have renovations done a few summers ago. Nothing grand, the Stamatins had nothing to do with it. He called it a historical marvel, worthy of preservation not flourish. It's got all its walls and a lock on the door, that much I can attest to."
"I'll have a word with him, then."
Making to leave, Artemy gets his scarf halfway up to his eyes when the other man--not quite menkhu or surgeon but as equal to Artemy as near any man can be--quietly calls his attention. "If it comes down to it, let me know if I can help in any way. I owe him as much."
---
When Vlad hands over the keys the act is accompanied with minimal question, his eyes brightening at the mention of Dankovsky. "I can't speak for everyone," he says. "But I'll keep my silence without trouble if anyone comes around asking for him. It's the least I can do."
The key bites into the hard flesh of Artemy's palm. "You've done more than enough, Oglyminsky. I appreciate it. But this is only a precaution."
"It never hurts to have your chess pieces in order before the match begins. I'd like to see that old building get some use, in any case. The lock was implemented purely to keep spirited dogheads from leaving the door open to the elements. I'd like to see it stand for years to come. It's older than most buildings in town, you know."
"I know now. I'll see to it that the door stays shut."
"Thank you. And say hello to the Bachelor for me, would you?"
Outside, Artemy slides the key into his pocket and swears at the feel of smooth paper against his gloved knuckles. He'd forgotten the letter was still there. By the time he came home last night he'd been more than half asleep and his only thought between the front door and his bed was to check if Sticky and Murky were in order. His own sleep was troubled, saturated with thoughts of Dankovsky.
Sunbright snow glows softly under the morning sun, clawing under Artemy's sleep-deprived eyelids as he makes his way around town with his stack of public health posters. There aren't many to put up, but it still takes most of his morning. By the time Anna Angel comes by the clinic in the afternoon to ask about the latest fad vitamins, Artemy is hoping the rest of the day can remain trivial enough to catch a few snatched moments of upright sleep at his desk. For the most part it does, until Yulia arrives with a migraine and her own questions about the Bachelor.
Artemy advises her to sit at the station if she's so eager to see him while he fixes her a tincture. Yulia only laughs--with a wince--and delicately adjusts her headscarf, fingers lingering at her temple. "I'm surprised you aren't waiting there yourself."
Nonplussed, Artemy hands her the small vial. She takes it like a soldier, barely shuddering through the aftertaste. "And who would be here to take care of you if I was at the station?" he asks, helping her to Stanislav's couch. It’s more comfortable than the cot in the exam room, and quieter besides. "I don't even know when he'll arrive. And I have better things to do than sit around and wait."
"You have my deepest gratitude for your great sacrifice." She smiles at him impishly from beneath the drape of her scarf. "I'll tell him all about it when he comes."
Artemy shuts the door on her without a response. Her muffled laughter follows his steps. The way half the town has been infected with the need to comment on Dankovsky's impending arrival to him is beginning to grate on his nerves. He likes to think himself a patient man all things considered, but even Andrei met him outside the pub while Artemy was tacking his flier to the door and questioned him on the state of Dankovsky's health. As if he were the arbiter of all news concerning the man! Say hello for them? They could very well do it themselves!
When Stanislav comes by with the shroud of night on his shoulders to take over he spares one brief look at Artemy's sour mood and shows him the door. "There's no point in me doing the late shift if you insist on staying here half the night with me."
With logic as solid as the steel gray hair on his head Artemy doesn't argue. His clenched jaw has given him more than just a headache, and the question remains as to how he'll get to bed without descending into thoughts of that infuriating little man for another night of agony.
The letter is a curse. That’s the only explanation; a hex set on him to twist and confuse his thoughts, to dig into his chest like the worst heartburn of his life.
The streets of Town-on-Gorkhon are quiet on his walk tonight. The occasional huddled figure walks past with a hat tugged low over their eyes, but long gone are the sick and dying wraiths who used to wander at all hours, the violent looters, the soldiers. At one point Artemy finds himself entirely alone on a bridge and stops to watch the snow. A light dusting catches his lashes, barely more than a tickle.
Infuriating isn't the right word.
Back then, it wasn't anger that itched under his skin at the sight of Dankovsky. It was... the improbability of him that sparked some hidden interest. His was the slight shadow that moved through his town like a stain, an embodiment of the dark circles under his eyes that no doubt mirrored the bone-deep exhaustion on Artemy's face. He was a mirror, and he was as slippery as an illusion. He was a stranger--an outsider--who came to understand the Polyhedron deeper than Artemy ever would, in ways he could not speak of despite his penchant for big city words. He was a healer, with his cloak of a coat that hid the sharp line of his shoulders, the holstered revolvers he kept and used liberally, near the end. Had his hands ever shook under those crisp gloves? Had he ever felt the cold metal of the trigger? How did he feel knowing he killed more than he ever could have saved?
No, it wasn't anger. Never anger. Not when he stood under the high ceilings of the Stillwater, poised carefully against the slight sway to his stature, the concealed motion clear to one with eyes like Artemy's, and implored with his clear tenor that he wanted to work together as colleagues. Time and again, even when Artemy could hardly offer him anything of substance but his own scraps of misremembered history, and the dirty work of his hands.
These hands twist deeper into his coat now. For someone like Dankovsky, it shouldn't have been enough. But the fact remains that Dankovsky was the last person on Earth who could resent Artemy for his actions, for the blood that ran rivers in his footsteps. That is why... that is why Artemy was so attached. It was a natural desire--to be understood. To go beyond forgiveness for one's darkest actions. To look into a mirror and see the other looking right back at you, without fright or confusion or disgust.
The stomp of his boots against stone is startlingly loud. Even his thoughts are beginning to sound like Dankovsky's. Another effect of the hex? If he ever caught wind of it, Artemy would never hear the end of it. Maybe Dankovsky would laugh. Maybe--
Artemy's hand hovers over the door handle to his home. His breath snakes from his lips in heavy curls of white. It must have been some trick of the ear, some muddled wire in his brain sparked by his recent train of thought. Sticky's voice is all he hears through the wood now, and he feels ridiculous standing on the steps like this, something he hasn't done since he first turned the key in its lock one year and three months ago.
He turns the handle and shoulders inside without bothering to be quiet, denying the stubborn strain of his ears. Sticky is still talking in the other room. He trails off just as Artemy loops his scarf on a hook over his boots and pulls off his cap.
A pair of footsteps approaches from down the corridor, heavier than any child's. Artemy doesn't look. He can't, for the vice that has gripped him as total and final as rigor mortis. A silence stretches out. The other is standing beside him, just out of line of sight. He doesn't know how long they stand there. Every breath seems to take a year (and three months) to fill his lungs.
His hand is on the wall, holding his weight. It anchors him against the vertigo that sweeps over him when he turns his head, drawn as a surgeon is to a terrible wound.
He's still wearing the same coat. That outrageous second skin swallowing him whole, just as disorienting to look at now as it was then, like an animal covered in all manner of revolting patterns. Black gloves peek from beneath the hems. A red vest obscures his chest. His throat, hidden by a redundant ruffle of fabric pinned in place. Only his face left uncovered--to be viewed, studied, remembered in painstaking detail.
It's warm. Overly warm. But Artemy's other hand denies his attempt to shed his coat. It hangs limp at his side, as numb as the tongue in his mouth. It's only now that Artemy realizes Dankovsky has yet to say a word to him, either.
"You're here." Artemy manages, stiffly. It comes out colder than intended.
Dankovsky blinks. He nods once before looking to Sticky and Murky huddled in the doorway behind him. "Forgive me. I wasn't sure... They told me you'd be home soon and dragged me inside before I could protest."
Without the weight of those eyes on him, Artemy's hand finds the strength needed to unbutton his coat. He strips quickly while he has the chance. "There's nothing to forgive. If I'd known you'd be arriving today I would have met you at the station." Yulia's elegant laughter echoes through his mind at the words, and he has to turn away to hide his face, folding his coat and outer sweater properly on the side table.
The floorboard creaks uncertainly as Dankovsky takes a step closer.
"In that case it's lucky I remembered my way here," he says. "Or else I would have wandered half the night until I managed to stumble upon your doorstep. You'd have had to thaw me out before I could say hello."
Artemy looks at him--he has to--and sees a quick smile dart across Dankovsky's face. His chin turns up to accommodate their height difference, and Artemy is startled to see a trace of that same tight darkness pooling under his eyes.
"Lucky." Artemy agrees. His voice is still too gruff, too sharp, too loud in the small space, his jaw acting as a rusted clamp. Dankovsky doesn't flinch. He stretches out a hand. The light contact of it on Artemy's arm is hot as a brand. And over just as quick.
Jostling Dankovsky's outstretched arm, Sticky ducks between them to get Artemy's attention. "Can we eat the chocolate now?" he asks, holding up a paper-wrapped bar to his chin. Dankovsky takes a step back to allow his restless movements. "You said to wait until the Bachelor arrived, and here he is, so can we have it?"
Murky holds up her hazelnut bar behind him, high above her head with eyes wide enough to speak her thoughts better than words. Artemy lets out a breath. "I did say that. Where's the third?"
"In the cupboard! I didn't touch it like I promised."
Dankovsky watches the exchange with an academic air. As he follows Artemy to the kitchen he can't keep his inquiries to himself. "This is unexpected, Artemy. Are there any other children you've adopted?"
"It's not like that. They only stay here because it's better than sleeping in an empty carcass somewhere."
This comment seems to strike a new well of curiosity, but before Dankovsky can continue his interrogation Sticky holds up another bar for him to take. "Artemy got dark chocolate for you, Bachelor. He said he thought you'd like it."
"Did he?"
"Was he right? Or wrong?"
"...He can rest assured he guessed correctly. Though I should like to ask him what gave the impression."
"Your bittersweet disposition." Artemy mutters into the cupboard as he digs out the higher quality tea from behind the rest. Dankovsky's soft chuckle brushes over his back like a warm autumn wind.
With distance as a barrier, Artemy settles himself by the stove while the kettle warms and watches Dankovsky. Sticky peppers him with endless questions about his travel, to which Dankovsky answers without an ounce of sugarcoating. The train was terrible and slow and cold, the landscape mind numbingly featureless. His finger picks at the corner of his capital-imported chocolate bar as he speaks.
It unnerves Artemy how closely he resembles the self he was before. Everything from the cleanly cropped hair, the shadow of stubble that hints of potential for a mighty fine beard, and the concealed tension held in every bone of his body--as if an invisible hand held his strings firmly drawn back with a rigid fist. Artemy imagines cutting that tension with a knife, at the very least to smooth the set of his shoulders. But the resulting image of Dankovsky laying limp across the table lances a sick feeling through his stomach.
No, it won't do to act hastily. Not until he knows which lines to cut, which to preserve, which to repair. That something is amiss is glaringly obvious--and his mind jumps to work to understand the reason. But until Artemy learns the exact nature of his ailment, a hasty swipe of his hand could do more damage than good.
Taking up the whistling kettle, Artemy sets it on the cooling block on the table. He arrays a modest assortment of cheese and smoked meat cuts and takes his seat, waiting for a comment on the palettes of commoners. But Dankovsky pours his tea strong and eats from the same plate as Artemy without complaint. Up close, he really does look ready to drop at any moment.
Was the train really that bad?
"Thank you." he says. "For not throwing me to the curb."
"I might, still." But Artemy doesn't mean it. Having this creature in front of him again, he has no intention of letting him out of his sight any time soon. "When I didn't hear from you, I honestly didn't know what to think."
Dankovsky nods, carefully breaking off a chocolate square. But he doesn't say anything else, and the entire speech Artemy had recited in his head about the definitions of words, and their impact, has evaporated out of his ears.
Before the meager plate of tea snacks has depleted, Sticky--with the keen sense of a child whose parents are a dead-end subject, picks up strange air present at the table. He excuses himself with Murky in tow, hands sticky with melted sweets, and leaves the adults to their unspoken conversation.
Dankovsky watches them go with slightly redshot eyes. "If I'd known you'd taken them in I would have brought something." he says.
"It isn't necessary. It's not your responsibility."
"I'm not responsible for you either, but I brought you something all the same." From his carpet bag at his heel Dankovsky digs something out of its depths. He places a thin, cloth-wrapped bundle the color of crushed blackberries in front of Artemy. A gold rope around the middle holds it shut.
Artemy blinks.
"Think of it as a gift for the New Year, if you will." Dankovsky elaborates, smoothing an edge of the soft fabric. "But... if it was too presumptuous--"
Artemy pulls the gold thread. The cloth falls open like the arms of a lover, revealing itself to be a carrier pouch for several sharp objects; a scalpel, long scissors, small scissors, pliers, a pick, and one knife large enough to cut bone with a single strong stroke. No embellishments, only utilitarian function. Each metal edge gleams dangerously.
"This is..."
"I'm sure you have your own tools, and these may be redundant. But I've used instruments from this maker before and can vouch for the quality.” he says. “They reminded me of you, and I..."
The end of the gold thread is still between his fingers, its fibers smooth as silk under his thumb. Artemy looks up when Dankovsky trails off. He touches the smooth body of the scalpel and feels the urge to make a small cut. "Think of me often, did you?"
"You're a hard person to forget." Without a breath of hesitation Dankovsky tosses him this fleck of information.
Artemy bends back over the array of deceivingly powerful tools in delicate bodies. "Thank you, for this. I'll be sure to use them for honest work."
Dankovsky gives a dismissive flourish with his hand. "It makes no difference to me. I'm relieved to have finally gotten them to you."
Carefully rolling the pouch back together, Artemy weighs his words. He does have his own tools, of course, but they are a far fetch from what had been at his disposal in university. A gift like this is no small gesture. To give this to a man you only knew for a handful of stressful weeks, a man who cut down the tower of your hopes and dreams--what was Dankovsky thinking?
"Listen, did you always plan to come back like this?"
Dankovsky frowns, drawing down a faint wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. "No. I didn't. I couldn't be sure."
"Sure of what?"
"A lot of things. I needed time to figure out my next steps." A sensible answer, but the air of distance is suddenly thick. Artemy intends to withdraw, to approach from a different angle, but Dankovsky suddenly draws him back in by the throat. "Artemy," he says. Artemy, like the name means something different in his voice. Artemy, smooth and familiar as if this man has spoken it a hundred times to himself. "How has it been? How are you?"
The collar of Artemy's shirt is tight. He doesn't process the question at first, trying to hold onto the sound of his voice in his mind, to gently tangle it apart from that time, when the very whisper of it made him want to stretch out at Dankovsky's feet, to do any bloody task asked of him.
To draw him close and hear it spoken against his ear.
Artemy swallows thickly. "It's been alright." he says. "I opened a clinic with Rubin. Life goes on."
Dankovsky nods. "He's well, then? The kin allow him to cut bodies?"
The situation is more complicated than that. "There's more to a clinic than cutting bodies. But yes, he practices under my roof. Being the only Burakh left standing still holds weight in the right circles."
They talk about others for a time, circling around questions of themselves. The night grows colder and darker; Their conversation quieter and slower. Artemy's gaze lingers on Dankovsky's face longer each time it lands there. Maybe his ghastly pallor is only the result of exhaustion--a rickety train ride to the end of the world, easily fixed by a good night's rest. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"
Dankovsky turns his empty teacup in his hands and smiles tightly. "Arriving here in one piece was my primary concern."
"It's too late now to go around knocking on doors. My old man's room is available, if you aren't superstitious." he says, and quickly amends--"Or there's the Stillwater. Yulia cares for it now. But if you have a problem with ghosts..."
"No, I don't suppose there are many places here I could go if I were afraid of the dead. Luckily that isn't the case. If it's all the same to you, your father's room will do nicely."
"Of course. You're more than welcome in my home, oynon." Artemy stands to begin clearing the table. When Dankovsky attempts to help he redirects him to revive the woodstove in the living room. After all has been put away, Artemy stands in the quiet. The bundle of instruments is the only thing left out of place. He imagines it cradled in Dankovsky's gloves, turning over as he thought of Artemy. What did he think of when he peeled it open? Can Artemy hope to be so gentle as this image in his mind?
Dankovsky has stripped his coat. It hangs over the back of the couch like a shed skin, revealing the bare stretch of his forearms beneath rolled sleeves like gold bands. Firelight shrinks the room to a flickering halo around him.
His couch isn't as wide as the one in Stanislav's office, but there is just enough space for Artemy’s hand not to reach Dankovsky's shoulder if he rests it along the back from the other end. Dankovsky doesn't stir at his entry. Not quite believing he'd fall asleep so quickly, Artemy murmurs his name. But the only answer he gets is the steady breathing of one utterly lost.
The couch creaks as Artemy leans back, hands curling in his lap. This exact sight of Dankovsky so utterly worn out is familiar. With a sinking feeling Artemy realizes he's never seen him appear well rested. He has no alternate version of Dankovsky to compare this one to. Why is he so sure that one exists at all?
Because you are menkhu. You are a healer. Every inch of him seems to cry out for your mending hand.
With a tired frown, Artemy carefully extricates himself from memories of the past, shedding them like Dankovsky's draped second skin, and stands up. He contemplates carrying Dankovsky to the spare bedroom to allow him a more restful sleep that doesn't involve such an awkward bend to his neck. It won't be any effort at all given the way his pants hang loose around his bones.
His fingers twitch at his sides. He settles for lifting Dankovsky's ankles onto the couch and maneuvering a pillow under his head. Lastly he drapes an old, thick blanket over him up to his chin, and carries his own legs firmly out of the room. Impenetrably cold darkness wraps around him as he exits the halo. Flushed from within, hand firmly pressed to his chest, Artemy hardly feels its chilling touch.
---
Even before he's awake Artemy's dream is determined to leave him quicker than a stream slips through fingers. The body remembers though, tense as stone, hammering blood against his aching skull, covering his skin in a sheet of sweat long after his eyes have squeezed open.
He also remembers how every time he began to drift off last night he was interrupted by a restlessness emanating from the walls, as if something was watching or waiting for something all around him. Once he had even crept out of bed and gone downstairs to check if he locked the front door, grimacing at every crack of cold wood under his weight.
Only after he caught sight of the rise and fall of Dankovsky's chest, calm under a strip of moonlight across the blanket, could he let out a breath of relief and return to bed.
Despite rising later than usual Artemy still ends up as the first one awake. Murky appears in the kitchen shortly after to peer over the stovetop on her toes and judge his choice of breakfast. She wrinkles her nose at the smell of toast before drifting off to choose a jam from the cupboard.
Sticky is next, plopping in his chair with a bird's nest on top of his head once the table has been set. With eyes still closed he grabs the warmest slice off the top of the stack and takes a dry bite. Artemy contemplates sending him to fetch Dankovsky before it all cools when the man appears himself, trailing a delicate hand around the edge of the table before stopping at the chair he sat in the evening before. He appears well put together, hair freshly combed and shining, cheeks smooth and hairless.
"How did you sleep?" Artemy asks, scratching at the unruly beard on his face.
"Well, thank you. Good morning you two." he says to the kids, taking his seat after Artemy sits down. "I didn't mean to fall asleep like that. I must have been more tired than I thought. Or your couch cast some sort of spell on me."
Artemy chooses not to make any mention of his rationalization of hexes the day before. "Believing in spells now, Doctor?"
Dankovsky waves a hand, dispelling the comment. "I learned many things during my last visit, Erdem. Things I have not forgotten. I can't rule out the mystical properties of your charming living room until I test it again, to be sure."
"Of course. Though I may offer you a bed next time. For use as a comparison."
"That would be appreciated. It warms me to know you haven't lost your willingness to experiment."
Artemy shrugs, passing the jam closer to Dankovsky. Sticky takes up the conversation from there to explain the state of affairs concerning the other urchins, describing how the hierarchies have changed, which hands have exchanged power, and their plans for the new year that may or may not include a barrel of fireworks being heavily guarded in a secret warehouse at all hours of the day.
Artemy doesn't know what it means that he can't decipher if the intensity of Dankovsky's attention is genuine or not. But he notes with a pang of worry that he doesn't seem to have lost any of his weariness, despite his efforts for a fresh appearance. While neither of them went to bed early, there's still an air of wrongness about him that does nothing to ease yesterday's worries.
Thinking that a dose of fresh air might do him good, Artemy invites Dankovsky along with him to the clinic. Dankovsky accepts easily, even somewhat eagerly, but at the door Artemy stops him with a disbelieving frown. "Did you forget which season it is?" The snakeskin coat, revived from its slumber, is Dankovsky's only outer layer. "Isn't it colder up north in the Capital?"
Dankovsky fingers the lapel of his coat and doesn't answer straight away. "Colder, yes." he says slowly. "But this coat is warmer than it looks. And I don't make a habit of burrowing in the snow for fun."
"No? Let me guess, your idea of fun has more to do with burying your hands in cold bodies."
Dankovsky raises a brow. "I don't see the problem. Unless you plan on throwing me into the river, I'll be fine."
But it isn't fine. Artemy imagines Dankovsky's narrow frame walking the streets of his grand Capital hunched over against a skin-burning snowstorm with nothing to keep him warm but that thin, slippery skin. He wants nothing more than to drag this hypothetical Dankovsky--with his pink ears and cheeks, blue lips and shivering bones--into a cocoon of warmth. Better yet, to bundle him up before he even steps foot outside.
Artemy stares unhappily at the thin sliver of skin visible above Dankovsky's collar for a time before he makes his decision. In the small dresser by the door he excavates two scarves. The first belonged to him when he was younger, but Artemy already planned to give it to Sticky. The other--a ruddy maroon scarf woven with thick soft wool--belonged to his mother. At times Artemy liked to wear it to keep from feeling like his threads are about to unravel.
As he draws it out he can't help but note it has the same dusky color Dankovsky's vest takes in the evening when light is dim and fleeting. "Here," he holds it out for the other to take but Dankovsky starts to shake his head.
"It's not necessary, the clinic can't be that far." he says, but Artemy simply steps closer and loops it snugly around him, pulling it all the way up to his eyes. The color invariably suits him.
"It's not a suggestion. Doctor's orders." he adds, pulling on his own scarf and gloves. Dankovsky doesn't continue to argue. He fingers the soft wool and examines its worn stitches.
With the sun already well on its daily climb, the clinic is devoid of Stanislav when they arrive. Artemy has the better part of an hour to show Dankovsky the run of things, the medicine stores, the instruments. So at ease is he around familiar objects--tools that mold to his grip and perform as an extension of his will like a kind of exoskeleton--he almost misses the way Dankovsky blanches at the arrival of a letter. The courier stands in the entryway and announces the addressee to be none other than the Bachelor. The named takes it with a stiff arm, but that's the only tell. If Artemy hadn't already been examining the man as thoroughly as if he were spread out on his exam table, the small slip would have passed without notice.
As it stands, Dankovsky breaks the seal with a blunt edge and a cold set to his eyes that makes Artemy's hair stand on end.
It turns out to be only a missive from Lara; An invitation to visit her and have a meal when he isn't busy. At this revelation the naked blade of Dankovsky is tucked away, flicked back from sight. Artemy wonders if it was his imagination, or if Stanislav's hunch has a grain of truth to it after all.
After the letter bearer leaves with Dankovsky's reply, Artemy sets down the Valerian root he'd been cutting up to demonstrate the preparation of one of his tinctures. Surrounded by his instruments, Artemy feels like razor wire. Knowing full well the slow and painful deaths that follow a festered wound, Artemy acts on instinct. With the tip of his knife he touches Lara's letter sitting on the counter under Dankovsky's hand. "Question," he says. "Would you tell me if you were in any danger?"
"Of what nature?" Dankovsky's brow doesn't so much as twitch. His only movement manifests in the leather clad pinky that slides closer to the blade. A warning? Or permission to keep prodding?
"You looked like you were expecting a bullet to fall out of the envelope."
"Did I?"
Artemy narrows his eyes. For a moment he thinks he catches a glimmer of Dankovsky's lines--black rivers tangled in patterns he can't discern before they slip from his grasp. Did he make the wrong judgment just now? Was he too hasty?
But Dankovsky takes a quiet breath and continues. "I've had a few close calls." he admits. "A bullet wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. Though if one were to find me all the way out here, I'd be surprised to say the least. That's a long way to travel from the Capital, with as many chances to miss."
Artemy ignores his attempt at dismissal. "Who wants you dead?"
"Who said anything about homicide? These things usually begin with a shot to the leg. The loss of a hand... Warning tactics such as these can be very effective."
"Alright. Who wants you maimed?"
"If I could acquire a clear list of names do you think I would still be looking over my shoulder?"
Higher ups, then. An entity involved with Dankovsky's academic work? Back then he'd mentioned the loss of that precious place of his... Thanatica. Do these Powers That Be want Dankovsky's ashes next? But why now? Over a year later and he still expects to catch a knife in his back?
Frowning, Artemy withdraws his blade from Lara's letter. "Are you safe here?"
With an easy motion that borders on laziness Dankovsky flicks back the front of his coat. The gleam of a holstered revolver winks at him and is gone as soon as it appears. Artemy thinks back on that morning. He definitely hadn't seen him put on a holster at any point. Could it be sewn into the coat itself? Surely not. To go to such lengths speaks of more than idle, lingering paranoia. A sour heat begins to rise in Artemy's chest. "...Is that enough?" he asks.
A careless smile cuts across Dankovsky's mouth. "It will have to be."
More than his smile, the easy way he says it sets Artemy's teeth on edge. The contradictions laid in front of him urge the knife in his palm to bite into his skin with the force of his grip. "You're so sure?"
"Almost undoubtedly."
Artemy's frown grows heavy enough to alter his tone. "You wrote of friendship." he says slowly. "Of rekindling that which we had. Did you not?"
The smile starts to fade toward a level line. "Mm... yes. I did."
"Then tell me, friend, will there be men knocking on my door asking after you, asking the kids where the city doctor has run off to?"
Another line appears between Dankovsky's brows. "What? No--Do you think I would have accepted your offer of sharing a roof if that was the case?"
"I don't know. I'm asking you, will there? Or won't there?"
Dankovsky shakes his head. The corners of his mouth dip lower. "No one would ever expect me to come back to the place of my greatest disgrace." he says, throwing this line out like an ice pick through Artemy's heart. "I wouldn't willfully endanger you--"
"Why not? If this is the scoured earth of your greatest disgrace, why are you here, Daniil Dankovsky? Does all this amount to a convenient hole in the ground for you to hide your head in? What kind of mess did you even worm yourself into?"
"No, Artemy--"
"What makes you think you can disappear for over a year without as much as a single word and only appear again with trouble on your heels? Revolvers, doctor? Have you taken up a new profession, or is the trouble greater than you're letting on?"
"It's not--"
"Don't give me that. You say you worried about my reception? I don't think you worried enough." Dankovsky opens his mouth to try again but Artemy isn't finished yet. "A year, Dankovsky. I waited, and I waited, and I gave up. Do you understand? I didn't hold it against you. We didn't know each other long, what use was there believing your word meant anything? Against your wishes I destroyed the Polyhedron. Without it, what was left for you here? You left, and I accepted it."
Dankovsky's exhale brushes Artemy's chin. He hadn't meant to crowd closer, but having said his piece he feels rigid with pent up frustration. If he were to move now he doesn't think it would be create distance.
"Why did you come back, friend?" he asks one more time. Dankovsky's hand hovers in front of his shoulder, frozen.
He swallows once, twice before saying steadily, carefully, "The reason why no one would expect me to be here is that I made sure of it. If I thought this town could only ever be a reminder of my disgrace... I would go anywhere--You wouldn't be able to drag my corpse here, with the measures I'd take to avoid it."
"And yet--"
"And yet." Dankovsky insists. "I have come to understand, cannot deny--to myself at least if no other--there is more to this place than my shattered dreams."
"Like what?"
"Things which I could not write or talk about in the Capital. Hence, no letters, no ties, no further fuel for the torches hovering over me."
Artemy thinks about it, and can't wrap his head around it. "I don't understand. You bought a train ticket, and sent a letter. Doesn't that undo all your effort?"
The corner of Dankovsky's mouth twitches. His fingers descend to just barely touch Artemy's shoulder. "I used alternate means. It took some time to work everything out."
His touch does something to Artemy's ire, like a candle lightly snuffed. "Why all this effort?" he grates out, but the force of his frustration has given way to confusion. "You said it yourself last night--you didn't know for sure you would ever come back."
Dankovsky looks away. His eyes catch on the knife still in Artemy's hand. "I couldn't be sure... but my caution was warranted regardless. It was the only logical thing to do."
"Then be straight with me -- are you running from something?"
"Running from something, running toward something... what's the difference if the destination is the same?"
Artemy straightens up to get a better look at him. The fingers on his shoulder don't follow his retreat. Dankovsky allows him to look directly into his eyes but the meaning of his words fails to become clearer. Just as he's about to inquire about another, more intimate matter, the bell above the door chimes downstairs, dispelling the thick air between them.
Loosening his stiff fingers, Artemy sets down his knife. "Let me be clear." he says. "Regardless of the circumstances, anyone who tries to lay a hand on you will have to answer through me. That's how it is as long as you're under my roof. Understood?"
He doesn't wait for an answer from Dankovsky. The narrow spiral staircase does nothing to smooth his spinning thoughts. After the patient has left he can't even remember what they came in for. He also finds that aside from himself the clinic is empty, and that both the snakeskin coat and maroon scarf are missing from their hooks.
---
Dusk falls. The front door opens and shuts a dozen times but none of the faces that appear belong to Dankovsky. At the end of his shift Artemy tidies up and gathers his things slowly. The dark velvet bundle of gifted tools sits on the edge of his workbench with a dry sprig of skullcap beside it.
Making sure his keys are all in order, Artemy shuffles downstairs. Under the light by the door his thumb pauses on the newest addition to his ring. Shiny with disuse, the fishing hut key stands out among the rest--a stark outsider among the familiar. Looking at it like that, it's hard to imagine it could ever fit in with its worn and chipped companions. The comparison to a certain someone is so obvious it doesn't deign to be uttered.
Voices in the street outside draw his thoughts stubbornly outward. Stanislav's peculiar and gentle way of speaking is almost out of range of hearing, but the man he's speaking to seeps through the door and into Artemy's skin like a targeted throw.
With his back to the clinic, Stanislav doesn't see Artemy when he shoulders his way outside. Dankovsky notices the motion though, and meets his eye around the other's mass. Snow swirls aimlessly under lampposts like frenzied flies. Small flakes settle quickly on Dankovsky's shoulders and dark lashes like little blessings.
"If the compound can be synthesized, there won't be any need to draw from... Oh, Artemy," Stanislav belatedly notices his companion's distraction and turns to locate the source. "Look who I ran into on the way. The Bachelor hasn't changed a bit, wouldn't you say?"
Artemy murmurs an agreement, drawing closer. Dankovsky raises his chin and pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. "Rubin was telling me about his work."
"And you've given me much to think about." Stanislav adds. "I'll attempt your suggestion tonight. Would you like to see the lab some time? It may be crude, but limitations are the breeding ground for creativity."
"Of that I have no doubt. If it's any improvement from your previous circumstances, I'd love to see it some time."
"Right--where are you staying, anyway? Not at the Stillwater again, are you?"
Dankovsky shakes his head. "With Artemy." he says. Artemy again, while Stanislav is still Rubin. All of the cold he'd felt stepping outside evaporates from Artemy in an instant. Stanislav looks at him, and Artemy can't answer the question left unspoken in his friend's mouth. His eyes stay glued to Dankovsky's face, who gives him a small smile. "Do you have any errands to run on the way back?" he asks, as if he was waiting to walk home together all this time. But of course--Artemy realizes--he doesn't have a key.
Does his being here mean he still wants to stay under Artemy's roof? Is this an acceptance of what he'd said earlier?
After a while, thoughts drifting between various keys, Artemy says, "No."
"Excellent. Should we be on our way, then?"
They part ways with Stanislav. Artemy doesn't say anything for a while, falling into step with Dankovsky. Snowfall softens their footsteps. A light fog settles in to blur the edges all around them--lightening shadows while narrowing awareness to half a street before them. Even this advanced sandpaper effect can't do anything to smooth the tension from Dankovsky's back.
Where do we stand? Artemy has to wonder. What does this impossible man, with his embroidered words and threadbare constitution, want from him?
Could Artemy, with enough time and experience, learn to follow the spiraling paths of his words? Could he, with enough practice, know where to press to knead the tension from his shoulders? Would Dankovsky be willing to let him try?
On the last bridge before his home, Dankovsky lays a hand on the rail and stops to watch the river. Between the two frozen embankments it flows deceptively slow--small reflections of light flicker like scales on the back of a great snake. Stepping close, Artemy watches Dankovsky thumb the ends of his scarf. His lashes cast shadows on his cheeks.
"Why do this?" he asks.
Thinking his question is about the lending of the scarf, Artemy says flatly--"If your nose froze and broke off from the cold, my heart would break."
"Not that." he shakes his head, but there's a hint of a smile in his voice again. "I mean, why trouble yourself on my account? You said it yourself, we didn't know each other long. If you would rather see me return from where I came, I would not condemn you."
"I don't want that, oynon."
The river is silent below them, like a breath held in anticipation. Dankovsky's dark eyes drift over to him. His breath leaves him in a visibly unsteady cloud.
"The Sand Pest was a tumor of an illness. It wasn't just the sick who suffered. It pushed everyone's most honest self to the forefront -- If not in the beginning, then by the end I'd seen the worst in everyone. Lies, greed, bloody games for power... as if the outbreak wasn't bad enough." Kneading at his temple, Artemy leans an arm against the railing. "Even I didn't make the best choices some days. Sometimes I think it might have only been pure stubborn luck that won out in the end.
"It was shit. And you complained to no end. You didn't understand this backwater smudge on the map, and few listened to your word. But even with your endless complaints, even after you'd replaced your scalpel for a rifle, you didn’t give up or leave this place to rot. You stayed to the end."
Dankovsky's glove creaks on the rail. "I considered it." he admits, not with a guilty whisper, but with the confidence of an offhand comment, the carelessness of which is undermined by his next words; "Does that ruin your opinion of me?"
Artemy is reminded of the opening of his letter, 'Often I have wondered the nature of the reception this letter may receive...' For such a pompous, self-important man, Artemy's opinion of his character seems to hold disproportionate weight.
"Far from it." he says steadily. "To me--this town was my home, even if it rejected me like a foreign bacteria. It was the place of my birth and my father's death. I couldn't leave even if I wanted to. But to you, this was a hostile, backward thorn in the ground, with no incentive for you to risk pricking your finger. Am I wrong?"
Dankovsky gives a small shake of his head. Artemy exhales a single laugh and feels his cheek go tight with a smile. "You were a friend in a time I felt I had none. If it's any assurance, my desire to continue that friendship is still alive." When Dankovsky continues to say nothing, Artemy adds pointedly, "That's why."
Strange, to see Dankovsky without a viper quick response to everything. For a long time he seems to think over Artemy's words, pulling the scarf up higher over his nose. There's a layer of snow on his head now, and the tips of his ears are as red as the remaining visible sliver of his cheek. "... I see." he says. "I can't say I expected this. I planned to have to catch your attention anew, to start from the beginning."
With the streets this subdued it's not hard to imagine them as the only two people outside that night, to believe in the privacy of the moment. As if this bridge, encased in gently falling snow, suspended over the dark river, is a place where Artemy can say anything. As if he can't possibly say anything wrong enough--or sharp enough--to tear the curtain fallen around them. A dangerous thing, that. But when Dankovsky looks back over at him, his voice is drawn out harmlessly past numb lips. "Isn't this still a beginning?"
The question demands no answer, it implies nothing. It may as well be a baitless hook cast into the ocean. But Dankovsky turns to him. He takes a small step closer. His hand on the rail slides next to Artemy's, so that if either of them so much as twitch the other will feel it. All of this happens very slowly, a mirrored question in every movement, with ample opportunity given to retreat--to clarify, to reject.
Artemy lets out a long breath over the river and twists his hand in his pocket, finding the strange key on his ring. "... There's a fishing hut." he says without preamble. "It's a short walk beyond the swamp. Been a while since it was used, I don't think many people even know it's still there. If the town isn't safe, or if being here is too much, I can take you there. I have the key to it."
"You want to take me into the steppe? To go fishing?"
"Yes."
"In winter?"
"If you'd rather not, Capital dandy..."
Leather creaks as Dankovsky's glove tightens around the railing. He lets out a breath, weight shifting forward, sagging toward the river. Artemy's arm twitches--to catch him, to steady him, to know that his coat indeed contains a body and not just a curl of smoke, a remnant memory--but the sound that escapes from Dankovsky is breathy and short, something akin to a laugh. It's the first time Artemy has heard this noise from him. He swears even the skin around his eyes softens. "I suppose I won't have anything to worry about, wandering into the steppe with a bear as my companion."
Faced with this new, unexpected side to Dankovsky, Artemy's blood seems to tingle. He can't help leaning into his laughter. "You joke, but what will you say when you see me pull fish out of the river with my teeth? You'll never have had it fresher."
"Will we eat it raw?"
"As a bear, I'll have to. Unless you cook for the two of us."
Dankovsky's smile is a living, brilliant thing. "What other reward is befit such a generous creature?"
"A pat on the head. Maybe a scratch behind the ears."
"And a belly rub, I presume? A kiss on the nose?"
Immune to the cold, Artemy feels like dry kindling--flustered with a single spark, fit to combust with a stray wind. "Well..."
Dankovsky laughs again. The sound is not unkind. Rather, it escapes from deep in his chest, held back so as not to carry beyond their private fold in the fog. As they start walking the rest of the way home, Artemy resolves to hear it again, to draw it from that tensed, transient frame as many times as he can.
The empty bridge hushes to its previous silence. A thicker fog draws in to that now vacant space. It wipes away all visibility of one shore from the other. A single splash sounds in the river, neither here nor there, a sound deftly caught by the fog to dissipate into the night, heard by no one.
---
Try as he might, Artemy can't shake the idea of Dankovsky as a wraith made of smoke and scales. It's difficult to rationalize when the man himself broods like a shadow, moves like a wisp, and speaks like a dream. When he never shows himself as anything less than put together, the only momentary lapses of flesh-and-blood frailty that Artemy catches are in the corner of his eye or when Dankovsky doesn't know he's looking.
And he so rarely shows any skin other than what sits above his high collar. In the few days that Dankovsky has spent living at his house, Artemy counts himself lucky if he is allowed to see his forearms from wrist to elbow when Dankovsky rolls up his sleeves to tend the fireplace or wash his gloved hands. Anything beyond that he is left to wonder--and wonder he does. While Dankovsky sleeps in his father's old room, presumably dressed down to something more sensible for bed, Artemy’s imagination wanders late into the night. He never shows up to breakfast in anything less than his austere city uniform, after all.
When he finally gets his proof of flesh it comes in a form Artemy never could have expected. During a lull at the clinic Artemy comes home to take Murky sledding like he promised her he would. When she asks if the Bachelor can come too he’s surprised, and when she says Dankovsky is still in the house he goes to find out how he managed to convince Murky to like him when the rest of the urchins around town either taunt him to no end or hide from his proper Capital footsteps.
The question is half formed on his tongue when he knocks on the open door frame of Dankovsky's temporary residence, and it very nearly chokes him when he has to swallow it down at the flash of Dankovsky's upper thigh. The exposed area is only about a handspan wide where his pants have been drawn down to allow access to a syringe which pierces that rather hairy expanse. With barely a glance in his direction Dankovsky's practiced hand finishes administering the shot before he pulls out the needle, caps it, and spirits it away into his bag along with a brown vial. Smaller than a grain of rice, a single bead of blood collects on his thigh at the site.
Wraiths don't grow hair like that, do they?
Only after his bare skin disappears under a pull of dark fabric does Artemy find his voice. "I was... Murky wants you to come sledding. With us."
As if this is a perfectly normal request to make, Dankovsky nods and tucks his shirt back in.
Artemy wants to ask. He wants to know what the injection contained, what a man like Dankovsky could possibly be deficient in to warrant such an easy, practiced self-administration. He wants to ask if this is connected to his perpetual mallady. He wants to know the name of this half-secret, already half stumbled upon, albeit by accident. On the surface Dankovsky doesn't seem bothered by this scene. Artemy tries to gauge Dankovsky's thoughts, to search for the presence of any jagged shapes lingering under the placid set of his features as he sits there idly rubbing his thigh, watching Artemy.
He takes it as permission, at the very least, to simply say, "What was that?"
Still startling in its novelty, its charm--Dankovsky smiles. "It surely isn't a problem for one such as you, but some of us don't produce enough of the right hormones. In this case a synthetic functions just as well."
Hormones... Artemy's mind crawls past his initial surprise and lands in an interesting place. Yes, he knows of men who need supplementary hormones for one reason or another. He never expected Dankovsky to be one of them, but then there are many deficiencies that can not be seen with the naked eye. What can be seen, however, leads to a follow up question. "Is that why you're so short?"
"I suppose it could be. Only, most of the men in my family are of a similar height." He says with a flash of his teeth. He stands up then, clearing away the sanitary supplies laid out on the small desk. Artemy should leave him to it, should stop imposing and make sure Murky is getting properly dressed for the cold, but his curiosity binds his feet to the floor. Maybe Dankovsky will liken it to medical curiosity, and not guess at his far more personal interest.
"For how long?" he asks.
Dankovsky waves a gloved hand. "Long enough."
It seems like a dismissal, and Artemy is prepared to accept it as such. He pats the doorframe and starts to muster a turn in the conversation but Dankovsky, trailing a hand along the desk, decides to elaborate. "Ever since I knew of it and was able to procure the supply from a discreet colleague. Most doctors aren't keen to give it to individuals like myself. The board certainly didn't like it, but when have they ever liked my work?" A steely tone rises to the tip of his tongue. "People fear what they don't understand. It clouds their ability to dream, to think in abstract form, to invent."
A vague idea drifts past Artemy. "You sound like Peter." he says with a frown.
Dankovsky inclines his head. His black hair falls over his brow, and with that the thought slides into place, clumsy as a wooden block into a splintered hole. "Oh.” Artemy says. “You're like him, aren't you." He'd meant for it to come out as a question, but it falls flat at the end, as flat as the scarred plane of Peter's chest--glimpsed by nearly everyone in town whenever he was on one of his twyrine binges, sprawled across a couch in the Broken Heart with his shirt askew or flung across his face, Andrey poised at his side like a hawk--daring anyone to risk the fate that would befall any who remarked on his brother's unconventional nature.
Artemy had even supplied the visionary Stamatin with syringes on more than one account, after Peter explained what they were for. He never handled the import of vials, however. He assumed that was taken care of through Andrei's connections.
At some point during the progress of Artemy's thoughts Dankovsky turned to fully face him. "We're of a kind, yes." he says. There's no apprehension in his shoulders. Only a curious glint to his eye.
Satisfied with the information that Dankovsky isn't morbidly ill or otherwise compromised, at least in this case, Artemy nods. It's a surprise. But the man is full to the brim with surprises. And in a way it's fitting. Dankovsky--the preacher of medicine--so assured and firm in his convictions. It makes a certain kind of sense for a man like him to go to any length to adjust the physical flesh to align with his spirit.
"Nature is full of transformation, oynon, adapting in the pursuit of health. I'm glad you've found your way. If you'd like to use the clinic to order supplies, or use my name on the slip, just say the word."
Dankovsky presses the side of his fist to his mouth, brows drawn together. He releases a measured breath. A spot of color returns to his face, and an inch of tension that Artemy hadn't even noticed shifts, uncoils, drapes away from him like a layer discarded.
"Thank you, Artemy." he says. "I will."
---
Summoned to a meeting by one of Notkin's messengers, Sticky nearly forgets to grab his gloves drying by the radiator. Artemy firmly secures them on his hands while Sticky rambles about New Year's preparations over his head. With it getting colder by the day Artemy worries about these increasingly frequent late-night meetings. But Sticky assures him time and again that there is always a fire, and blankets, and it won't last long, besides.
The most Artemy can do is see him off and ensure he knows he has a warm bed to come home to.
In the kitchen he finds Murky divining walnut shells with Capella by candlelight. At first it had disquieted Artemy to see the two of them together. But Murky is glad for the company, and Capella seems to relax and act more like a regular girl when the two of them are together, less burdened by the duties of a Mistress. On the occasions that Grace joins them she seems to provide a fitting middle ground.
Artemy leaves them to their secrets. There is another secret he intends to find out from a particular Bachelor of medicine. A secret that still burns a hole in Artemy, growing wider and hotter by the day no matter his attempts to leave it be, to the point where he fears the outcome if he doesn't act. If he is left unattended to spill, and spill, and spill from this burning hole. Will anything be left of him by the end of it? Is there anything Dankovsky could say to staunch it? Or is he doomed to this slow bleed, this trickle of stifled affection, until Dankovsky leaves again and he is left empty and alone?
On a quiet evening like this Dankovsky is likely to be found by the woodstove furnace, reclining on the couch he claims possesses mystical properties. Artemy finds him there now with a cup of tea balanced on his knee and a blank set of pages sprawled on the small table beside him, pen pressed to his lips. His carpet bag yawns open at his feet, containing all manner of things. One object shines molten hot from reflected firelight. The barrel of a revolver gives Artemy pause. Far be it from him to begrudge the man's desire for armament when Artemy himself never goes anywhere without his knife. The uneasy feeling that stems from the sight of the revolver has more to do with Dankovsky's continued avoidance of the subject on why he feels the need to carry it.
And why do you carry a knife, Artemy? It isn't to cut herbs, not in the dead of winter, and it's far too crude a blade to operate with--at least on bodies of the living. It isn't a tool for healing. All the same it knows the warmth of his skin, the mold of his palm. He never leaves his bed in the morning without it.
What is it that chases Dankovsky's heels? Is it man or myth, or memory?
He brings death in his shadow, trailing the ends of his hideous coat, that insufferable fop.
The room is dark. The fire is burning. Artemy enters the room. Dankovsky's gaze, interrupted from his writing, cuts to him. Artemy accepts the sharpness of it, takes a few steps closer to it, wanting to feel it on his skin to know if it would be cold or hot. If it would hurt if he pressed all the way up against it, or slide in like it was meant to be inside him.
Stopping by the side table, Artemy picks up the unstopped inkwell. "Grief still sells arms." he says, watching ink cling to the glass like blood. "Should I stop by?"
Dankovsky lowers the pen slowly from his lips. "Whatever for?"
Artemy looks at him, wondering if Dankovsky can see the steady drip dripping from his chest. Does he smell like blood, still?
"Forget it. That isn't what I came to ask."
Artemy sets down the inkwell. He'd spent the past hour searching for Dankovsky's letter, cursing himself for managing to misplace it. It would make this easier if he could simply hand it over and ask Dankovsky to read the salutation at the end, to hear it with his voice. To know its tone, its purpose. To then be able to ask if it's true. To ask Dankovsky to lay him down gently if it isn't true in the sense that Artemy wants it to be.
"That is, there's something I'd like to know," he starts. "It has to do with a personal matter."
Dankovsky sets his pen on the little table, near where Artemy's fingers are still wrapped around the lip of the inkwell. "What is it?"
If only he could grasp that hand and press it to his chest--to show him the blood he has drawn to the surface, hammering its way out of him. To see what Dankovsky would do with it.
"Do you--"
Just then a heavy, frantic knock sounds at the door. Dankovsky flinches, all but leaping to his feet. By the time Artemy has his knife drawn there's a revolver in Dankovsky's hand, thumb on the hammer as he stares down the hallway.
Murky and Capella watch curiously from the kitchen as Artemy quietly passes. At the door he looks to Dankovsky to try and ask telepathically if this has anything to do with him, but the knock comes again--followed by a familiar voice.
"Burakh, please." it says. "Are you home? I need your assistance."
Narrowing his eyes, Artemy opens the door a crack. Maria Kaina stands on the steps alone. At the sight of him she sags forward and pours words out at his feet. "My father slipped on a patch of ice. It was a heavy fall--his hip, it pains him. Will you check on it?"
With his heart still pounding in his temples, Artemy lets out a breath. "Where is he?"
"His bed, we got him inside. But..."
Artemy casts another wary glance across the street but discreetly tucks away his knife. When he takes a step back to grab his coat from the hook he sees Daniil's revolver slip behind his back just the same.
Maria's notice misses the hiding of weapons but with the door open wide enough to see the other man she pins him with an almost violent captivity. "Daniil." she says, with a voice that's stained with surprise that could pass as genuine if Artemy didn't know the gossip of his arrival likely reached her days ago. "You look rather wretched."
Dankovsky inclines his head. "Maria."
"I only mean to say, it's rather surprising to see you like this. As a doctor yourself."
Dankovsky’s eyes narrow. Interesting--Artemy notes--that Maria notices his poor health just as quickly. "A bachelor of medicine, formally.” Dankovsky says. “I'm not very good at taking care of myself it turns out." he says. "Why else do you think I'm visiting this one?"
Artemy raises a brow at this statement, as he's never heard from the man himself acknowledge that something is wrong with his health. But this isn't the right time or setting to interrogate him on the matter.
"Why, indeed." Maria mutters.
"You seem perplexed. Did you not dream of my arrival this time?"
Artemy looks to Maria. Her delicate purple scarf hides her mouth, but her eyes are bright, glittering like dagger points. "A dream? I may have, would you like to hear about it?"
"I'm not sure I have any faith in your visions."
"It's not about faith. The dream will come true as sure as the sun rises."
Stuck in the thick of this budding hostility, Artemy makes to step between them, but Dankovsky holds him back by the arm. Maria doesn't appear to even see him as she continues, "You are a bleeding wound, Daniil, fit to foul every street in town with your blood. I've seen how the river will flow. Clotting and cloying, the smell hasn't left my throat in days. Only it remains to be seen whether your murky scarlet stream will carry poison, antidote, or snake oil."
"Are your dreams not as clear as they once were, Scarlet Mistress?"
Maria lifts her chin. Her eyelids droop down like curtains, obscuring any trace of her previous glimmer. Very quietly she says, "Whose fault is that?"
"It sounds like you could use better sleep." Artemy interjects, ignoring Dankovsky's grip to bodily impose himself between the two bristling cats. "Is this why you came to me instead of Rubin, to pester my house guest? Why don't we see to your father? Then you and I can both sleep like babies without worrying about strange dreams."
Maria's brow twitches. Then without a second glance for Dankovsky she glides back from the door.
Artemy drops a weary glance behind him at the hand still gripping his arm. "...Her visions hold no weight." he says. "She's no mistress, not anymore."
Frowning, Dankovsky gives a small shake of his head. "I know well not to hold dreams as law. I'll heed the warning, but that's all it is. That's all it has the power to be." Despite his cool tone a shiver escapes to punctuate it. Artemy feels the slight tremble transfer to his arm. In that moment he nearly fails to suppress an impulse to run his hands down Dankovsky's sides, to check if his palms come away dry or wet with blood, to see if Maria's gaze really is sharp enough to flay skin. The motion to do so starts at his shoulder, but Dankovsky's grip changing interrupts it, moving down to his wrist before their hands connect and meld like a stitch pulled tight.
"I can't guess what Maria means by it," Dankovsky says seriously, "But I bring no harm to your town. Not willingly. That much I can tell you."
His hand, in a rare turn of events, is bare. And it is shockingly warm.
"I know." The one hurting here is you. But where lies the wound? Is the splinter still lodged inside, churning, settling deeper? Is it even Artemy's place to remove it?
And what kind of menkhu are you if you ignore it? If he comes to hate you for it, for your endless poking and prodding, so be it. He won't rest until the lines of his healing stitches stretch across--or within--Dankovsky.
Just give me time.
Maria is some paces away when he turns around. The door shuts softly behind Artemy when he starts walking. Above him there isn't a single star in the black sky. The cold quickly sucks the warmth from his body, the only remaining morsel lives in his fist, curled tight to protect the feeling for as long as he can.
---
The elder Kain lives another day.
There is no injury to mend except for the pain, and even then there's only so much Artemy can do. He brews teas to help him sleep through it, but the remaining Kains urge him to stay until morning, just in case. He's an elder, after all.
To assuage their worries Artemy dozes in a chair and thoroughly checks the hip a dozen times under their watch. But even when the rising sun breaks the dry chill blanketing the streets Artemy remains bone cold to his core. His walk back home is a slow one, his eyes heavy with snatched threads of a dream. All he can remember--and can't seem to put out of his mind--is the flaying of his own flesh, unrolling to reveal the deepest brightest shade of scarlet.
---
Burakh,
Let me be clear, I wished never to have to write this. If you find it within you to let water flow under the bridge I will invite you into my home with the afforded respect. My Katerina asks for you. You know how long she has been in this state, and I fear for her by the day. Consider that she has done nothing to you. A Mistress is a vessel, she harbors no personal ill will. There isn't room enough in her mind for it.
I ask that you forgive grievances long enough to see her. There is no one else I can turn to.
A. Saburov.
Dusk turns the snow under Artemy's boots to a honeyed pink. The courtyard of the Saburov estate is largely untouched, a pristine wintery scene, disturbed only by the line of his path stretching behind him to the gates.
The door opens soon after his brisk knock. Saburov opens it, stepping back to let him in. "She's in the bedroom. She wanted to come out to meet you, but..." he trails off, looking more than a little pale himself. There isn't a hint of his signature haughtiness, and this concerns Artemy above all.
Belatedly, Saburov seems to remember himself. "Thank you for coming, Burakh."
"Don't mention it."
The hall leading to the bedroom is dark, not only for lack of light. Dark wood paneling, deep red wallpaper, muffling carpets of swirling, sticky patterns. They pull at Artemy's mind like the strings of a web, pulling him into a reminder of a dozen other houses similarly darkened by the sick and dying. He resists the urge to hold his breath and stalks forward to the end.
There's a halo of light at the end, around Saburova's bed. An arrangement of candlesticks spit guttery flames on the end table, casting shadows on Saburova's sunken face. Artemy slings his bag onto the foot of the bed and takes up her hand resting on the sheets, feeling for a paperthin pulse.
Even as a whisper the crispness of her voice surprises him. "So you're here."
"I am."
"But what form do you take, healer? What do you hold in your hands...? A mending needle, or scissors sharp enough to cut the most stubborn thread? Come closer to the light, so I may see."
"I'm only holding your wrist." Artemy says, but he obliges. Saburova's hand curls around his, clawing into the meat of his thumb, as she peers into his face. Artemy takes it in stride. "What can I do for you?"
"You? Nothing. You heal bodies, not spirits, Master Burakh. If you tried you'd only make a mess of things."
Artemy looks to the doorway, at Saburov lingering in the dark, then back at the fading oracle. "Then why am I here?"
"Why else? You're in my dreams again, and it's driving me mad. Can't you even let me go in peace?"
"I can give you morphine."
"Enough! Listen or don't listen, it matters nothing to me!" Saburova's face twists past anger, crossing the line into fear. "But you will hear my words, son of Isidor. You reek of blood. Oh, it makes my head spin! The knife you cling to is pointed in the wrong direction. If you don't stop pressing with all your strength, we will all of us feel the pain of your negligence!"
Stomach twisting, Artemy shakes his head. "I don't understand." What knife? What blood? What negligence?
"The heart! It's had enough of your pricking! Sew it shut, or end it now!"
"That's enough," her husband appears at Artemy's side, loosening his hand from her grip. Artemy takes a step back, out of the ring of light. "Katya, please. Please... Do you not want some rest?"
"There is no rest for me if this one can't open his eyes." she sneers through her teeth.
The expression Alexander turns on him is one far more familiar. Respectfully, Artemy matches it. "To hell with you and your riddles. How am I supposed to see anything between the tangle of your words?"
"Is there not another who speaks in riddles of a different nature?" Saburova says one word at a time. "If your hands are made to cut flesh, his are sculpted for the mind. Speak to him before you drag us all into the river!"
Artemy leaves her with a small bottle of Meradorm on her table among the weeping candlesticks. Only once he's reached the front room does Saburov barely manage to catch up with him.
"Burakh," he says, winded. Artemy waits, hand clutching the doorknob, as Saburov digs through a locked chest by the door. A jingle of coins precedes the offering of a small canvas bag. "For your trouble." he says. There are still lines around his eyes, but Artemy knows some stem from sorrow rather than resentment.
In no mood to say any kind words of gratitude, Artemy takes the payment and leaves, doubling the trampled line through the Saburovs’ yard--A deep line of shadow through sunset-red snow, remaining long after he is gone.
---
Saburova's words--and by extension Maria's warning--stay with him.
As much as Artemy wants to dismiss the Mistresses' dreams, there is too much overlap to be overlooked. At the very least he knows Saburova has the capability to be wrong. The matter with his inheritance... It was Saburova who painted him as a murderer, a bringer of great sorrow. But if not for him the Sand Pest would have eaten a hole right through the earth. None of them would have survived the tumor's final stage. None of the seers had foreseen his final sacrifice.
But had there not been sorrow, too? Do corpses not plague his shadow? Not one of the survivors were unaffected by the removal of the tower, of the scar left in its place. Is Saburova right about the bloodscent that hounds him even now?
In the dim light of the lantern, Artemy runs his thumb under the lip of his teacup. It's almost more comforting to smell the chamomile than it is to drink it, to watch light shift on its surface and feel its warmth down to his bones. In the dark, he can't see the blood on his hands.
A wounded heart, a river, a blade. Saburova agonized over a sick heart, while Maria spoke of a bleeding wound. Both mentioned a river, one that would run forth to cover the town. But what does it have to do with Dankovsky? He's only here--for what? His reasons remain unknown. But even so Artemy believes his claim to cause no harm. His hand may be heavy, his tongue may be barbed, but he is a healer in his own right.
He is Artemy's other half, the left hand to his right.
But Saburova also mentioned a sharpened point, that for it to pierce the wrong direction would bring forth a river of blood. Is Artemy too involved in Dankovsky's wellbeing? Is he too close to see the blood welling forth from the press of his hand? Is it not his place to want to mend this ailing outsider? Is he destined to only cause more harm in the end?
Despite Saburova's urging that he speak to Dankovsky about it, after Artemy returned from the estate it was hard to bring it up. Impossible to know exactly what she meant, but just as impossible to speak to the man who was apparently bleeding out right under his nose.
The tea is lukewarm when he finally downs it. He sits for a while in his dark kitchen after extinguishing the lantern. The house comes down to envelope him. Heavy in its silence. Heavy in its expectations.
A dim noise cracks the quiet. Artemy sits up from his wakeful stupor, shivering in the sudden cold. The little noise comes again, like a scrape. He moves quietly to investigate, his hand touching his knife without meaning to. When he finds the source of the disturbance he releases it as if burned.
Huddled in front of the living room stove, Dankovsky pokes quietly at the embers. A blanket curls around his shoulders, only the silhouette of his head visible in the dark room. It is so cold in the threshold where Artemy stands.
If he steps into the room, which way will the blade push? If he touches Dankovsky's shoulder, coaxes him to the couch, to lend him an ear for his late night woes, will the river spring forth at the very first whispered word? Artemy bites down on his tongue. Embers glow by the shift of Dankovsky's arm, inviting as a warm summer's day. The sound of Artemy's steps on the journey to his bed are entirely eaten by the house, silent as a winter's night.
---
Burakh,
You can't keep the Bachelor all to yourself. I've invited him to the Broken Heart tonight with some others who wanted to see him. You're welcome to come yourself as long as you don't hog his ear. No need to bring your own twyre, this is a night for pleasure. Come at 7:00 if you want to let loose.
A. Stamatin
Artemy folds the letter, frowning. Who is keeping who to himself? Dankovsky chose to stay at Artemy's house. It stands to reason that they would cross paths more often than any other. Aside from that, the man goes wherever he likes.
He hadn't even seen much of Dankovsky that day. Claiming a long list of errands that needed doing he made himself scarce after breakfast. By the time Artemy sees his last patient to the door the sun has long since set and Dankovsky has yet to make an appearance. A change in the routine of the past week where Dankovsky took it upon himself to walk Artemy home at the end of his work.
It's nothing to worry about. If Dankovsky insists he isn't in danger, Artemy has no choice but to believe him. And in the event that he gets himself into some trouble, Artemy knows him to be perfectly capable of pulling a trigger.
Even so. 7:00 rolls around, and Artemy finds himself walking in the direction of the Broken Heart. No doubt Stanislav will be among those at the pub, not one to turn down the opportunity to chat with the others late into the night. But with the stabbing wind blowing around snowdrifts sharp enough to sting eyes and cheeks alike, it isn't likely anyone will be showing up at the clinic until daybreak. If anyone is going to have an emergency the pub is the most likely stage for it.
The steps down to the entrance are slippery. Even from outside he can hear a rowdy bunch of voices, a vibrant welcome party by the sound of it. Knowing that, it still feels like stepping into a different world. The pub is warm, instantly drawing a sweat across Artemy's body. Smoke haze hangs near the ceiling--lending everything a blueish gray light, softening edges and motions alike. Twyre heavily scents the air, slowing and familiar. Dancers shift the air with their languid arms. Without any windows it’s impossible to tell the time, or even the country they might be in.
Dankovsky, sitting at the heart of the matter, draws Artemy to him like a lighthouse at sea. He's planted between Stanislav and Yulia, coat shed, throat exposed, sleeves rolled up, cheeks flushed. He's saying something to Peter when Artemy approaches, taking the seat at the end of the booth. The topic seems to be about the body of a house--how every house is a world, and so must also be a person. Artemy isn't sure where Dankovsky's opinion lies on the matter, or if he's hypothecating. It's a rapt argument (or are they agreeing?), but in the middle of it he sends a quick, friendly smile at Artemy in greeting.
He continues to do that over the course of the night--glancing at Artemy over the width of Stanislav's shoulders. Each time, Artemy means to look away, to appear as if Dankovsky isn't the most interesting person in the room. But he can't. Not when he keeps drawing that smile from him, the one he tries to hide behind his cup, or the back of his fingers. A smile like he knows.
It’s almost enough to make Artemy drink his weight in twyrine. He doesn't, the smell is intoxicating enough, and he doesn't dare touch a glass when he notices Dankovsky isn't drinking much either. The Broken Heart is dreamlike enough as it is without the addition of spirits. And Artemy doesn't trust his tongue to behave if he gives it the means to say whatever it wants.
He's tremendously glad of the decision when Stanislav stands up to use the washroom, leaving the space between Dankovsky and himself suddenly empty. Like a tear in the ocean, the space quickly fills itself. Dankovsky leans across--his open collar slipping to reveal the hollow of his throat. No amorphous smoke there, only an inviting stretch of flesh, slightly goosebumped.
Lowering his voice enough that Artemy has to lean closer to hear it, he says, "You have a strange look about you. Is this not to your liking?"
Something was to his liking alright. A little too much liking.
Artemy chances a glance at Andrei, but finds him too deep in conversation with Yulia to notice the exchange transpiring on this side of the table. "I don't make it a habit to come here often." he says.
There's a strand of hair stuck to the sweaty sheen of Dankovsky's temple, disproportionately endearing. "You haven't had a drop to drink. I would have thought twyrine was to your taste."
"It is." he admits, in lieu of admitting to the rest of his tastes. Damn, but the atmosphere is dizzying. "I didn't expect it to be yours."
Dankovsky tilts his glass, catching the light on its deep red-brown surface. After a brief moment of consideration he places it on the table, and shifts closer. Swevery scents his movement, following the glide of his wrists, his neck. "As an analgesic it has its appeal. The flavor is unexpectedly smooth. But I don't particularly favor the world of dreams. A veil can be a hindrance or a shield, depending on the wearer."
Leave it to Dankovsky to speak with a flowered tongue, even imbibed. But it’s an interesting complaint--One that Artemy might not think much of if the circumstances were different. As it stands, a question arises. "Is that why you don't sleep?"
The look Dankovsky cuts at him is cool enough to remind Artemy that here sits a killer. Then it slips, Dankovsky's face loses its flush. A wry grin curls the corner of his mouth. He tries to hide it behind a gloved fist, the trembling of which could merely be an illusion of smoke, but Artemy doesn't think it is.
"I'd almost forgotten how observant you are."
Artemy isn't sure how to take that. "... I'll cover my eyes next time there's something you don't want me to notice."
"Forgive me, I didn't mean it like that." Dankovsky lowers his voice again. A strand of hair gets caught in his brow. "Your keen mind is a trait I quite enjoy about you."
Artemy inhales. His exhale stirs the fringe around Dankovsky's ear. "There are still some things that allude me."
"Concerning what?"
"You."
Dankovsky considers him. "There isn't much I wouldn't tell you, Artemy. You need only ask."
When presented like that, Artemy quickly dismisses the first question that comes to mind. He says, "Why did you come back?"
With a small wince, Dankovsky looks away. Artemy doesn't. Dankovsky is quiet for so long that Stanislav has time to return from the washroom. When it becomes apparent that Dankovsky shows no signs of moving, he takes the vacant seat by Yulia, throwing Artemy a curious look. Though he doesn't say anything, Stanislav's return is enough of a commotion in itself to catch Andrei's attention. He takes in the new seating arrangement and Artemy tenses for an accusation.
An accusation of what? He doesn't know. But it doesn't come. Andrei meets Artemy's gaze for a moment that feels like it lasts forever, before raising his glass--to what?--and drinks.
"You're right," Dankovsky finally says. He still looks mildly chastised, but the flush has reappeared on his cheeks, stretching all the way to his ears. "You've waited long enough. More patiently than I would have, in your position, by a margin."
"I don't think I've been patient enough."
"No. I've been unfair." Dankovsky lifts his chin. He shifts closer, breath tickling the hair on Artemy's jaw. "Your offer--to go fishing. The two of us. Is it still on the table?"
Artemys hands curl to fists in his lap. He closes his eyes. What is he to do with this hook in his heart, except follow its incessant pull? How can he fight it when all he wants is to swim to the man who holds the line?
"Of course."
Dankovsky's hand presses against his thigh to help right himself. Artemy looks at it--he has to, to make sure it isn't a dream. "I'll tell you then. By the river. Surrounded by your Steppe. Every question, every truth. Everything, Artemy."
"I'll hold you to that,” he swallows “Daniil."
Dankovsky's face does something strange at the sound of his name, but Artemy knows he must look a fright himself. He can still feel the shape of the sound in his mouth, clinging, leaving behind a taste like the sweetest swevery.
Dankovsky swipes the hair back from his face. Artemy catches the bob of his throat. "I’ll look forward to it." he says.
Soon after that Andrei curls Dankovsky back into the conversation. Artemy is content to busy himself picking at cold, oily oladyi left on the table, arranging his thoughts back into readable, coherent lines. He offers dry remarks when a question swings his way, but the only thing he remembers at the end of the night is the steady presence of Dankovsky. Of his warm, companionable hand resting on his back, and the buzz in his blood that has nothing whatsoever to do with twyrine.
---
PART 2
Line
All is quiet on the Gorkhon river. Fog blurs the edges of the horizon, reducing the world to a snowglobe. White curls of steam rise from two mugs on the small dock. Only the occasional plink of a fish jumping further down stream thrusts a ripple into the silence. That, and Dankovsky's breath beside him. The creak of the rod--the slip of the wire--are mere suggestions of sound.
It came as a surprise at first when Dankovsky took up a fishing rod himself, set the spool and tackle, and cast with a motion as smooth and precise as the rest of him. It quickly became apparent that there wouldn't be a need for Artemy to jump into the river to fish with his teeth after all. It's much nicer sitting beside Dankovsky in the gentle, sleepy gloom by the river in any case. Watching the current trickle by. Sipping tea together. Occasionally turning their reels.
Finding proper winter clothes for Dankovsky also turned out to be easier than expected. Near the end of the night at the Broken Heart Andrei had learned, by some mystical means, of the proposed fishing trip. From there it had been as simple as figuring out who had the closest size to the Bachelor. Andrei was out of question--his old clothes went to Peter more often than not. But the two of them were able to find a coat among their closets that suited neither of their tastes. Yulia contributed a pair of fur lined gloves she no longer wore, and the floppy fur hat currently sitting on his head had come from Stanislav. A few of Artemy's old sweaters came along for the trip out too. And then there is the maroon scarf.
Swathed in wool and fur and borrowed layers from head to toe, Dankovsky appears both younger and older than his usual self. Stripped from his city garb and his thin, rigid angles he's rather subdued. But far from reduced, as though he were plucked from the memories of the plague and dropped, at last, into the present. Sharp in his clarity if not his silhouette.
"Your line." Artemy nods to the bobbing tip of Dankovsky's pole. Dankovsky is quick to set down his tea and take up the reel.
"It's rather heavy." he frowns. "Did you not say there weren't any big--"
The line breaks with the shocking force of snapped bone. Something big and murky slips away just under the surface, splashing a flick of water with its tail. Neither of them say anything for a minute.
"Well," Artemy starts to reel in his own empty line. "It's been a while since I fished here. I can't be right about everything."
Dankovsky fingers the broken end of the line. "Could it be a mutation of sorts?"
"I'm no ecologist."
"Neither am I. But it is strange, isn't it?"
Artemy looks at him. "Sure." he says, bending down to pick up the fish bucket. Handfuls of snow cover their earlier catches. It isn't much, but enough to feed two men for dinner, and they brought rations of dry food besides. On his way up the embankment he bumps his shoulder against Dankovsky. "Cheer up. Maybe it was Boddho giving us her blessing."
Dankovsky doesn't look convinced. But he takes Artemy's fishing rod to carry up the faint snow path to the hut.
To call it renovated would be generous. The hut still looks three hundred years too old to be standing, but it has a functioning stove, fur carpet floors, and no drafts as far as Artemy can tell. It's even roomier than expected. A bare kitchenette stands in one of the corners. It's here where Artemy prepares the fish.
First the skin must be stripped. Silver scales litter the small metal sink as Artemy shucks them from the first herring, one long stroke after another. A single smooth incision from the belly to head opens the gut cavity. Fresh blood runs red along his fingers as he pulls out the stringy offal.
After a rinse of ice cold water he sets it aside to be stuffed with herbs and spices--dried mint, garlic, and white whip. Salt, pepper, and thyme. When each fish has been similarly cut and dressed he blankets them in a layer of sliced lemon. Overly embellished, perhaps. But for the first real meal of their outing Artemy decides to indulge. By the hungry looks Dankovsky casts his way over the pot of boiling potatoes, he thinks it was worth the effort.
Artemy lights candles as Dankovsky sets the table. The one electric lamp on the wall isn't bright enough to see much of anything, the dull color only managing to cast a sickly glow and hurt his eyes. "All we need now is to set the tea. Only, I seem to have forgotten our mugs outside." Dankovsky is already pulling on his coat on the way to the door. “Do sit, I'll only be a moment."
All that day the weather was mild. But a hard wind picks up in Dankovsky's absence, shaking the rickety walls. Artemy casts a curious glance at the door after setting their plates but it doesn't open for some time. He'd seen Dankovsky take a lantern with him on the way out. Surely he couldn't have fallen in a ditch during the very short walk to the dock.
Just as Artemy has resigned himself to go out on a rescue mission Dankovsky blows inside with a flurry of snow, cups in hand. "Get lost?" Artemy asks, standing to take the mugs for a rinse.
"No. I--thought I saw... something. In the river." The sound of Dankovsky's coat slipping from his shoulders comes from behind him. Artemy's hands holding the cups above the sink freeze in place.
"In the river?"
Dankovsky doesn't seem to take note of the dull tone of his voice. "Never mind that, it couldn't have been more than a shadow. The fish, on the other hand, is a sight worth talking about. If it tastes as good as it looks I'll have to give you that kiss I promised."
Artemy's blood remembers how to move, and he turns to look at Dankovsky. "Promised?"
"Didn't I? Well, it all depends on the taste, though I can't imagine it being anything less than exquisite. How strong do you want your tea?"
Artemy lets Dankovsky take the cups from his hands. He sinks into his seat at the table. He watches, transfixed, as Dankovsky takes his first bite. He burns under his praise. Pride settles in his stomach after Dankovsky finishes every bite, skin and heads included. He forgets his words afterward when Dankovsky touches his shoulder, tugs him down by the neck, and brushes a kiss to the tip of Artemy's nose.
What he doesn't forget is the warning lodged in his gut. Instead of taking Dankovsky's face in his hands and planting a proper kiss elsewhere, he ducks his head, face nearly melting from the heat emanating from under his skin. He spends way too long washing their dishes, and responds minimally to Dankovsky's further attempts at conversation. He swallows his words again and again, irritating an ache in his throat from a stray fish bone.
The pain lingers late into the night.
---
At dawn Artemy sits on the dock alone. Tight woven clouds above trap a glowing dawn across the snowy steppe. He can see further out today, all the way to the horizon in every direction. Like the hunched back of an animal, the town makes its sleepy shadow in the near distance, clinging to the last vestiges of night fog. It appears closer than he expected it to be.
Artemy still hasn't caught anything when Dankovsky finds him there. But it hadn't really been his intention to catch much, he only wanted to sit with himself for a time--to work through his noisy thoughts without disturbing Dankovsky's restless, insomniatic sleep in the cot next to him.
The aforementioned man is as well put together as always when he reaches the dock, aside from the circles under his eyes. "I wondered if it was your plan to leave me here to fend for myself."
Artemy snorts. "Good morning."
Nodding absently Dankovsky casts a sweeping look out across the steppe, eventually landing on the town. Artemy wonders if he ever feels restful after a sleep like that, or if he's taught himself how to function on as little as he can stand.
"Have you eaten?" Dankovsky asks.
"No."
"Eager to get the best catch, are you?"
Artemy shrugs. "My hook just happens to be in the river. If any fish falls on it, it'll be a happy coincidence."
Dankovsky accepts this answer and comes to sit next to him, first clearing a patch of snow on the wooden planks. His shoulder touches Artemy's.
It's quiet for a time. Artemy is content to sit that way. He imagines Saburova's knife in his hands, kept idle by the still silence. He imagines Dankovsky overcoming that which ails him without interference, like the way a person's blood burns away illness through the cleansing fires of a fever. If he keeps his hands to himself, there is a chance that everything will work itself out.
That’s why Dankovsky's touch on his cheek nearly startles him out of his skin.
"Forgive me," he says. "My hands must be cold." But rather than withdrawing his fingers slowly drop to the top of the scarf nestled under Artemy’s jaw. The sound Artemy makes is neither confirmation or denial. "Only… I wanted to say that I think your beard suits you."
Slow as a snowdrift, Artemy turns to look at him. Only then does the hand withdraw. It curls on Dankovsky's bent knee, bare. Artemy reaches out for it without thinking, wrapping it within his larger glove. In contrast to his own unruly beard the skin around Dankovsky's mouth is freshly shaven. "Would you ever grow one?" Artemy asks.
Dankovsky chuckles. His hand curls around Artemy's grip. "No, it wouldn't suit. And I'd look too much like my father."
"I like your stubble. In the mornings."
"I wasn't aware you had the occasion to see me fresh out of bed. In fact you missed your chance this morning."
"It was once or twice. During the… Pest. It left an impression."
Dankovsky's grip squeezes--once. Artemy feels it all the way around his heart. "In that case the fault is mine for leaving such a ghastly memory. I can't have been a pretty sight."
"Didn't I just say I liked it?"
Dankovsky has nothing to say to that. Pink rises to his cheeks from the cold. They sit like that for a while. The fishing rod stays still except for the occasional gust of wind. Only when it starts to rain--tiny ice cold pellets that threaten to pierce them to shreds--do they let go of each other.
On the way up the embankment Artemy detours to a shed next to the hut to put his fishing rod away. It'll be good to grab more wood while he's here, too. He isn't ready to face Dankovsky again in cramped quarters. He doesn't know what to make of him like this. He doesn't know what to think at all. It isn’t like Artemy to be this directionless, and it makes him restless.
There's a sizable stack of firewood in the shed. To his disappointment it turns out to all be damp. Rain visibly pelts down from a hole in the ceiling that most definitely wasn't there yesterday. Did last night's wind manage to blow a corner off? He can't even find it in himself to swear. He collects himself, finds a dirty canvas bundled up in the corner, and sets to work on temporarily patching it up. By the time he finishes and salvages enough dry pieces of wood to take with him to the hut, Dankovsky is waiting for him under the small, crude overhang in the doorway.
"No need to catch a cold on my behalf." Artemy raises his voice to be heard above the rain. "The wood is all damp, it's no good. If we want to stay through another night I'll have to go back to town for more."
Dankovsky frowns at the small stack of usable wood in his arms. "Wait until the rain lets up." he says. "We'll make do."
Inside he finds Dankovsky has been practicing interior decorating. The only table in the hut has been moved closer to the furnace. A journal sits abandoned on its surface, the open pages filled with Dankovsky's tight, neat cursive. There are breakfast foods left there for Artemy, too. Bread, jam, cheese. He eats to the sounds of Dankovsky's writing, the crackling fire, and rain on the rooftop. It disquiets him how familiar sharing a table with Dankovsky has become. The only thing that's missing is two additional pairs of sticky hands.
The question that comes from Dankovsky nearly chokes him; "Do you miss the kids?"
They've only been at the hut for twenty four hours, and this individualistic man thinks to ask such a question. In fact, it's Artemy's first time away like this since Sticky and Murky started hanging around his house. He'd spent nights at the clinic before, but not often, and not recently.
"Actually, I do." he says.
Dankovsky's pen hovers over the page. "Do you wish they were here?"
"Your company is more than enough for me, honey." he deadpans. But then he gets to thinking, and can't stop his mouth from running. He scratches his beard, reaching for another piece of cheese. "Maybe the four of us can come back. In the spring, when it's warmer."
"I think they'd like it." Dankovsy says without missing a beat.
It isn't exactly what Artemy wanted to imply. "And you? Do you like it?"
"It's peaceful."
"I was worried this would be too uncivilized for your refined tastes."
Dankovsky grins crookedly without looking up from his journal. "If you have taught me anything, Artemy Burakh, it is that the steppe holds many mysteries, and a certain kind of... allure. If I close my eyes to it, it would be a grave disservice to myself."
Artemy stirs an extra spoonful of honey into his tea. "Is the lumpy mattress part of the allure?"
"I'm not so civilized that I can't stand to get my hands dirty for a few days."
"Could have fooled me.”
Dankovsky shrugs. "I can't imagine you in a big city, either. But I remember you studied at a university?"
"I managed. It was more jarring to come back here after so long." Artemy says, standing up to clear away his breakfast. A thoughtful hum follows his back.
"Do you think you would ever leave again?"
"What for?"
Dankovsky stares at him. Artemy hadn't meant for his response to come out so astonished, but really, the thought holds no allure for him. "There's nothing for me in the city." he says. "And I have an obligation to this town and its people."
Having finished cleaning up, the stress of Artemy's sleepless night, early morning, and hasty carpentry starts to catch up with him. His body ignores the warnings of indigestion and takes him to lay down on the rug in front of the stove. There isn't enough room for him to completely sprawl out. But if he can just shut his eyes for a moment...
"I understand your ties to this place. But I would like to see it," Dankovsky says from above him, surprising Artemy that he was still thinking about this. "Just once, if only for the novelty of it. You in the Capital, I mean. If we went together I could take you to the library, or the theater. Or one of the museums? Afterward we would dine in the finest new restaurant and walk along the river."
Artemy shifts his arm away from his eyes. "Have you thought of this already?"
"I'm not finished. You would be required to dress up, of course. That would be part of it. Your sweaters are charming, but for just one night... And at the end of it I would take you to see the grandest sight of all, Thana--" Dankovsky's face shutters. His hands freeze mid-gesture.
Artemy hesitates. His own barbed hand wavers before wrapping around Dankovsky's calf. "I thought you were finished with your Capital." he says quietly.
"Finished?” Another nasty gust of wind wracks the hut. It howls like a hollow, bellowing groan. When it settles again Dankovsky has reinstilled the composure in his voice. “It's the root of my life's work, as this town is the root of you. It's where I made myself. It isn't so easy to let it go."
"A root can be replanted to bear fruit in better soil."
Dankovsky looks away, giving Artemy his cold profile. His jaw tenses. "So you can be poetic. But where would you suggest I go, Artemy?"
"You're here now, aren't you?" The idea he tried to express earlier comes back to him. Tendered by the fire, his full belly, and Dankovsky's kiss from last night, Artemy opens his chest a little. His throat strains with the effort of keeping it from sounding like a plea. "You could stay a while. We would be happy to have you here. In Town-on-Gorkhon."
"Who is 'we'?"
"The people would be glad to have another doctor. They remember you. They kept asking to pass along greetings when they learned you were coming."
"Is that all?" Dankovsky's brows knit together. "I should move back to a stranded town in the middle of the steppe to practice medicine? In a place where I cannot cut bodies? Even with my failures, there are still other cities more favorable. I may even go abroad."
"If it's a matter of cutting bodies--"
"It's more than that. I need more than that, Artemy. I won't be content simply administering medicine for the common cold, or stitching cuts, or studying in a dusty office on animal organs. It's not enough. I have bigger dreams than that."
Artemy swallows the inadvertent jibe and sits up, his hand rising to cup the back of Dankovsky's knee. There’s an idea churning in the back of his mind. He isn’t sure if it’s borne from guilt or inspiration or something else. He says lowly, carefully, as if balancing a blade on the tip of his finger, "And will these other cities allow you to build a new Thanatica?"
The small single room is quiet. Even the stove seems to hold its breath. Slowly, Dankovsky turns his face. Eyes wide--his hunger reaches out to pry more words from Artemy's mouth. "The Kains, the Stamatins--they'll follow you." he says in a rush. "The tower has fallen but the dreamers live on."
"They're beyond me."
"I doubt that. I think returning to your Capital has stifled you. Who was it that burned your work? Who feared your ideas? Near the end, who was it that threatened me if any one of the Utopians came to harm? I thought you would have stopped at nothing to stitch yourself into their net."
Dankovsky's face twists in anguish. His hand clutches his chest. "In another time, I might have considered it. If the Polyhedron..."
Artemy feels sick by the mention of it, by the hand he played in its fall. But if he doesn't press this... if he sits idly by while Dankovsky chooses to wilt abroad, beyond his reach-- "The Polyhedron wasn't built by minds knowledgeable in medicine. They grew a tumor onto a living being, pierced a wound into the earth without any regard for the patient. But if one were to follow the lines of anatomy, to construct rather than butcher..."
Dankovsky jerks to his feet like a doll pulled by its strings. He seems startled to find Artemy's arm still wrapped around his leg. Artemy moves back but doesn't let go.
"I thought you didn't care for them." Dankovsky says, still tense under Artemy's hand. "The Kains. The dreamers."
"I thought you didn't care for them, either. But there was a passion in you when you spoke of overlapping ideas. I may not understand it, but for your sake I hope to see it again."
For a while Dankovsky is quiet. His jaw works on unsaid words. His fist trembles against his thigh.
"I say this as your friend." Artemy tells him. "There is a home for you here."
"Not everyone is so generous, so willing to work alongside a city fop."
"I can't speak for everyone. But I hope you've been able to see it for yourself. Stakh, the twins, Yulia. Even Sticky and Murky spent a time trying to read my letters to see if they came from the city doctor."
Dankovsky's fist uncurls. He swipes it down his face, leaving it over his mouth. "I'll have to keep that in mind next time I write."
"I would be happy." Artemy says, loosening his grip on the back of Dankovsky's knee, feeling that he's strong enough to stand on his own.
"If I censored my letters? I don't believe I've said anything too salacious, have I?"
"I meant if you chose to stay here."
Dankovsky looks at him, utterly wretched. Slowly his hand drops to Artemy's hair, to cup his cheek. "So you can hear my affectionate words in person?"
Artemy's heart twists, sick with hope--soured with the need to tread carefully. "... For your good company." he says neutrally.
"It goes without saying that would imply the inclusion of my mastery of the Russian language."
"Let's hear it then."
"Hear what?"
"These salacious remarks not meant for the eyes or ears of children."
Dankovky's brow rises. His pinky twitches under the curve of Artemy's jaw. "I didn't take you for a man of vanity. If we're going to live together one of us is going to have to drop that particular trait or else it'll never work out."
Artemy chooses not to point out that he never said living together was a requirement of Dankovsky's extended stay. "Sounds to me you're full of air."
"And you sound overly curious, but alright. I'll entertain the idea. 'My dearest colleague, you'll never guess it. Today I laid eyes on a great big bull grazing in the grass that reminded me so much of you I very nearly called out your name in greeting. He had the longest lashes and the most beautiful eyes. His shoulders and chest appeared sturdy enough to carry a whole horde of children on his back without breaking a sweat.’”
“I get to be a bull this time?”
“I’m not finished. ‘His hide was the warmest golden brown--not unlike the color your hair turns as the sunset washes the world in gold. And perhaps the greatest similarity that insisted I look not once, but twice, was that which hung between his--"
Artemy hits the side of his leg with his fist. "What do you know about things that hang?"
Dankovsky appraises him. “Judging by the size of your hands--"
"I can wring your neck without breaking a sweat."
"I don't know why you're upset, Artemy. I provided exactly what you asked for."
"A little too easily. How long have you been rehearsing that in your head?"
"Presumptuous of you to assume I think of your various appendages on any given day--"
"What was it you said when we first met, about the left and right hand?"
"To think you would hold me accountable for words spoken at the final brink of sanity."
"Final brink? Were you so taken by our first meeting, or was it untrue?"
Dankovsky brushes Artemy's hair back from his temple. A softness encroaches around his eyes. "No. There’s no reason for me to lie to you."
Shutting his eyes, Artemy lets his head lean forward to rest against Dankovsky's thigh. The touch on his scalp doesn't recede. "Listen, Artemy. I'll consider your proposition. It's a decision that requires the consultation of interests beyond mine. I'll have to think about it from every angle." His other hand joins the first, cradling the back of Artemy's head in something that can only be a kind of embrace. "But... thank you."
Artemy doesn't want to let go. He doesn't want to ever leave the circle of Dankovsky's arms, the radiant heat of his body. But the quiet of the room is evidence that the rain has stopped. There is work to be done. And his treacherous body must be given a talking to, away from Dankovsky's lingering touches and the bottomless need that they stoke.
---
By the time Artemy steps away from the shop with his firewood stacked on a blanket-covered sled, it’s snowing again. The ground is a damp, slippery mess after the earlier rain. It makes it all the more easy to tug the sled along behind him but it does nothing for his mood, especially as the wet snowfall thinkens, sticking to his lashes and obscuring his vision.
So burdened is he that he nearly trips over a shadowy, snowcovered bundle on the southwestern-most bridge. Two eyes peer up at him in amusement at his cursing. "There you are." Clara drawls, pulling down her scarf to be heard clearly. "I was beginning to think you'd abandoned us."
Artemy takes a moment to regain his dignity along with his footing. "Abandoned who? What are you doing out here?"
"I'm listening, isn't it obvious? The river is so noisy. Haven't you ever wondered what it's trying to say?"
To Artemy the river is hardly more than a creeping whisper, barely heard above his own breathing. "Can't say I have."
Clara shakes her head slowly with an exaggerated sadness. "Then you'll never know which stream to take when it all branches... Is it right for me to tell you what I know? Or are your deaf ears integral to staying afloat...?"
"Clara. For once, can you say it in a way I'll understand?"
"That's the grand dilemma! Can I? Or will knowing the truth drag you down to the murky depths?"
"There's a lot I can handle if you're worried about my sanity."
Standing on her lanky legs Clara brushes a generous heap of snow off the front of her coat. "This isn't about your sanity. Haven't you even learned that by now?"
"What is it about then?" he all but growls, sick of riddles, sick of prophecies and branching futures and wounds that remain out of his reach, outside of his supposed ability to heal. But Clara has already spun away from him, muttering with her thumb pressed to her mouth. Artemy is tempted to call after her, to ask her if she knows anything more about what the other Mistresses have seen. But he doesn't think she would tell him, and he doesn’t know what he can do with the information if he doesn’t understand what he’s already been given.
All the way back to Dankovsky he stays along the water's edge and strains his ears. For what--he doesn't know. He doesn’t know a damn thing it turns out.
He feels foolish all of a sudden. Not least of all for inviting Dankovsky out here in such poor weather, or at all, for that matter. What is there to occupy the mind of a city academic in a run down fishing hut in the flat, featureless steppe?
But the more he thinks about it the more his frustration crumbles to something colder. Dankovsky had looked content sitting on the pier with a fishing pole resting between his legs. With a steaming cup of tea between his gloves, wrapped in clothes that were given to him by inhabitants of the Town. When he spoke of foolish, silly things like Artemy's beard or his cow-like lashes. He ought to do that more often--talk of small things, tangible things. Lest he drift too high. Like Peter, perpetually out of reach, swimming in the haze of his own tangled thoughts. One needs to be grounded to keep their head in a place like this. One needs to feel the earth where their roots sink beneath the surface.
But who is Artemy to decide that for him? To tie him to the mundane? The frigid, giving earth? Who is he to decide what is best for Dankovsky? Who is he to ask him to choose this life above all else?
Despite Dankovsky's assurance that he would consider his offer to stay in Town-on-Gorkhon, Artemy can't picture it really happening. If the Utopians refuse to work with him, Dankovsky will not stay, not even if Artemy kneels in the middle of the train tracks this time. His friendship alone won't be enough to turn his head. It won’t be enough to overwrite the soulbound need to fulfill his life’s work. Artemy wouldn’t want that either, as much as his selfish desire keens for Dankovsky to remain a fixed feature in his life.
A decision must be made. If the Mistresses won't clarify what their problem is, if Clara has no qualm with his blind stumbling in this matter, Artemy is--as far as he's concerned--free to make a choice. Whether his relationship with Dankovsky leads to ruin or unfathomable happiness, all Artemy can do is pick a path and stick to it. This crossroads of indecision can only ever be a muddled place full of regret and anguish.
If Dankovsky is to leave no matter what he choses, then in his remaining time Artemy will content himself with feeding him the fruits of the earth, with wrapping him in the present, with being an ear he can talk to. And when Dankovsky returns to his Capital of rotten dreams and stifled science, of gilded streets and rigid laws, back to the upturned soil of his root, Artemy will stand by and say goodbye, and feel content for having indulged.
Having made his choice, Artemy walks quicker. Time moves strangely in the steppe on any given day. Blanketed in a white so absolute even shadows are compelled to nestle out of sight, Artemy doesn't know how long he's been gone. Hidden as it is behind a layer of cloud cover, the sun still gives enough light for Artemy to see something isn't right when he approaches the hut. At first he thinks Clara might have trailed him for another chance at tripping him. But the figure slumped in the doorway is woefully underdressed with only a thin shirt around his shoulders, bare hands red where they grip his knees to his chest to hold the weight of his bowed, bare head.
Artemy approaches Dankovsky as if in a dream, uncomprehending. He crouches next to him, prying his swollen lids open, feeling for his pulse, for a sign of airflow from his nose.
Finally he grips a boneless shoulder and gives it a vicious rattle, only stopping when the body threatens to topple over. "Dankovsky," he says, cool as the river behind him despite the torrent of feelings building behind his teeth. "Oynon, are you unwell?"
Glassy-eyed, listless, Dankovsky tries to focus on him and misses by a kilometer. "It was too hot inside." he whispers, paper thin. Artemy wastes no more time. He hauls Dankovsky up and through the door, shocked to the core by his weightlessness. Depositing him in the nearest chair, Artemy kicks the door shut as he tears off a glove. A heartbeat later he jerks his palm back from Dankovsky's forehead with a hiss.
He stands there, fist curled, anger and confusion roiling through him. He becomes aware that the stove is cold, and the rest of the room with it. He returns outside long enough to drag the sled under the roof overhang and shove a few logs under his arm.
Dankovsky doesn't flinch at the slam of the door. He's slumped over the table like a wet rag, eyes shut. Artemy reaches for him to begin peeling back scant layers, dropping them on the ground, cursing all the while. His shirt, his pants, his undergarments. He doesn't look--doesn't allow himself to alight on the interesting flashes of Dankvosky's flesh-and-blood body this time. He merely bundles him up in two thin blankets and deposits him as gently as he can muster on his lumpy bed.
Artemy's fingers are stiff when he finally disgards his own wet, miserable layers. Leaving on only his mildly damp shirt, he builds the fire back into a sensible flame, shivering all the while. Once his teeth stop clattering he brings all of their clothes near the stove to dry.
Lastly he takes the blanket from his own bed and drags a chair to Dankovsky's bedside, sinking down heavy enough to nearly topple over.
"I don't understand." he says. "You've been sick before, I know it. I was there, I saw it. Even in the middle of that hell you were sharp enough to deal with a damn plague while looking like a corpse yourself. Tell me, then, what made you think it was a good idea to sit out in the cold with a fever."
The only answer he gets is a weak, frustrated sigh from Dankovsky, much too close to a death rattle for Artemy's liking.
"If I had the means I would sit you on the sled--no, strap you down--and drag you back to town for medicine and a warm bed. But our clothes are wet, and I don't trust your ability to make it beyond the door. So until your fever breaks you're going to lay here and do as I say, understand?"
The barest sliver of dim light reflected between his lashes is the only tell Dankovsky is still awake. Artemy lays a hand over the snakey lump of his arm under the blankets, leaning closer. He attempts to soften the edge from his voice, and doesn't succeed. "Do you hear me?"
Dankovsky shifts his chin in Artemy's direction, into the fall of Artemy's shadow. "Yes, Erdem."
The title is a sting, a hot lash across his face. What kind of Erdem holds a sick man in a cold hut without proper clothes or medicine? What kind of Erdem sits on his ass while his patient trembles under the sheets beside him?
Artemy gets up, turns his back to Dankovsky's audible shudder. He sets the kettle on. He takes a rag from the cupboard, fills it with a handful of snow, lays it across Dankovsky's forehead. He strips the topmost blanket from him, pulls the other up to his chin, and sets to making a pot of soup with the leftovers from yesterday's catch.
It's cold--away from the fire and without his clothes. But Artemy still has his own blanket draped around his shoulders and soon heat from the stove warms his hands and belly. It will have to be enough. It's not as if he catches cold easily. Not, as it turns out, like Dankovsky.
He watches him from the sink once everything is boiling steadily in the pot. He catalogs his slight form under the blankets, his boney hands curled in fists over the covers. He needs to go over and re-cool the rag on his head. In truth Artemy didn't expect him to stay put. He doesn't know if it portends Dankovsky's trust in him, or a sickness worse than he's prepared to deal with.
Whatever it is, it can't be worse than the Sand Pest.
Artemy will not let it be.
He brings a bowl full of snow to the bedside and plucks the rag from Dankovsky, seeped with his fever heat. Artemy's blanket slips from his shoulders as he reaches for a small handful of frozen snow. Dankovsky frowns at him from his peripheral. "Why are you naked too?" His voice is congested, hoarse. Artemy places the refreshed rag back over his brow, covering his lines of age and confused concentration.
"My clothes are drying, same as yours." He retrieves his blanket to wrap around his waist before sitting on the side of Dankovsky's bed. "How do you feel?"
Dankovsky presses his fingers to the damp towel. "Warm."
Artemy almost laughs--would have, if the patient in question wasn't so precarious, so unpredictable. "Obstute observation, professor. What else?"
Dankovsky swallows. His fingers slip to his throat. His voice cracks, crumbles like dried blood. "I didn't expect this."
"Getting sick? Neither did I." And for you to react in this way, crawling out into the cold like an untethered ghost. "But don't worry. You're in capable hands. I know a thing or two about treating illness."
Dark, glassy eyes stare at him from under pinched brows. Dankovsky shakes his head weakly. "That's not what I meant. I mean--being here, in Town-on-Gorkhon. I tried for so long to stay away... To bar myself from coming back. I can’t believe I’m really here again.”
The fire crackles at his back. Artemy is at a loss for words.
He tried to stay away? For what reason? A means of cutting ties with the sick beast after the plague was excised? A duty finished, onward to the next dying settlement to dissect, study, and ridicule? A healthy living body held no further interest for a man chasing death?
But that doesn't sound right. For one--Dankovsky said so himself he had his reasons for coming back. For Dankovsky this place had once held the possibility of breakthrough. Artemy watched it turn from a frustration into a fascination. That much was true, wasn't it? The glimmer in his eye as he spoke of grand ideas even as his Thanatica preceded the Polyhedron into the grave, couldn't have only been a trick of the light. Could it?
"Then why?" The words lodge in his throat, become clipped by his teeth. Why are you here? Why did you come back? What do you want? What is it you can't say? What was enough to draw you back? What will it be that drives you from this place forever?
Shadows jump across the wall above Dankovsky's head. Sharp, jagged things, like the shards of a collapsed tower--Or the manifestation of shattered dreams. "Because it was inevitable." he croaks. "I knew the very day I left that this town had lodged its hooks in me... And it, ah... would drag me back when it pleased." his hand reaches for Artemy's, curls over the rough back of it, burning hot. "I've been wanting to ask you--How did you ever manage it? Being away as you were until your father called you back?"
The mention of his father cracks a cold rush across Artemy's back, seeping away his breath. Despite living and waking under the same roof that once belonged to him, Artemy has not spoken of his father. Neither has Dankovsky brought him up, a reservation Artemy attributed to respect.
But Dankovsky isn't asking about Isidor now. He's asking about the town, about the years Artemy spent away from it. That distant, hazy memory... The abrupt letter that brought it all back into glass-sharp focus. The endless train ride home--
"This place," Dankovsky insists, tightening his fingers. "Is like no other. You know that. You have to."
Polyhedral shadows leap across the ceiling. Artemy grips the blanket under their layered hands, remembering how it had felt the first time he dug his hands into the rich, wet soil under the sacrificed body.
"I do." he says.
Dankovsky's breath catches. "Yes. That's it." He tries to shift himself higher on the pillows, doesn't quite manage it. The cold cloth slumps to his shoulder. "That's why I have to be here. Why I had no choice. It's as if this place resides closer to the heavens than any other. I feel bound--despite the scabbed wound in the earth, the empty void in the sky where dreams once towered, to find my answers here. Or I will lose myself to the search forever. Deaf and blind to the real heart of possibility. It's here, Artemy. Everything is right here."
Here is the spark--no mere memory now, staring him right in the face. Sweating from the temples, unfocused and trembling, but no less bright in its conviction. Despite his denial to be a man of mystical inclinations, here is the countering evidence. The town has changed him. Or has it only awoken some slumbering beast that was always inside him? Is this what led him here in the first place on Simon’s trail?
What will it do to Dankovsky if he stays?
For the first time the thought brings apprehension rather than stifled hope. Artemy rises from the chair. His heart pounds in his throat. He swallows it down with practiced brevity, wincing despite it. "This place has its way of burrowing into your head." he says carefully. "It's easier, I think, if you grow up here. Gives you some immunity. Or maybe you get used to it after a time."
Dankovsky, still holding his hand, stares at him. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot. "Are you immune?"
"Far from it." Artemy bites his tongue. The taste of blood flavors his next words. "But whatever it is you're looking for--your breakthrough, your research, know that I'll help in any way I can. And if you start to float too high, or spend too much time around that Peter, I'll drag you back down to earth by your ankles."
The hand that holds him finally falls limp to the covers. Dankovsky blinks at him before sinking back into the pillows. The part of his chest visible above the blanket rises and falls slowly. Artemy wants badly to smooth his thumb over the deep crease that appears between his brows. He contents himself with brushing the hair from his brow before reapplying the cooled cloth.
"I'll bring you soup." he says. "Rest now. That's all you need to worry yourself with."
Dankovsky lets him go, but from across the small room Artemy hears him whisper to himself. A dry, private rasp, "I should have known." he says. "I should have known..."
Artemy doesn't ask. He ladles a bowl of soup for them both and watches over Dankovsky as he soon falls into a fitful sleep. His own thoughts consume him before long. With Dankovsky's warm wrist held in his palm there is only one direction for them to go. He can only hope Dankovsky doesn't feel the course of his heart through the connection, pouring out, pouring over. But any attempts to detangle are denied by his need to feel Dankovsky's pulse. To feel the proof of his life under his thumb. To chase away the ghostly image threatening to burn into his eyes.
It's his duty as a menkhu to cure the sick. But as Dankovsky's fever dreams grow restless, it becomes harder to stay detached, to resist pressing his lips to that wonderful wrist, burning from the inside out.
Burning, burning, burning.
What will be left of him when the fire goes out?
---
The issue of sleep arises when Artemy's eyes stay closed longer than he can keep them open. The sun set hours ago. His clothes are dry now, yet his hands remain damp from the frequent changes of cloth on Dankovsky's brow. Another rests behind his neck now. The fever isn't progressing, but it isn't breaking either. He shivers constantly, and part of Artemy's exhaustion stems from having to keep him from pushing all his blankets away at any given opportunity. The sweater he'd helped Dankovsky put on was done away with again as soon as he'd begun to sweat.
The only relief comes from Dankovsky's easy acceptance of any water or tea Artemy brings him. But that leads to its own struggles. If there had been any remaining doubts about Dankovsky's anatomy they were well and done away with after their numerous trips to the chamber pot, Dankovsky a weightless thing draped in his arms, blanket discarded in favor of avoiding mess.
A part of Artemy wonders if Dankovsky will resent him for this--stripping his body, touching the flesh he seemed so determined to layer away at any other time. He doesn't seem shy about it now, if the amount of times Artemy has to drag the covers back over his chest is any indication. But it’s hard to pick the truths from Dankovsky's feverish ramblings, to read permission in his misguided desire to rid himself of the heat plaguing his blood.
He keeps Dankovsky's decency as best as he can and adopts a surgeon's neutral eye for nudity for the rest of it, personal interest be damned. It isn't difficult with just how sick he is. But Artemy has done all he can now without the aid of his herbs or pharmaceuticals. And with night bringing the threat of worsened fever, Artemy knows the most useful thing he can do now is sleep while he can.
The problem, however, stems from the fact that all their blankets are either soaked with sweat or occupied by the patient. The patient who, upon noticing the dilemma, offers the absurd.
"Sleep here." he says. Artemy didn't even know he was awake. He shuffles up in his chair, squinting in the dim light cast by the bedside lantern.
He has to clear his throat before any words can get out. "Sleep where?"
Dankovsky lightly taps the blanket by his hip by way of answer. Artemy shakes his head. "The bed's too small."
"I'm barely half your size. If I know anything about geometry, we'll make it work." Dankovsky murmurs.
His persistence to think in terms of angles and probability even in his state draws a tired chuckle from Artemy. "And if I push you off? Or crush you like a bug?"
"I'll take the side by the wall."
"If my body heat raises your temperature higher?"
This Dankovsky considers. "Well, it'll certainly be easier to call for the doctor when he's right next to me, rather than across the room."
Artemy reaches for the wet cloth, flipping it over. "And where am I right now?"
"In a chair, when you could be in a bed."
"If it's contagious?"
"I'll take care not to sneeze in your direction."
Artemy slowly traces lines across the wet cloth with the back of his finger. Dankovsky shuts his eyes under the sensation. "If anyone found out, they would question my sense as a doctor. I'm questioning yours now."
"Who would find out? The fish in the river? Do they have ears, too?"
"It's about principle."
"Ah, yes, my sensible Haruspex." Dankovsky mumbles breathlessly. "Where would I be without your good council?"
"Not here, likely. Not sick as a dog."
Artemy retracts his touch. Dankovsky reaches for his arm, misses. His hand flops on the pillow by his ear. "Though that may be true, I'd be worse off."
"I find that hard to believe."
The puff of air that escapes from Dankovsky is neither laugh nor sigh. "Oh, Artemy... I forget. There's so much I haven't said yet. Why haven't you reminded me?"
Still reeling from his earlier whirlwind of a confession, Artemy rubs a hand down his face and sags against the bed. "You've said enough."
"I haven't. Really, I haven't. Hold me to it when my mind isn't a puddle, will you? I promised to tell you everything."
"Alright. As soon as you're better we'll talk. Sleep."
"Is my company that much of a bore?"
If not for his serious tone Artemy could have laughed. Instead he finds Dankovsky's hand, returns it to his side, brushes by his pulse before slipping away. "No. But seeing you like this twists my stomach. The sooner you sleep, the sooner you'll recover. You know that. What do you gain by fighting it?"
"Reprieve." he whispers. "I prefer this to the things that wait in my dreams."
"What waits for you?"
Dankovsky frowns. "A wound... that I can't heal no matter how I try. It festers and mutates, resisting all my efforts."
Artemy smooths a hand over the sheets. He swallows. "How’s this--I'll follow you. If they're anything like my bad dreams, we should have no problem finding each other."
This seems to take Dankovsky by surprise. He stares at him unblinking. Artemy extinguishes the lantern and pulls the covers back up to Dankovsky's chin. "What do you say?"
"... If you aren't there--"
"If I'm not there, I'm here. Either way I'll take care of you."
The room is so dark Artemy can't tell what Dankovsky is thinking. So thick is the darkness that it seems to swallow the patient, if not for the heat of his hand that finds Artemy's. Using it as a lifeline, Artemy follows the path of it to Dankovsky's brow. He pulls back the cloth--warmed through--and replaces it with the press of his lips.
When he pulls back Dankovsky is still, sinuses whistling faintly with his breath. Artemy listens to it for a long time until that too lulls him past the brink.
---
When Artemy wakes he finds himself in the same chair with an aching spine and a numb arm, slumped halfway over Dankovsky's bed with a blanket cast over his bulk. The bed is empty. The escapee in question is seated at the table with a steaming cup of tea in hand.
"A letter came for you." Dankovsky says without lifting his eyes. Artemy blinks hard. His shoulders pop when he sits up.
With a mouth full of gravel he asks the obvious; "What?"
Dankovsky, with his mussed hair and prickly cheeks, pushes a fold of parchment across the table. Artemy, half swimming in the tangled reeds of a lingering dream, takes it.
Haruspex,
I know how to heal him. You're doing it all wrong. If you continue to obstruct the river everything on this side of it will hurt, you most of all. But I can't touch him. He bends only to your hands. It was not only the tower of dreams he entrusted to you. Whatever you do, have faith in him.
It's a trade in blood or a double suture. Your hands know the way. But the balance is teetering -- the river trembles in its transient course. Choose quickly. He will not survive if your hand wavers.
Clara
Only after Dankovsky says his name does Artemy come back to himself. He feels incredibly cold, as if he really did spend the entire night scraping along the bottom of a river, fighting the pure black current with his fists, choking on his own tongue rather than drowning.
He rubs his fingers against his eyes, rupturing stars across the insides of his lids. They almost form a startling shape--gone before comprehension catches hold. He answers Dankovsky's inquiry about the letter with a question of his own. "How did this get here?"
"The same as any letter." Dankovsky shrugs.
Slowly, Artemy nods. He folds the paper and considers throwing it into the fire. It crinkles as he shoves it into his pocket. Clara's closing line instills a rigid set to his fist that spreads all the way to his jaw, clipping his words in a way Artemy hopes comes across as nothing more than a lingering effect of sleep. "And you? Feeling better?"
The cup of tea shakes only slightly as Dankovsky lowers it down. "Yes, doctor. I must thank you for your excellent care." he says, unbothered by Artemy's tone. There's a pink dusting to his cheeks but his eyes are clear as ice. "Frankly, I didn't expect to be back on my feet so soon."
Artemy forces his fist from his pocket and flattens it on his knee, waiting to see if it will so much as twitch. "Your body did most of the work." he mumbles. "I only sat and watched."
"It was more than that. I know I can be a terrible patient."
Interesting. Aside from his dangerous wandering stunt and numerous attempts to cast off any blanket that touched his skin, Dankovsky had been considerably agreeable and talkative in the throes of his fever. At times even lucid.
He bends only to your hands.
Artemy shakes his head, unable to meet Dankovsky's eye. Where a moment ago he'd been frozen to the bone his skin burns, a radiant warmth that churns his stomach. "Do you remember any of it?" he asks.
"Only fragments. My head is still spinning."
With a deep, steadying breath Artemy stands up. He rubs a palm over the lump in his pocket. Dankovsky's pallor is far from the picture of health, but it's leagues better than how he'd looked last night, washed out like sun-bleached linens. And the progression from bed to table is a good sign, even if the distance wasn't likely to be much of a challenge.
It's his heart. It's still hurting him from the inside.
But what is Artemy doing wrong? Why does Clara believe him to be the only one capable of administering a cure? Surely her mystic touch would be more appropriate in matters concerning the heart, even if Artemy doesn't understand her obscure workings. Saburova herself warned him of meddling in such matters. And yet Clara spoke of transfusions and sutures, the workings of a surgeon. How can blood be the cure for an illness of spirit? And in that vein, whose blood must be the replacement?
Artemy's head is likely to start spinning too with all these questions. Why did Clara not voice these thoughts when they met on the bridge? Could the arrival of her letter have been delayed? Yesterday Dankovsky's demeanor had been plenty spirited, fever notwithstanding. If Artemy is to believe there’s an urgency to the matter, why tell him this now?
"Are you alright? I didn't get you sick, did I?" Dankovsky frowns up at him. Artemy wasn't aware that he'd gripped the table for balance. His heart pounds in his ears. What else has he done unawares? What damage has been committed unknowingly?
"Just fine." he says. Then, because it’s the safest place to touch, he raises a hand to Dankovsky's brow. It feels almost foreign with its lack of searing heat, a rejection of sorts. "No fever." he rumbles. "But don't strain yourself today."
Dankovsky finishes his tea with an oddly graceful swig. There's a curve to his lips when he lowers the cup. Sitting back in his chair he presses a hand to his chest, sinking into the soft fabric of Artemy's old sweater, right over his heart. Artemy feels an answering pressure in his own ribs. "Yes, Erdem." Dankovsky says. "I will follow your advice. I wouldn't want to waste your good efforts."
Artemy can only hope, with increasingly painful urgency, that his efforts have been aimed in the right direction.
---
The river is a silent beast. It gives no whisper or council or plea. It creeps on its course from one horizon to another, deceptively slow. Artemy stares into the swirling lines of its surface until his eyes hurt. He stares far past the point of numbness. Past the point of revelation.
"I don't know what you want from me." he says. "I made my choice. If I'm wrong then tell me. Or so be it."
The river flows. Artemy's voice falls like so much snowdrift, melting on contact. He sniffs, wiping at the icicle forming on the end of his nose.
What good are more answers if he can't discern what has already been given to him? Maria's vision of blood staining the streets, Katerina's fury at a prodded wound, Clara's ultimatum. A double suture or a transfusion; A mending needle or a surgeon's shears; Poison, antidote, or snake oil?
Too many variables. There has to be a common meaning--a binding thread.
You heal bodies, not spirits, Master Burakh. If you tried you'd only make a mess of things.
A mess indeed. With effort Artemy ceases the iron clench of his teeth, prodding his tongue into the vacated space. Why the unwavering faith from Clara? Saburova? Even Dankovsky, with his sticky words that cling to the surface of Artemy's mind like honey? They know the nature of his hands. They know well his capabilities, his limits, his shortcomings as his father's son. A pale replacement for a man who knew the structure of town and how to conduct its health like the veins on the back of his hand.
He will not survive if your hand wavers.
Artemy presses his fist against his mouth. He shuts his eyes and breathes out deeply. He listens to the soundless river before him, feels the weight of the frozen ground pushing under him, the featureless sky above. At his back--nearer than he would have thought--a pull like a string stretched beyond its limits tugs at something deep. Something immovable.
He suffers because you can't make up your mind, Artemy. Didn't you say you would indulge in his company while you had it? Why are you hiding out here? Bask in his light or shut the door firmly. Stop wavering in the threshold. Indecision is madness. See it through to the end, whatever the end may be.
Artemy digs Clara's letter from his pocket and reads it one more time. He holds it tightly as he climbs the embankment, boots sinking into his own path through the snow. He doesn't know how long he's been outside. Time seems to split at his feet as he approaches the hut, offering possibilities. All of which Artemy feels too blind to see. Too numb, too frozen with the fear of failure.
Is there still time to thaw, to shed this cocoon of ice pressing in from every angle? To understand his purpose? Or is he bound to stumble, only able to look back at the river of blood in his wake at the very end, and the man who will lay in it? Is he already too late?
The door opens to his will. Dankovsky is seated with his back to him. A half empty cup of tea sits by his hand. He doesn't seem to hear the quiet click of the door.
Artemy is sorry that he won't learn Dankovsky's meaning for the word 'yours', and that he'll never know what it's like to stroll under the twinkling Capital city lights, dressed in his very best with his arm linked through Dankovsky's.
A personal wish, the last bit. It crumples like the letter in his hand. "Dankovsky." he says, willing his voice to hold more strength than the thin parchment. "This town is... it's out for your blood. I don't think it will stop pulling on you until it's had every last drop. That may be why it's called you back here. You would be better off..."
A sensation like a fist around his windpipe cuts off the rest of his speech. Artemy's teeth clack together, grinding in protest, threatening to crack if he keeps talking. Dankovsky's head turns to the side. He starts to stand. Artemy's blanket flutters around his shoulders like a too-big cloak. He only manages to turn halfway before his knees hit the floor like deadweight.
Artemy stares. His legs seem to be cased in ice for all that they're able to move. Dankovsky breathes through his open mouth--halfway to a wheeze--and grimaces. "My blood?" he rasps. "A fascinating theory. Is it some kind of spell...? Or... or a curse?"
His head droops. Something wet drips to the floor. Artemy reaches for it, compelled into motion, beckoned forward, expecting his fingers to come away scarlet red. They don't. It's only sweat, confirmed by the shine of perspiration on Dankovsky's bloodless face.
"What will happen after...?" Dankovsky asks, hanging onto Artemy's shoulder. "When there's no more blood left?"
"That won't happen." Artemy hears himself say. "It won't."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'll sew you shut myself if I have to. Even if--" Dankovsky bends like a dehydrated stem of a withered plant. "Even if you..."
Dankovsky's head rolls across Artemy's lap. Artemy can feel the heat rolling off him even through his clothes. His heart rattles the cage of his ribs. Thawed to the point of pain, Artemy acts. He carries Dankovsky to his bed and rummages around in the cupboards until he finds an old, sour smelling bottle of vinegar. Yesterday's bowl of water is still resting by the bedside. Into this bowl he pours a generous helping of vinegar and wrestles Dankovsky's socks free. After soaking them in the mixture he replaces them on Dankovsky's feet. Another vinegar-soaked towel is assigned to his brow, soaking the hair at his temples.
"I'll carve this fever from you." he says, wiping at the sweat collected on Dankovsky's throat, his collar. "I'll wrench it out of you drop by drop."
Dankovsky groans, eyelids fluttering. He's past the ability to speak. He tries regardless, mumbling about strings and needles. About how cold the river is. About the things that lie in it, waiting for him.
Artemy listens. He holds cups of water and tea to Dankovsky's lips, wiping the layers of sweat that follow. He grits his teeth. He helps Dankovsky over the side of the bed to the chamberpot. He wrenches water from the towel, staining his hands with the smell of vinegar. He wrenches. He wrenches. He wrenches.
The day slips. He eats while Dankovsky sleeps, and feeds him whatever he can when his eyes are open. He considers bloodletting, twice holding the sharpened point of a heat-sterilized knife to the inside of Dankovsky's elbow. Each time he is gripped by the image of an endless red river, and sets down the knife.
Night rises. The fire dies. Artemy sits in darkness with Dankovsky's hand gripped in both of his pressed against his lips. He imagines Dankovsky's lines in his mind's eye. He imagines working them from end to end, starting from his fingertips. So slowly, like unbraiding fragile twyre stems. He works past his elbow, up to his shoulder, resting in the humming pulse of his throat.
His heart lays beyond. Even without looking Artemy can feel the pull of the wound, the heavy swell of pain, the tireless ache. It's close enough to touch--he need only reach for it.
Artemy's eyes open. Dankovsky's chest rises and falls. In the dark it's hard to see much of anything. It's easier to lay his flesh-and-blood hand atop Dankovsky's heartbeat this way.
"Did you know what you would do to me by coming back?" he asks the dark. "Did you know your threads were still tangled in mine? It's a whole mess... if only you could see it."
The dark says nothing.
"If you had the choice, the strength to do it, would you cut yourself free? Or would you tighten the ropes? Would you still say you're... you belong to..."
Dankovsky doesn't answer. His heartbeat doesn't change under Artemy's hand.
"I'm finding it difficult to wield the knife against you. I'm wondering if I ever stood a chance to begin with."
Silence sharp enough to cut falls across Artemy's shoulders. He shifts in his chair, exhausted and stiff and aching. It'll be good to rest his head, if only for a short while. He'll change Dankovsky's towels one more time before then.
The towel from his brow plinks into the bowl like a fish from Artemy's fingers. His chair creaks with his shifting weight. But the hand he means to press against Dankovsky's skin strays to his hair, smoothing the damp tangles there. His spine bows. And it's his lips that fall instead to press against Dankovsky's brow.
The skin is cool.
Disbelieving, Artemy doesn't immediately draw back. He turns to press his cheek against him. But sure enough the fever is broken. Relief so sudden cuts the strings of his tension, and he all but sags across Dankovsky, pushing his face into the crook of his neck. He draws him in, arms curling under his sweat-soaked back. If the air that escapes him is anything like a sob, the only one around to hear it is Dankovsky's sleeping ear.
The last thing he's aware of is the faint linger of woodsmoke, the soursweet burn of vinegar, and a pair of arms snaking around him.
---
Artemy wakes in increments. The morning sun is a blinding force streaming in through the single window. There's a sandpaper scratch against the nape of his neck, and a weight against his back. His pillow smells like someone else's hair and something vaguely sour. There's a light sound of breathing under his ear and an arm thrown around his chest, holding him close.
He must make some kind of noise because Dankovsky tenses. "Good morning." he says after a moment's pause. His sleep groggy voice vibrates the very hairs on Artemy's neck.
Without warning Artemy's heart starts to pound under Dankovsky's hand, a telltale rhythm that speaks too much, too sudden. "Oh. I--"
"It's alright." Dankovsky's hand retreats, lingering on his hip before fully slipping away. "It's alright."
Artemy swallows. His throat is so dry he thinks he might choke. "The fever..."
"Broken. I suppose my initial assessment was too hasty. This time I believe it's gone for good." Quieter, he says, "How can I repay you?"
Artemy's head swims. He lifts a hand to wipe the grit from his eyes. "Your good health is payment enough. Haven't I made that clear?"
"Hmm. But isn't there anything you'd like?" Dankovsky's voice comes from above and to his left. Artemy cracks an eye open to see him propped on his elbow, peering down. His bare shoulder peeks from behind the ridge of Artemy's.
Clearing his throat, Artemy carefully excises all the things he might want from Dankovsky. "Alright." he says. "Keep this a secret and I'll call it even."
"What's that?" Dankovsky's brow furrows. Two days without shaving has done wonders for his thick stubble. Artemy's thumb twitches where it rests on his stomach.
"It's not a habit of mine to fall asleep in patients' beds."
Giving voice to the situation only seems to make it worse, as his mind is still spinning around the sight of Dankosky's shoulder. Infuriatingly, the man seems completely unbothered. "Ah," he says. "Is that all we are now? Doctor and patient?"
The blade is in Artemy's palm again. He knows the right thing to say to drive it home, to drive Dankovsky from this place. He knows the motion--a defensive strike straight through the heart, twist and yank, feel the hot blood on his fingers. And wonder for the rest of his life which one of them the blood belonged to.
"Not quite." he says, opening his grip, passing the weapon back to Dankovsky who accepts it and smiles at him like he is something wonderful.
Curling his hand around Artemy's arm for balance, he bends forward. Artemy is still wearing his sweater and barely feels the press of Dankovsky's lips through the fabric on his shoulder. His body responds as if he's been shot; Flushing, trembling, hands curling to get a grip on the perpetrator. "Your secret is safe with me. I won't tell a soul." Dankovsky says.
Artemy swallows past the feeling that Dankovsky means more than their current situation. His head spins with the implications. His body follows, turning onto his back to better see him. Dankovsky's hand accepts the motion, slipping across to Artemy's chest. His eyes are so dark, so soft around the edges. Artemy feels too sharp and raw in comparison, a lump of metal half-forged.
"It's good to see you recovered." he says.
"It was only a fever."
Despite the apparent dismissal Dankovsky's fingers stroke his chest in a way that can only be taken as comfort. Artemy reaches up to grip them, preventing any attempt at digging deeper. "Nothing is ever 'just a fever' anymore. It's difficult not to worry."
"Well. I hope I can assuage your worries. I feel a clearer head than I have in a while."
"You said the same yesterday."
Dankovsky's shoulder shrugs. The blanket covering his modesty slips the barest inch. He doesn't move to adjust it. "... But it was the most peculiar thing. I could have sworn I'd made a recovery."
Artemy recalls the sound Dankovsky's knees made as they struck the floor. He loosens his grip with no small effort. "Best not push it. We should stay one more day to make sure you don't have another sudden onset."
"If you insist."
"No complaints?"
Shifting back, Danovsky moves to sit up. The bare expanse of his back reveals itself, moles like divine constellations marking its surface. "Eager as I am to return to the realm of the living, I'm beginning to like it here. Sickness aside."
"And you call yourself a city man."
"Do you think I would have agreed to come if I was entirely opposed to the idea of spending the better part of a week in a remote hut with you?"
"I thought you just loved fishing."
Dankovsky laughs through his nose. "If that's what you think of me, I might suggest an adjustment of perception."
"No. Next time we'll do something more suited to your tastes. We'll lock ourselves in a room with lab equipment and study blood samples until our eyes go red."
"Don't tempt me, Artemy."
This time it's Artemy's turn to chuckle. "It's only fitting for dragging you out beyond the swamps."
"I'll remember that. Don't think I won't."
Artemy takes his chance to slip from the bed, almost tripping over the chair he set before. He doesn't mention that in order to do so would require Dankovsky to extend his stay. Not ready to have that conversation again, Artemy busies himself with the kettle. He hears the sounds of Dankovsky getting dressed behind him and studiously keeps his eyes on the wall before him.
He doesn't turn around until he feels a light touch to his spine. A conveyance of something--gratitude, assurance, understanding? He waits for a sting that doesn't come. His skin remains intact, his organs inside his body. He never expected Dankovskoy to be capable of a gentle hand. It stirs his blood to the point of boiling, threatening to keen like a kettle left unattended.
He wonders how little time remains until he overflows.
---
If the answer isn't to push him away, it stands to reason that the true remedy may be to hold the ailing closer; In order to peer into Dankovsky's heart to assess the damage it may be paramount to bare his own in return. If the answer isn't to crudely sew him shut and send him back to the Capital--the thought of which sours Artemy's stomach--his approach must be one of acceptance. Of exchange. Of honesty.
A trade in blood or a double suture. Both imply two bodies on the operating table. An interesting concept, if he's meant to be one of the two with his veins flayed open.
But Dankovsky knows his way around a human body well, and is no stranger to cutting bodies. If his gentle touch can be trusted to translate into the operating room, then... it stands to have faith in the best possible outcome.
Can you do it, Artemy? Lay your own head to the chopping block? Press your neck to the flaying knife, keep your eyes open through the offering?
The Gorkhon moves fast today. Swollen with rain and snowy runoff it comes up nearly to the underside of the small wooden platform. In order not to tangle their lines they settle for one fishing rod for the both of them. Dankovsky holds it now. Stanislav's hat sits low over his brow. The maroon scarf comes all the way up to his eyes. Under his coat he wears an extra one of Artemy’s sweaters as a precaution.
As the day stretches to a quiet, companionable comfort, Artemy dredged up a topic that will undeniably split this peace open straight down the middle. "There’s something I want to talk about." he says.
Dankovsky’s movements are stiffened by his layers when he looks over. "What is it?"
There’s too much to say, so Artemy spells it out in its simplest form. "I’m no good with riddles,” he says. “But every seer and mistress has had something to say to me since you arrived. I think it’s time we discuss this bleeding heart of yours.”
“Ah,” is the only sound Dankovsky makes at first. Artemy can’t tell at all what he’s thinking in that one sound alone. He waits. Without looking at him, Dankovsky continues. “So it isn’t just Maria and her strange dreams? What have the other mistresses said to you?”
“Essentially that you are a bleeding wound who will bring about a river of blood unless I do something about it.”
The sky is a featureless gray slate above. Earlier it snowed a little and left behind a dusting of flakes on Dankovsky’s shoulders, specks of white like stars on his black coat. “Could this have any connection to the dreams I’ve been having?” he asks after another pause.
“I’m afraid it might be more than mere dreams now.”
This earns him an unreadable sidelong look. Dankovsky readjusts his scarf and narrows his eyes. “So, if I don’t fix this supposed wound in me, it will burst and drown the town in blood? Do I understand that right?”
“Almost. The thing is, it’s not your task to fix it.” Artemy says. Even to his ears his words sound unbelievable. “The popular idea going around is that only I have the means to mend--” you, “--this wound.”
"That sounds peculiarly familiar, don’t you think?" Dankovsky mutters, but there’s no heat in it. He seems to take it in stride. Artemy can’t imagine him taking this so well if he wasn’t already aware of the truth in Maria’s words when she spilled them at their feet. It makes Artemy uncomfortable. Why didn’t you tell me? Or is that what you’ve been trying to do this whole time?
Unbidden, Artemy’s gaze strays to the town in the distance. His eye falls heavy to the empty space where the tower once stood. “I can’t make sense of it.” he admits. “I’m a surgeon. I work in blood and meat. I don’t even know where to begin with matters of the… heart.”
Dankovsky’s profile stares out at the horizon. “I think I understand. At least, this is what I think. The town is yours to protect. If I’ve brought something dangerous to it--” He brings death in his shadow-- “It makes sense for you to be the one to remove the unwanted foreign body.”
Artemy bristles. Dankovksy’s matter-of-fact tone makes him feel cold all over. “Removal isn’t in question. It won’t come to that. If we work together to heal it, if I know the nature of the wound--”
“You’ll what? Reach into my chest and bleed it clean? You’ll stitch it shut?” Dankovsky looks at him. The town crouches at his back, an animal lying in wait for its prey.
“If that’s what needs to be done.”
“For the sake of your town?”
“For all of us. For you most of all.”
“I’m flattered, Artemy. But--”
A loud crack from the river startles Artemy half out of his skin. Before he can recover the end of the fishing pole snaps down just like the wilted bow of Dankovsky’s spine the day prior. "What..." Equally as startled, Dankovsky begins to reel in but it quickly becomes apparent that the rod isn't strong enough, bending until its tip is practically brushing the surface of the water. "It's going to break." he says, clumsily standing up to get leverage on the slippery platform. "Hurry, cut the line!"
No. If the line is cut--!
But Dankovsky is slipping, and the rod creaks out a loud threat. Artemy brandishes his knife and hops off the platform. Freezing water goes up to his thighs, bogging down his steps and triggering an instant chattering in his teeth. He reaches for the rod, steadying it. The line gives its own teeth-gnashing cry. But just as he's about to cut it free the thing in the water catches his eye--a great big shape, bigger than any fish, dark and quick. It's gone again before his mind can make sense of it.
His hand slips from the rod to the line, twisting it around his fists before giving it a great big heave.
"Artemy?" Dankovsky's voice comes from behind him, but it seems distant. Splashing and struggling in the abysmally cold, murky water Artemy hauls whatever is on the hook closer to him step by step. Even through the padding of his gloves the creature’s strength cuts the wire into his skin. He has to go around the dock to get up the shallowest part of the shore, stumbling through half frozen-half muddy embankment onto solid land. His boots leave deep, muddy trails in the snow. A pair of hands guides him back, keeps him upright. The struggle seems endless, Artemy wonders if he'll have to drag this sack of weight all the way up the embankment to the door of the hut. And then there's a great splash.
"Go--haul it up, oynon." Artemy pants. "It has to be exhausted."
Dankovsky kneels at the end of the dock and reaches down. Looping the line without letting up on the tension, Artemy joins him, dripping wet and shivering but not at all feeling the cold. Dankovsky grunts, and hauls, and Artemy reaches down to pull their catch up the rest of the way.
They both stop and stare at the thing wriggling at their feet, fighting to catch their breaths. The fish--if it can be called that--is the length of an average sized-child. Its body is a deep dark red, with fins so dark as to be practically black. Its gills heave, and when it moves its scales shine with the unnerving brightness of freshly spilled blood.
Dankovsky is the first to find his voice. "I'm no ecologist..." he says. "but I've never seen a fish like this."
Pulling off his wet, torn gloves, Artemy crouches down. The creature's eye is as black as its fins, shimmering wetly, rolling in every direction. Artemy reaches out to touch it, sliding a hand across its massive scaley length. His fingers sting. Small cuts seep at the touch.
"Neither have I."
Kneeling at its head, Dankovsky reaches for the hook piercing the fish's lip with ungloved hands. Exhausted by its grand battle, the fish has no strength left to struggle. Or so it seems. As soon as Dankovsky touches the hook he yanks his hand back as if burned. Blood blooms from his finger, mixing with the river water dripping from his palms. He tries again and swiftly succeeds in slipping the hook free.
And as soon as the cursed barb is removed, the fish gives a powerful kick with its tail. Its huge back fin nearly gets Artemy across the face. With its first jump it takes itself out of arm's reach of the two onlookers. With the next, it clears the end of the dock and disappears with a grand slap that soaks the rest of Artemy's clothes.
---
They don’t talk about it.
Dankovsky wordlessly fries up their small catch from that day in a single pan. Artemy warms up by the stove in his underclothes and not for the first time laments his lack of medicine supplies. His cuts aren't deep enough to worry about, but the sting is gnawing, and Dankovsky's finger had taken some time to stop dribbling.
They'll have to head back to town in the morning no matter what.
River monsters be damned, he needs to get Dankovsky out of this cold. And Artemy has obligations. Stakh must be driving himself mad holding down the clinic on his own. Artemy is starting to feel restless, too. His every attempt at gaining some understanding from Dankovsky always seems to lead to further confusion and doubt. To misunderstandings and injuries…
There's one thing he needs to make clear before they return.
He mulls over his approach all throughout dinner and while they pack their things. When everything is packed and clean, Dankovsky comes to sit next to him on the rugs by the stove, and Artemy says, "When you were gone with fever I said a promise to you. I want to make sure you’re aware of it.”
Maybe it’s the sting in his hand, or the contentment of a full belly, or the exhaustion of a mind at its wit’s end, but Artemy feels oddly calm. As he gently pokes the logs in the fire he catches the tilt of Dankovsky's head in the corner of his eye, the weight of his attention. "What is it?"
“You're at the center of something neither of us understand. Maybe we've bought some time by coming out here. Maybe we've made it worse. Whatever the case, I have the feeling a choice will need to be made when we return to Town. Whatever you decide, I want you to know that if you start to drift, or lose your way, I'll hold you down. I can do it."
Dankovsky doesn’t say anything for a while. He picks at a worn stitch on the end of one of his gloves. "How do you plan on doing that?"
"Like this," he says. "Communing with the steppe. Hearing your worries. Sharing the burden of your nightmares."
"That's all very well and good while it’s just the two of us. What if it isn't enough when we go back? Don’t you feel it pulling at you?" he asks, quietly. “I feel like I’m being pulled apart string by string.”
What happens then? What will be left of you if you’re unspooled? A weeping, sour wound?
Artemy reaches across the narrow rift between them. He curls his hand over the back of Dankovsky's. His black leather is warmed by the skin underneath. "Then I'll hold you like this. And wherever you go, I'll go with you. I've seen the belly of this place. I've walked in it. I--” I’ve seen my body laying in the earth on a funeral slab with a sheet over my face. “I'm tied down here.” he pushes out with a stiff tongue. “If anything happens to you, I'll find a way. Whatever it takes. I'll keep you whole. I won't let you be consumed."
Dankovsky is still as stone under his hand. His brows knit. His mouth works. He stares at a vague point on Artemy's bare chest as if looking through skin, blood and bone to the deeper inner working withins. "Artemy," he breathes. "This sounds awfully like a declaration of affection."
"It is."
The fire pops. Dankovsky bows his head and expels a choked sound. His hand flexes into a rigid fist. Artemy takes it and smoothes it open. Dankovsky's fingers immediately catch hold of his, linking with an iron grip. Artemy’s cuts wail in pain, reopened by the friction. "Daniil," he says. Hot blood threatens to spill out of his body at any moment. Welling and waiting in the small lacerations, begging to bubble out of his chest. "Daniil, tell me. What would you have me do?"
Artemy only realizes how far he's leaned forward when Daniil falls back, catching himself on an elbow, held up by their linked hands. His startled look meets Artemy's. Then it folds in on itself and reveals an expression Artemy has never seen on his face before.
"Kiss me." he says.
It's as if the words are a spell. Artemy dips down, wraps his other arm under Daniil's waist, and gives him what he wants. Daniil sucks in a breath through his nose. He grips Artemy's hair--not enough to hurt, just to maneuver him to an angle that allows Artemy's heart to fall straight out of his mouth and into Daniil's.
Artemy’s spine contracts. His entire body bends over Daniil, pressing into him, holding him down. Daniil's arms latch behind his neck--the butcher's knife, descended at last. But there's no pain. Only heat, coiling up between the press of their bodies, working itself into a frenzy.
Daniil is the first to turn his chin away. His lungs heave against Artemy's. "When you asked me to come all the way out in the middle of the steppe alone with you," he says, voice deep and slightly unsteady. "I thought--I'd hoped--this might be part of what you had in mind."
Artemy presses his nose into the junction of neck and jaw before him. He processes this. He almost wants to laugh. He almost wants to cry. "You have a lot of hopes for a man who waited a year and three months to come back."
Daniil chuckles, breathless. "You're impossible to let go of, Artemy. Could it be that the one who called me back here so incessantly was you all along? The other half of the body, reaching out endlessly across the steppe to haul me back?"
"My arms aren't that long."
"No. I must have met you halfway."
"Quit your rambling and come back here."
Daniil smiles against his lips. And then his viper's tongue snakes inside, and Artemy goes simultaneously numb and tingly all over -- blood rushing to different parts of his body far too quickly.
The next time they break it's only for Daniil to tug his sweater over his head. He shivers when his bare back brushes against the fur rug beneath him. His skin burns to the touch with an entirely different kind of fever. Artemy shifts to the side, tucking himself against Daniil's flank, burying his face in his neck, unwilling to give up this searing brand of heat melding their skin together. Daniil's chest rises and falls with his breath under Artemy's broad palm. His fingers push Artemy's face back an inch. He looks at him intently, sharp as the edge of a glass, made only soft by the red flush of his cheeks and lips.
"It's not a good idea..." Artemy murmurs. "To exert yourself so soon."
"You think you can tire me out?"
Despite himself, Artemy's chest rumbles out a laugh. His face hurts with the joy of it. "Do you know you're in a bear's den right now?"
Danill's thumb brushes the tip of Artemy's nose. "Hmm. And what am I?"
Artemy looks over him, at his body half curved towards his, from his leg tucked between Artemy's to the top of his disheveled hair. His pants are still on, which draws heavy attention to his intentionally bared chest--so unlike a woman's, yet unlike anything else he has ever seen. Dusted with coarse black hair from shoulders to belly and, as Artemy's knows from memory, beyond. His breasts appear somewhat firm in shape, but Artemy can't help wondering how they would feel in his hand. His fingers twitch where they rest in the near-flat valley between. Would they feel any different from his own chest, layered with winter fat and his own forest of hair?
He looks back at Daniil's face, which has grown several darker shades of red. He's forgotten what he was supposed to say. All he can think about is how badly he wants to devour Daniil. Not even in the form of sex. He wants--something he doesn't know the words for. It's like his hands itch to bury themselves inside Daniil's ribs, as if he won't be satisfied until he's felt the heat of his heart pumping between his hands. He feels dizzy with the idea. The thump of his heartbeat under his stinging palm radiates behind his eyes.
Would Daniil know an elaborate word for this feeling, if he asked?
"Artemy." Daniil says. "Don't trouble yourself if any part of this is unsavory to you."
Artemy doesn't understand him at first, still half drowning in his own overwhelmed thoughts. "Unsavory? What are you talking about?"
"You've seen my body. I haven't been shy about it with you. Some men prefer me on hands and knees--thrilling in its own right. Or clothed entirely. We don't even have to do anything. It's alright with me."
Artemy shifts. He slides his palm to Daniil's ribs, leaving behind a faint smudge of rust-color blood. He runs his thumb directly under the curve of Daniil's breast, watching it move ever so slightly to his touch. He's so overcome that it takes a few tries to get the words out. "Daniil," he says. "Does it look like I'm someone who doesn't want all of you?" The pulse under his thumb quickens. The corner of Daniil's mouth tenses, and a gloved hand reaches up to hide it. "Don't go modest on me now. Unless this is something you don't want?"
Black leather slides up to cover both of his eyes. "Artemy, I would have given this to you one year ago, if you asked. If there was time." Daniil says. "That's how much I want you."
Having sat up to see him better, Artemy feels the room spin. He holds onto either side of Daniil's waist to keep from toppling over. "You'll be the death of me." he says, bending down to press his forehead against Daniil’s. They're both sweaty, and the contact is sticky. Daniil removes the gloves covering his eyes and cups Artemy's face, guiding him down for another kiss.
To think he might have contained this. Concealed it, even, for a lesser man. For Artemy. The distant, logical way he presented his body as thing to be covered up, obscured. It almost contradicts the way he normally presents himself, if not for his even tone, so confident in his own understanding of the situation. Broken apart as he'd covered his face when confronted with the fact of Artemy's desire.
"You'll tell me." he says, shifting down Daniil's body, eliciting a soft shh where their skin brushes against each other. He'd meant these words to come out firmer, but the thought that Daniil might be the least bit shy in this--nervous--It quiets him. It draws out his own nerves, so desperately hidden until now, like a tap. "You'll tell me what you like," he murmurs. "I want to give that to you. Will you let me?"
Daniil's hand sinks into Artemy's hair, stroking his temple. His other hand pries up the latch of his belt. "Be my guest." he says with an airyness that directly contrasts to his disheveled appearance. Even his hair, normally combed to perfection, cuts blood-dark lines where it falls across his face, sticking to fresh sweat. Leather hisses as Daniil pulls his belt completely free, lifting his hips to do so. Artemy can't help catching hold of them, keeping them raised, hooking his thumbs in the freed loops of his waistband. He waits for Daniil to pop the buttons before he pulls them down entirely, discarding them along with his undergarments outside the circle of warm stovelight.
Down amidst his dark, groomed thatch of hair, Daniil glistens. Artemy has to touch him. He can touch him, and when he does the sound his thumb makes with one swipe is wet and wanting. Above that, his root is hard and dark with blood. He forks his fingers to either side of it, fascinated by its size and shape. Daniil spreads his legs just a touch wider. He lets Artemy look. He touches Artemy's knees nestled under his thighs and stares at him through lowered lids, mouth parted just so. All of his body on display, lined with messy scars--knife wounds, even a few bullet grazes. None of the typical markings of a Capital academic, but all of it Daniil.
Artemy strokes him slowly with curled knuckles. When he drags two fingers from the base of his slit to his very tip, Daniil jolts.
It's difficult to take his time after that. He chases Daniil's reactions, his verbal direction and encouragement. His honeyed voice--always so composed, even in the face of death, defeat, negotiations of desire--hushed with urgency, strained with pleasure. "Artemy," he says, like a chant. Until it devolves into a single syllable, a single letter. His body tenses, every sinew and line pulled to the surface of visibility. Shimmering, his lines appear in the color of winter starlight. White-hot. Razor sharp, like the shine of a knife's edge before it catches you between the eyes.
Artemy bows down on one arm, burying his face deep in Daniil's neck. He lets him feel the burn of Artemy's cheeks, hear his ragged breath, the tremble of his lips against his throat. Daniil clings to him. Artemy has half a mind to lower himself all the way, to sink into the fur rugs with Daniil in his arms just like this through the rest of the night.
But Daniil's hand curls under his chin, lifts it high enough to see him. And Artemy is pinned, unable to look away even if he were hauled back by the scruff of his neck.
"Lie back." he says. Unspooled, impaled by Daniil's attention, Artemy maneuvers into his requested position. Daniil mirrors their earlier arrangement, propped up against his side with his leg thrown over Artemy's thigh. The orange glow of dying embers is enough to catch the sheen of his hair, the curve of his ear, the focused set of his brow. He hasn't even fully caught his breath yet.
"My dear colleague, that was far from unsatisfactory." he says, carving a line down the center of Artemy's chest like the world's most casual dissection.
"... Is that your educated opinion?"
Daniil laughs, eyes light, teeth bared, and Artemy has to briefly shut his eyes against the brightness and the subsequent sting that wells up. Daniil's hand on his hip urges them open again like an electric shock. "I'll trust you to provide your own invaluable feedback." he goes on. "I value your insight."
When he peels down the fabric of his underclothes, Artemy shuts his eyes, feeling as if a different organ has been exposed. Daniil comments on the accuracy of his imaginings, and when his finger traces him from base to tip it's with a naked hand, gloves foregone. It's only the feather light touch of one finger pad but it may as well be a scalpel for the searing hot line it leaves. And when that hand turns, becomes a fist, envelopes him, Artemy has to bury his face in the crook of his elbow.
A hand settles in Artemy's hair, cradling his scalp. "Artemy," he says. "Let me see you."
The room is so dim now, there's hardly anything left for Daniil to see when Artemy uncovers his face. Still he hums appreciatively and gives a twist of his wrist so sweet, so perfect, Artemy feels it from one tip of his body to the other. His hands, fumbling paws that they are, grab for the other man. Daniil comes easily, melting against him, burying his face in the crook of Artemy's jaw, flesh molding to his like hot wax. His hand squeezes tighter. Artemy makes noise; from deep in his throat, from the slick spread by Daniil's fist, even his heart pounds hard enough to be heard across the room, surely.
"Don't hold back from me, Artemy. My colleague. My Erdem. My dearest Artemy, let go for me."
Artemy's arms wind tighter. He doesn't want to let go. Not now or ever. But Daniil is too much. The presence of him, the warm weight in his arms, the voice in his ear, the hand eagerly stroking his aroused flesh. Artemy tenses, turning his face into Daniil and shakes with the force of his release. Hot ropes brand his belly, and for a second Artemy is afraid that Daniil will see his own lines, the searing truth of them. So he pulls him closer, until Daniil is entirely on top of him, crushing the evidence between their bodies.
He makes a noise of surprise, sticky hand bracing on Artemy's shoulder. But he soon settles into the embrace. The stove beside them crackles sleepily. Before long it becomes too cold to spend the night open to the elements on the floor, so they manage to move themselves into a rickety bed. They don't shy from sharing body heat.
On the edge of awareness, the town sleeps on -- entwined with its river as dark as the deepest thickest vein.
---
PART 3
Blood
The interior of Lara's house holds a strange comfort in its opulence. Soft sky blue walls, embroidered cushions on a large floral rug, gossamer white curtains on every window. It encourages one to come in and sit by the ornate fireplace for a while, to sink into its safe aura and admire the art on the walls, the biscuits on the table, like visiting a half-remembered grandmother. A clock ticking in the main room can be heard faintly from the entrance way. It would be easy to lose time in this place for a while. But Artemy’s memories still linger like dust motes shifting in the light; Once a safe house for the sick, later a killing room leveled by Daniil’s wrath. Artemy wonders if there are still bloodstains on the hardwood under the large, tasteful rug behind Lara.
"They're with Dyadya Stakh," she says, imitating Sticky's form of address for the other surgeon. "There's only so many games you can play with dominos, and Murky has been following Sticky like a duck while you've been gone."
"That's alright." Artemy says, making to reach for the door behind him. "I figured they might be off somewhere. Thank you for watching them."
"Oh, would you like some tea before you go? I can still feel the cold radiating off the both of you."
"Some other time." Daniil smoothly declines. "I haven't forgotten your invitation. But Master Burakh here insists on checking me over at the clinic. It works out in our favor that those two are over there now."
Lara tilts her head, wringing her fingers with the budding spark of worry. "Are you sick, Bachelor?"
"Something along those lines."
With plans solidified to all sit down together for New Year's eve, Artemy and Daniil set out into the cold once more, sniffling one after another. The late afternoon sky is as clear and unbroken as a smear of blue ice. Frozen snow sparkles under a pale sun. Daniil says, "I sent word to Peter, but I didn't disclose what it is I want to talk to him about. Do you really think there's a chance he'll... pick his pen up again?"
Artemy doesn’t respond right away. His very eyes feel stiff with cold, and he hadn’t expected the pre-written letter Daniil handed off to a courier as soon as they made it back to town to have been addressed to Peter. He can guess what he means to talk to the Stamatin with, and the lurch of hope in his chest is temporarily incapacitating. "I'm not close with him,” he says mildly. “I can't say for sure. But if it were me I wouldn't be able to sit idle for so long. It might be taht this is just what he needs. His brother seems taken by you, too. One way or another, it'll work out."
Wrapped up in his borrowed clothes of the residents of Town-on-Gorkhon, the largest of which is a stylish but effective coat from the twins themselves, Daniil sinks into a thoughtful quiet. The clinic itself isn't too far off. Giving his boots a cursory stomp at the steps, Artemy swings the door open and nearly mows over the Ogliminsky girl on her way out.
"Master Burakh!" she says. "How opportune to see you here, today of all days. My health radiates in your presence, you yourself are nearly glowing... Did something happen to stoke your power, in this time of winter slumber?"
"Nothing to concern yourself with, Capella. Turn your eyes to the ground in front of you before you fall on your face. It's slippery out."
Capella nods seriously. "I'll heed your grave warning. Oh, hello Bachelor. Or... what shall I call you now?"
"Dankovsky will do."
"No..." she sends another inscrutable look at Artemy, wide eyes drifting off somewhere just beyond him as always. "No, that won't do at all."
From the exam room, the rustle of Sanislav's apron precedes his appearance. "Is that Artemy? Ah, you’re both here in one piece. How was the vacation?"
"It turns out Artemy is a skilled fisherman." Daniil says. While he hangs up his coat the Olgimsky girl takes her opportunity to slip out, muttering under her breath. Disquieted, Artemy watches her go and doesn't hear the rest of Daniil's relay of events. Only when a chorus of voices breaks out does the thread of his thoughts drift back to see him surrounded by Murky and Sticky, each of them clinging to one of his arms. Stanislav stands to the side, watching Daniil with a doctor's intensity. Artemy's heart kicks in his chest, thinking Stanislav has caught some remnant of illness in Daniil.
But then his hawkish attention cuts to Artemy. "You look well," he says. "I take it he wasn't the only one who benefitted from the fresh air?"
Artemy turns away to school his features. His heart slowly thumps back to a normal rhythm. "It was enlightening. What was Capella here for?"
Stanislav snorts a soft laugh at his crude topic change. "Oh, just a remedy for cramps. But you're here just in time, I need to pay a house visit to Anna Angel. She sent a feverish note, and I'd better check on her. There's a nasty cold going around. And, well... it's got the townspeople nervous."
"Right. What do you need help with?"
"Well... I'm behind on stock. I'm not used to being awake at these hours anymore."
"At ease, soldier. I've got it from here." Artemy says.
"Oh," Stooping in the doorway with one boot in his hand, Stanislav shuffles around in his pockets. "I just remembered. This came for you, Dankovsky." The piece of folded parchment he pulls out is crisp and bright. Across the room Dankovsky pauses with his hand awkwardly hovering above Murky's head.
"What? From who?"
"I don't know. It was already on Artemy's desk this morning."
"Artemy's...?"
The thick cardstock barely bends when Daniil takes it. His full name is printed on the envelope in a precise, official script. Digging a dull scalpel from his boot--Artemy can't even be surprised at his hidden weapons any more--Daniil flicks it open in one smooth motion.
His burden unloaded, Stanislav leaves. The bell on the door chimes softly after him.
Daniil reads the letter once quickly, then again slower. When he lifts his head he looks around the room carefully. Spotting the stove in the corner he approaches it, opens the grate, and tosses the parchment inside. Three pairs of eyes watch him stoke the coals with the poker until the expensive paper catches flame. No one talks until all that’s left is a pile of ashes.
"Who was it from?" Artemy asks. Daniil idly hefts the poker in his hands a few times before setting it back in its place.
"The Capital."
Artemy’s gut sinks through his feet, right into the cold earth. "They know--?"
"It's nothing. It's alright.” Daniil firmly cuts him off. “Really."
Artemy doesn’t accept this dismissal. He makes to walk closer but his weight creaks the floor, and Daniil throws a look in his direction that brokers no argument. "There is nothing to worry about. It's a severance. The rotten limb has finally been cut off."
From Sticky comes a question colored with a child’s curiosity: "What does that mean?"
"It means I'm free to extend my stay." Daniil says, not meeting Artemy’s eye. This news brings a barely contained cheer from Sticky. Even Murky looks up at him with a sparkle in her eyes. Daniil smiles back down at them, a crooked, unsteady thing.
He can only avoid the bear in the room for so long. WIth false neutrality dripping from him like slick oil, he turns his chin towards Artemy. "Now then. You wanted to examine me?"
That's putting it lightly. If I could perform a living autopsy to understand every function, every tic, every thought of yours I would. Artemy digs his hands into fists to keep them at his sides. With excitement overriding his usual perceptive nature, Sticky raises his hand straight up in the air. "Can I do it?" he asks, practically radiating with energy.
This finally gets Daniil to meet his eyes. "If Artemy says yes."
"Of course." he answers with a voice that’s only a little rougher than usual. Sticky’s overflowing enthusiasm causes him to blank out for a second before he starts hauling Daniil away to the exam room. When they pass by Artemy, Daniil briefly touches his shoulder. It’s nothing, barely more than a pat in passing, but it takes all of the unwound tension from his body. Almost all of it.
Why is he comforting me?
On the other side of the curtain Daniil begins to talk Sticky through the motions but the kid quickly interrupts him. "Artemy has already taught me these things. I know what to do."
A quiet laughter drifts over. "Very well, Doctor. With Artemy as your teacher you must be even better than me by now. I'll trust your diagnosis. What would you have me do?"
"Sit here. And um... Where's the heart listening wire?"
Artemy goes into the stock room. After a while Murky comes in to help sort bandages, quietly telling him about what she did for the past few days, what Lara’s cooking was like, and her critiques of the decorations in Stanislav’s house. When all that’s left to do is sort paperwork and fill out order sheets Artemy sends her off to play in the warmer main room.
His pen scratches to itself in the small, quiet storeroom. Daniil’s severance from the Capital should bring him some sense of relief. In any case it means he’ll be left alone if he chooses to stay. A kind of voluntary exile. But Artemy knows how despite everything, the city still meant something to him. Even if he could never go back, he could still dream about it. He could imagine hypothetical strolls with Artemy on his arm. He could think of his leaving as willing abandonment.
Setting down his pen, Artemy rubs his face with both hands. When he looks up to check if anyone has come into the main room he finds Daniil leaning in the doorway. Belatedly, he raises a hand to knock lightly on the frame. "Doctor Sticky has cleared me to be suitably fit." he says. The stethoscope is still roped around his neck.
Tempering his own feelings, Artemy focuses on the most immediate matter at hand. "And has your self-examination revealed?"
"You don't trust the work of your apprentice?"
"I'm asking how you feel."
"Quite well. But if you'd like a third opinion..." Straightening from the doorway, Daniil unloops the stethoscope and comes close enough to hook it around Artemy's neck. "You're welcome to see for yourself."
Alright. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about it. "Sit."
With a small smile Daniil perches on the edge of a vacant crate. He leans back on his hands when Artemy stands up. His knees stray apart to give him room but Artemy nudges them to a more sensible angle. "Behave," he says. "I really do want to check you over."
"By all means. I’m not stopping you."
Hooking the ends in his ears, Artemy lets out a breath and goes to press the metal to the top of Daniil's sweater. A hand that isn't his redirects the motion, guiding the tip under the hem instead to sit flush against his skin.
Deep, resonant pounding fills his ears, loud enough to feel in his teeth. For a disorienting moment Artemy thinks it’s a lingering echo of his own pulse from the night before, when he'd been so sure his heart would finally burst out of his very chest. But then he blinks a few times and focuses on what he’s seeing and takes in the sprawl of Danii’s lines; strong and vibrant as if growing out of his skin for him to look, to see here the strength of his veins, the clean flow of blood, the health of his arteries. He is so healthy it doesn’t seem real. But right there in the center of his chest the central organ pulses a purplish black the color of crushed blackberries. It’s not infected. It’s not sick. It’s something else entirely. It sits in the hollow of his throat, curls in the darks of his eyes, and seeps into the faint etched lines of his face. The wounded heart weeps malaise. It seems to grow bigger the longer Artemy stares at it, sharpening.
Artemy doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to treat it.
The rush in his ears falls flat when he removes his hand. After pulling the plugs from his ears he returns the stethoscope to its perch around Daniil's neck and just lets his hands hang there for a little while. "Your pulse is too quick," he says lightly. "But your health is good."
Daniil hooks his finger around the warmed metal end. "You don't want to check my blood?"
"What for? Is there something there worth seeing?"
"Well, depending on the number of white blood cells and antibodies--"
"I don't work like that. Your lines tell me more than anything I could read under a lens."
"My lines?"
"What else? Daniil, do you really not care about the letter from the Capital?"
As expected, Daniil goes still at the question. Artemy wonders what his heart must look like right now, and then thinks it’s for the better that he can’t see it anymore. But instead of shutting off or avoiding the matter, Daniil cups Artemy’s waist and says lowly, privately, "It will take some time to come to terms with it. Even if a parent doesn't love you, even if it is apparent to yourself and everyone around you, being cut off entirely still stings."
Artemy’s chest contracts at the comparison. He brushes a knuckles against Daniil's jaw, at the stubble just barely starting to come in after this morning's shave. "In cases like that, being cut off is the only way to grow on your own."
A corner of Daniil's lip tugs up before his head drifts forward to rest against Artemy’s collar. "There’s truth in that. Maybe this time the hurt won't last so long."
Ignorant in matters of the heart, Artemy doesn’t know what else to say. He gathers Daniil closer in his arms. As if by squeezing him he can wring some of the pain from him. It doesn't work that way, he knows. But when Daniil's arms link behind his back and crush him closer he thinks, for now, this small comfort might be worth more than words.
---
"It's too late to change the course now. His blood is in the river. It will seep deep into the ground if it hasn't already. What are you going to do, dig it up?"
Angled into the cramped corner of Maria Kaina’s dining room, Artemy eyes the tea cooling in front of him. Sour rosehip scents the table but neither of them have touched their cups. The narrow, dark room has the effect of being trapped in a gullet, at risk of being swallowed without a care for his edges. Dark purple curtains cover windowless corners. From what little he can see into Kaina’s room it seems she still decorates with broken mirrors.
"What about the wound?" he asks. "How can it be shut?"
"Who's to say?"
"... You would have a lot to say, I think, if the situation wasn't already in your favor."
Maria laughs behind a curled hand. Angled toward the fireplace, the scarlet jewels on her throat flicker with light. "Favor isn't the word I would use."
Artemy plays with the handle of a butterknife laid next to a jar of marionberry marmalade. He wasn’t expecting this shift in tone since the last they saw each other. It’s possible her hostility was heightened by worry for her grandfather, but Artemy doesn’t think that’s all there is to it.
"But you aren't worried?"
"The celestial tides change, Master Burakh. I can hardly see a thing beyond the veil anymore. Besides, even if a direct catastrophe were to hit this place, do you think I would lift a finger to stop it? What more do I have to lose?"
"What do you have to gain?"
Maria smiles warmly. It does nothing to reassure Artemy. "Our interests might be aligned more closely than you think."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"If Daniil is sticking around, he'd do well to teach you how to read between the lines." She waves her fingers, mimicking finger weaving.
"I don't need that. The lines speak more than enough for themselves."
"Then you don't need my help, do you?"
Artemy pulls himself out of the gullet-like room. The courtyard outside is pristine. He exits it and walks around the perimeter to the side of the cathedral. The scoured earth on the other side of the river is hidden under veils of snow. As if nothing ever stood there to begin with.
Damn, but this cold is starting to make his body hurt. He shivers, gritting his teeth against a forming headache. His mind crawls to a standstill, as blank and flat as the steppe before him. Is there anything left to be found if he digs deeper, if he gets on his hands and knees and digs all the way up to his shoulders? Or is all that remains here a deep rooted scar? A disease can be cured or treated or removed. Scars are irreversible.
But it hasn’t gotten to that point yet, has it? A scar doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t weep and dribble and leak into surrounding tissue. And until it shuts he can still get his hands inside of it. He can still medicate and monitor and mend. He has to believe in that. He is a menkhu. He has healed something that seemed impossible before. He’ll find a way to heal this broken heart, too, no matter what it takes.
---
When Artemy wakes up he thinks he must have left the window open for how frigid it is. Teeth chattering in his skull, Artemy attempts to peel his eyes open and finds the task much more difficult than expected. When he tries to sit up, two hands on his shoulder immediately pin him down. "I'll wrestle you if I have to, but I'd rather you save your strength."
Squinting against the dim glare of a lantern by his bed, Artemy gropes for the arms pressing down on him, trying to follow them to the body they belong to. "Who--?" he tries to ask, but his voice comes out barely more than a whisper of dry leaves.
"Daniil, who else? Now stay still. You're with fever, and you've already given Sticky a fright. He fetched me when he heard you making all sorts of racket in your sleep."
Reluctantly Artemy sags against his mattress. Daniil's arms stop pressing down on him but they don't retract entirely. Despite his utter stillness, Artemy feels like he's spinning.
"Fever?"
"I must have given it to you after all." A cool hand touches his brow, gliding down to his cheek. Artemy tries to turn into it, but even his neck appears too leaden to move. "I did not think it was contagious in nature. In any case, it was wrong of me to risk it."
That cool, soothing touch draws away. The sound of dripping water follows, altogether oddly muffled and too sharp on his ears. A damp cloth gently drapes over his forehead.
Artemy's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, refuses his attempts to speak. His heart punches painfully in his ribs, pounding at his temples. Tension stiffens every muscle in his body. There's something he needs to say, before he forgets...
"Shh." Danill smooths the blanket over Artemy's chest. "It's alright. You took care of me so well. How could I not do the same?"
"It isn't..." Artemy's throat clicks. "You don't owe..."
"It's not about debt." Daniil draws one of Artemy's arms out from under the covers, and a cool wetness touches his wrist. "I can't sit by while you take ill. I already assured Sticky you'd be better by morning. I implore you not to make this more difficult than need be, or I won't be kind."
The threat lands home -- just as skillful as a naked blade sunk into his gut. Artemy recalls a different Daniil, blood-reeking and worn, his revolver strewn over hastily scrambled notes, stained red in their corners by a desperate hand. He recalls the bodies that were said to have been left in Daniil's shadow, the numbers in his ledger that heavily swayed to more dead than healed.
The prickly prick who will drown us all...
Artemy remembers, too, the corpses that surrounded his own feet in the sanitizing light of day. The butcher Burakh, the returned absent son who killed his own father...
A cool cup presses against his lips. It tastes like blood, but the grip on the back of his neck doesn't let him pull away. He drinks. He uncurls his fists from the sheets with enough of Daniil's persistent coaxing. He closes his eyes against the dark. He listens to the sound of a clock ticking away on the floor below.
---
The house is a living organ, and it is sick.
Mildew clings to the inside of Artemy's lungs, building with every inhale, cloying his cardiovascular arteries. It hangs from the walls, ceiling, sticks to the soles of his boots, making it harder to raise his boots with every step. It buzzes on his hands glimpsed in the corners of his eyes--gone every time he raises them to his face.
The smell of stale sickness oversaturates the air. He feels himself becoming sicker with every second spent inside, even when he holds his breath and shuts his eyes and denies it through force of will. But he can't leave, not yet. He is here for a purpose. He can't leave yet. There is nowhere else for him to go.
Nowhere else...? Is that true?
Artemy looks over his shoulder at the door he came in through. He had come in through there, hadn’t he? Will it hurt to check? To turn the knob and look outside? To see the street piled high with fresh corpses draped in that frigid miasma that seems more than able to block out the very light of the sun? And the houses--all the other houses, just like this one, crying for relief, sobbing for the touch of his hand, begging for the spill of blood only he can provide.
Breathing harshly through his teeth, Artemy takes a step deeper into the house. His boot sinks into something he doesn't dare to look at. Groans of pain sound from every direction, dragging against the skin under his clothes.
"Artemy," they cry.
It hurts, Oh it hurts. My mind is spilling out of my ears. The pain, I can't stand it. Don't you have something, anything? You're Haruspex, aren't you? Son of Isidor Burakh, hands guided by the Auroch, blood blessed by the Odonghe, what cure do you bring us?
"Artemy."
...Morphine? Novocaine? But that won't do. That simply won't do. The Sand Pest can only be slain by one thing, and you don't have it. You don't even know where to look. Monomycinium? Feromycinum? Oh, these pills will only slow it down for another day. It isn't enough. You aren't enough. Some Burakh you are. Can't you see me dying in your arms? I'm not the first, far from the last. How many more until you find the cure, Erdem? Help us! Suok, help us! Free us from this pain, drilling into our core!
The body on his lap stills its crying, slipping into a state that will never make noise again. The house keens, shuddering around another soul lost. How soon until the next shake? How soon until its tears are for him?
"Artemy..."
With lids like lead weights, Artemy opens his eyes. The corpse is just as it was a moment before, that voice couldn't have come from her. There must be someone else, in the next room perhaps?
And what can he do for them? Offer the last of the Twyrine brew in his pack, the one he'd meant to drink himself that night? He's fresh out of herbs--there hadn't been enough time to look for more. But what else can he do? Sit here and wait for another to die?
Sacrifices. It's always about sacrifices. Cut off the offending limb to stop the spread of necrosis. Take the drug that may stop your liver if it will save your heart. Weed the garden to allow light to sink into that which you would have grow. Save the other now, and they will live another hour. Another day if they're lucky. But Artemy is sick, too. He feels it in the bottom of his chest, burrowing deeper. It grips his mind in sharp talons, growing more and more painful by the day. If he lets himself go, if the plague takes him now, who will be the one to defeat it?
Will Clara work her ultimate miracle? Or will Dankovsky defy the bounds of logic to defeat death after all?
No, that's not right. There has to be a sacrifice. There has to be blood, and it has to be spilled. That's the only way.
Isn't it?
"Come back to me, Artemy." the voice pleads, smooth as velvet, deep as night. Artemy turns his head. The sun is setting behind the figure, casting his face in shadow. Train tracks stretch out behind him further than Artemy can see, like rigid bodies set in a line, ready for burial. "It's over." he says. "The Pest is in the past. It's alright now."
But how can that be, when his hands still smell of blood? When the taste of it still sits in the back of his mouth like an aching, abscessed tooth? How is anything meant to be alright when Dankovsky is leaving after saying they are two halves of the same whole? What is he to do while the other half means to tear itself free?
Artemy opens his mouth. He tries to tell Dankovsky not to leave, that to do so would tear a wound in his side no thread could ever shut, that he still wants to learn more about this strange man who worked tirelessly with him to save a town he had no personal involvement with. He wants to ask him to stay, to give him a chance to know him. He wants to say he's afraid of finding out that the sacrifice he made might have broken his chance at something he didn't know he could want this much.
The Bachelor's hands cup his face, his cold leather palms like ice. "I'm right here in front of you. Can't you see? It's only a dream, Artemy. Let go of it. Come back to me."
Artemy's chest rattles with the force of his gasp; old, shed talons clatter against his sore ribs. Bitter smells fill his mouth--vinegar, leather, his own sweat. Artemy's other half holds his face in an iron grip, staring into his blurry eyes like a man demanding all manner of life's secrets be revealed to him.
Artemy grasps at him, digging into the flesh of his arms, down to the very bones. "Did you miss your train?"
"...There's no train."
"There is. It's the last one, if you don't leave with the last of the soldiers, you'll never make it back to your Capital."
"There is no train," he persists. "Nor soldiers. They left a long time ago. It's the fever, it brings bad dreams. I know. I witnessed them myself. Some nights they still don’t let me sleep at all. But it isn't real."
Artemy's brow furrows. He stares at the Bachelor, taking in his disheveled appearance -- the sleepless eyes, the dusting of facial hair, his rumpled shirt... the smell of sickness clinging to him like a shroud. "But you'll leave." Artemy croaks. "I've seen it. The train will take you--your lines, new as they are, will be torn from the earth. I won't feel them anymore. I don't know if they can grow back. I don't know if I made the right choice."
"How can it be wrong, so long as it's willed? That's what you told me. Or was I wrong to take those words--your words--to heart?"
"But--"
"It's the Sand Pest, isn't it? It plagues your dreams, as it does mine?"
"The Pest--yes, the Pest, there's no time to rest, I need to--" He tries to push himself out of bed but the full weight of another's body presses him back down. Artemy struggles, not understanding why the other won't budge, by the size of him he ought to be knocked aside with the single swipe of an arm.
"Artemy, the Pest is dealt with. The town was cured with auroch blood, spilled by your hand. It's over, the sickness is no more."
"No. You're wrong... It burns in me, boiling my blood. As soon as it's finished with me it will take you, too. Take you on that damn train..."
"I will not be taken by anything. I go where I please, and give only what is willing. Is that understood? I will not be taken by grief, by loss, by what was taken from me. Least of all, I will not lie down in my grave until I am willing to go. I am not a man to be taken."
Artemy stares at the face hovering over his. Satisfied with his ceased movement, the strange man leans away before handing over a bitter smelling tea. Artemy cups its warmth, staring down into its murky depths. "You'll be gone. When I wake up, you'll be gone."
"I'll be right here. You'll have to look at my haggard face, and it'll give you such a fright, you'll wish I weren't."
Artemy gives a weak chuckle that shudders into a cough. Oh, but he's tired. His body aches, down to his very core. Will it be so bad to hand himself over to this persistent doctor, to drink his personally brewed tea? To sleep for a little while under his watch? His touch is so assured, his manner so brash. But the way he traces the lines of Artemys face, his temple, his lips, is so soothing, so different from the clinical touch of any regular city doctor. His breathing slows under that touch, his pulse settles back into his body, as he's lulled to a place where that gentle touch is the only thing that exists.
---
Daniil's posture is atrocious, slumped over the sheets with his head pillowed on a twisted arm. He's going to wake with the worst ache in his neck and back. His normally crisp white undershirt is wrinkled beyond all belief, his stubble dark enough to look itchy, and his hair is a bird's nest of cowlicks and tangles. As the morning light blankets his half-turned face, Artemy thinks he's the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.
The rest of the room is a disaster. Artemy's clothes are strewn all about, various rags crumpled in a damp pile by the nightstand, ewers of water and vinegar stand in rows like an untrained soldier troupe. Cups, overturned bowls... is that the smell of vomit?
Artemy is naked down to his underpants, thirsty, and in desperate need of a trip to the washroom. With some maneuvering, he performs a miracle worthy of Clara's envy; Daniil doesn't so much as twitch while Artemy gets out of bed to pull on some fresh pants. He gingerly pulls his shirt on while walking down the hall.
He has to steady himself against the wall as he relieves himself, weak as a newborn calf. His attempts to remember the night before only result in vague suggestions of misery, being confined to his room, and sweating his entire body weight in moisture. He thinks he might also remember Daniil's hand on his back, holding a bucket with the other.
As Artemy steps out of the washroom the sound of frantic footsteps approaches him from around the corner. Daniil all but runs into him.
"What did I tell you? You'll never recover if you insist on--" Looking up at his face, Daniil swallows his tongue. In a series of quick movements he checks his temperature, his eyes, his pulse, his lymph nodes. "Oh."
"Good morning." Artemy says.
“Good? And here I thought I was a stubborn patient. The next time you get sick I may need to bring Rubin in to hold you down in bed. Or I might just tie your arms and legs. What would you have done if I wasn't here? Willed your sickness away through sheer stubborn bullheadedness?"
Artemy pulls him into his arms in the middle of his rambling. Vertigo makes him sway, but Daniil holds him upright. Instead of taking pity on him and stepping back, Artemy drops a kiss to his forehead and nestles into the side of his temple. "Thank you," he says. "For being here."
Daniil’s reply is muffled in the wool of Artemy’s shirt. But he shoulders Artemy’s weight and returns the embrace, remaining like that until hunger draws them downstairs. But even then he stays close. He brings food to the table for him, cleans the dishes, and kisses Artemy when the kids aren’t looking, claiming immunity.
---
Artemy,
Clara told me you know about the river. I should have told you sooner, but I wanted to see what you would do. This is your choice more than it is mine.
I see the river's course, Artemy. I've seen it for a long time. It is difficult to change these things, but not impossible. You have a way of bringing about the least likely outcomes, even ones that elude us seers. If it was your will to avoid this, it would have been so. This is the power you hold in your hands. The ability to shape, to plow a new course. This is what it means to be a Burakh. The steppe listens to you. It molds to your wishes. I tell you this because I know it won't make you a cruel man. You are worthy.
Since you know about it already I'll tell you this. When winter's snow melts the river will flood. Don't shy away from it. Don't be afraid when it washes over you. It will change things but it won't hurt you. It will only hurt if you reject its offering.
It will happen no matter what now. It must happen. Hold the heart you have earned in your kind hands. That is the only way to stay afloat.
Capella
---
Stopping the final bottle of cough remedy, Artemy sets it aside with the rest to be labeled. Once supplies start to run low in the pharmacies these herbal tinctures will be all that's available until trains start running again. He knows from last year's winter that even the most stalwart supporters of modern medicine will drink his mixtures when the time comes. Some will even say they taste better than that expensive city swill.
Dampening the end of a rag, Artemy wipes a sticky patch of honey from his palm. From the second story window in his workshop he can see that the evening's snowfall has gotten much worse. Under the lamppost across the street flurries dash nearly perfectly horizontal. The glass pane windows rattle in sympathy. He'll probably have to spend the night here if it doesn't let up soon.
As he starts to pack away his tools and herbs he considers fixing up a sleep remedy while waiting on the weather. In the few days since coming back from the fishing trip Daniil's insomnia has only seemed to worsen. He continues to sleep in isidor's old room, explaining that he doesn't want his troubled sleep and odd hours to interfere with Artemy's rest. Artemy assured him that he's a heavy sleeper, and reminded him of his promise to watch over him. But the soothing effect of his assurance was only temporary, because when Artemy woke up the next morning his bed was entirely devoid of the other man's heat.
They haven't had much time to talk about it, either. Stanislav hadn’t exaggerated about the pervasiveness of the cold going around. Artemy has been treating sore throats and administering antipyretics to no end. Even during lulls in his work Artemy has barely seen Daniil, with him always running one errand or another. It's a good sign -- to see him busy with some apparent direction. But while his distraction is heartening, Artemy can’t keep from feeling out of sorts. Daniil’s abrupt severance from the Capital worries Artemy, and the stress piling onto him over the amount of sick needing to be dealt with every day hasn't helped matters either. He's left feeling exhausted and more than a little wanting, restless even in the depth of his leaden bones. If Daniil won't accept a sleep remedy he may have to take it for himself at this point.
Just as Artemy is checking through his supply of dried chamomile he hears the front door chime downstairs. He pauses with the paper bag open in his hand. He can’t imagine anyone braving the streets in these conditions. Could the wind have blown the door open, or rattled it hard enough to disturb the bell? Or has Stanislav shown up for the night anyway, using his height to cut through the blizzard like a human plow?
"Stakh?" he calls, making his way downstairs. Before he's fully reached the bottom he sees a pair of legs standing in the entranceway, and when he recognizes their owner he nearly misses a step.
Daniil tugs down the edge of a worn, maroon scarf. With his face flushed with cold, his bulky black coat deepening his shadows, and the eery restless light slanting down from the window by the door he looks like a thing risen from a dream.
"Sorry to disappoint. It's just me." he says. "I thought you might have left by now."
Artemy finds his legs again. His last step is heavy. "Not with this storm. How did you even get here? Where are you coming from?"
"Here and there." Daniil takes off his hat and pushes his hair back. "The storm picked up while I was already outside. Luckily I was nearby enough to detour here."
Just then the streetlight outside flickers, once--twice--then stays dark. Something metallic knocks against the wall outside. In the sudden darkness, everything is quiet except for that arrhythmic knocking. "There's an oil lamp here somewhere..." Navigating by muscle memory Artemy goes to dig it out of his desk. When it lights he catches the curve of Daniil's shoulder as he takes off his coat halfway.
"It would seem we're stuck here."
“I hope you don’t mind.” Artemy says, watching him. “There’s only one couch.”
“Please, that thing is almost as wide as a bed. I’m sure we can make it work."
Having spent the past few hours upstairs in the workshop, Artemy hadn't bothered to keep the main floor warm. After shutting all the other doors to trap heat they hunker down in Stanislav’s office with a bundle of blankets by the heater. Sitting next to him, Daniil casually leans closer.
"You smell of herbs. Menthol and thyme ...? What else?"
"Marshmallow root."
Daniil hums. He rubs at his eyes. The low angle of the lantern set between them casts ghastly shadows over his tired face. Artemy wants to pull him in and smooth out every wrinkle. But even shut in with four solid walls to each side, the storm finds a way to sink stubbornly into his thoughts. "It'll be some time before the next train can come to town.” He says quietly. “What are you planning to do when it does?"
Daniil gives him a strange look. "Are you asking if I'll leave as soon as I can?"
"I'm asking if you've come to a decision. You can't go back to the Capital. But..." if there's somewhere else, anywhere else, a place free from clairvoyant children and animals that shouldn't exist, rivers that bleed blood, soil that seeps ichor--
"Do you think that what we shared out on the steppe was temporary?"
Artemy rubs at the scabs on his fingers. He’s suddenly tired of thinking in terms of scars and wounds. He’s tired of feeling like his hands are still too sharp to mend delicate matters.
"I'm being unfair.” Daniil says. “Your level of patience is commendable, Artemy, but you should know that it might drive me to misbehave. You can be a little demanding. I'll let you. That is a privilege solely given to you."
"I can't demand that you stay in this place if it can't give you what you need in order to live."
Even to his own ears he sounds morose, and it frustrates him. It sounds like he's half way to giving up. But it doesn’t turn Daniil away. In fact he coaxes Artemy’s hands apart and splays his palm up over his knee. "Artemy, have you put together yet the reason why I came back?"
"What? You said it yourself, the town pulled you here."
"That's part of it.” With a soft chuckle he shows Artemy a peculiar smile. “I'm not so easy to lure. I could have rationalized my need to come back as just a lingering disappointment for what may have been if the tower was allowed to live. Unfinished business. Or a desire to put the damn thing to rest.
"But the truth is I was haunted by you. By this place, by the memories--you know about my dreams, Artemy. But they didn’t begin upon my return. Even in the Capital I would dream of being here. Except we failed, you and I and Changeling. In these dreams I have to walk the streets of our failure and I can't wake up until I've sunken beneath the full weight of it, stared into the sunken eyes of everybody I couldn't save. Even a thousand miles away in waking hours I smelled the burning mounds in the air. The freshly dug graves. Twyre haze mixed with gunpowder…
"I dreamt of you, too. Incessantly. I saw you drowning in the rotting filth, up to your neck in the bleeding earth, watching it fill your mouth like sand. Every night. This I could not rationalize. You don't know how badly I tried. How much it frustrated me to fail every attempt. So I had to see, with my own eyes, the evidence to contradict this torment."
"So you've seen it. Now what?"
"Now,” Daniil stresses. “I fear I'll forget all of this the moment I step back onto a train heading anywhere that isn't here. That I'll wake up, and this will have been the dream, while black smoke still blurs the horizon."
Artemy’s brows draw together. "That’s a sign of stress, oynon. You're reasonable enough to know that."
"That's the root of the problem.” His hand around Artemy’s tightens. “This place defies all reason. The more time I spend here the more I feel as if the true dream has been the events of the past year that I spent in the Capital, since the end of the Sand Pest... and that I haven't been awake until I stepped off the train on my return. Everything is so sharp here. Like a thin blade slowly scratching the surface of my mind. When I try to picture the Capital in my mind, it becomes hazy. Indeterminate. I begin to doubt that I ever made it back there at all. How can this be?”
Before Artemy can think of what to say, Daniil continues, bowing his head over their joined hands. "Damn it... I can say this because it's you, do you get it? If I am being manipulated by something beyond my understanding, if I am here because the town wills it, if I have yet some purpose to fulfill, if I'm bound to unknowingly cause some horrific river of blood, the reason I haven't already fled is because of you. Because no matter what my purpose is here, I can't rationalize myself out of wanting you. Wanting--the life that you've offered to me."
Blood rushes through Artemy’s ears, an echo of the winds howling through the streets outside. He takes in a careful breath. He slowly reaches up to brush the hair on the top of Daniil’s head. “We still have a chance to interrupt this supposed river of blood.” he says. “I’ve been searching for ways--”
"What if it can't be mended?"
"It can. I believe it can. If the Mistresses are to be believed, they say it can be healed…” I won’t believe that it’s too late. I can’t.
Daniil looks up. "Are they to be believed?"
"Maria has her own intentions, but Capella's main concern is for the town's future. Saburova has no reason to lie to me. And Clara... it's hard to say. Daniil, they told me it can be healed with a trade in blood.”
"A trade?" piqued by this information, Daniil seems to consider it. "Could it be a transfer in the literal sense?
"In the form of a transfusion? That's too dangerous.” Artemy frowns. “What if our blood is incompatible? What could it possibly change?"
Sitting up straight, a thoughtful look flashes through Daniil’s eyes. “Alright. What do you think of a literal trade with figurative significance?"
"... I'm not sure I catch your meaning."
"A bond sworn in blood. Any little cut will do. We can even try it here."
"Here?"
"What better place is there? The tools are sanitary." he says, as if this is perfectly sensible and Artemy is doubtlessly following along. But after thinking about it, Artemy can't find the flaw in his reasoning. No one ever specified how much blood needed to be exchanged. "You can check my blood under a microscope first if it'll ease your mind.” he goes on. “I hold no secrets from you."
"So, what? We each make a cut and rub them against each other?"
"You make it sound crude."
"Will it even be enough?"
"It won't hurt to try. Think of it as an experiment."
The main rooms of the clinic outside the office are freezing cold. Artemy holds the lantern while Daniil rummages around for a scalpel with his coat draped around his shoulders. "If it's figurative significance we’re looking for, would it help to use the tools you gave to me?"
"Good thinking. Do you have slides for the scope here too?"
Setting down the lantern, Artemy finds the velvet pouch and hands it over. "I wouldn't know what to look for in your blood. Do you want to look at mine?"
Daniil takes the pouch and considers it. "While I'm not usually one to turn down the offer, in this case there is nothing I could see that would change my mind about this."
"Brave, coming from you. Don't be reckless on my account if it’s something you want to do."
Stripping his gloves, Daniil gets to work washing his hands. "It's not like we haven't already swapped other fluids."
"And I'm the crude one?"
Daniil smiles all the way up to his eyes. "I won't force your hand." he says and offers Artemy the scalpel along with his empty palm once his hands have also been sterilized. "This is as much your decision as it is mine. What do you say, Artemy?"
The back of Daniil's hand is warm. The scalpel equally so. The vessels of his life, so willingly offered, at mercy to his will. The lines of his palm--too rough for a mere man of books--bared without his customary gloves without an ounce of hesitation or modesty.
Whatever you do, have faith in him.
Hooking his thumb around Daniil's as an anchor, Artemy steadies his grip. "Don't flinch." he says. And then Daniil's skin is parting like butter under the blade. A single red line blooms from the base of his wrist to the center point of his palm. Before it has a chance to pool Daniil takes Artemy's hand and turns it over. Old scars line his fingers, merging and disappearing into the lines of his palm. Artemy passes him the scalpel. Daniil holds it ready and meets his eyes. A single drop of his blood travels down the edge of the blade to Artemy's skin, hot as a brand, wet as a tear.
Unable to find his voice past the lump in his throat, Artemy nods his permission. His skin opens to Daniil just as easily. A single red line, precision straight. As Daniil sets aside the scalpel he lets out a shaky breath, and when he presses their cuts together Artemy hisses at the sharp sting. He bites the pain down in order to help hold them squished together as tightly as possible, until it feels like they might fuse into one. Until their pulses overlap and become a single rhythm.
Held together like that, the pain becomes a pale sensation compared to the odd sense of exhilaration coursing through Artemy with every beat of his heart. "Right... now what?"
Daniil shifts his grip on the back of Artemy’s hand. Some of the pressure slips before he immediately reapplies it. "You're asking me? I didn't think you would humor this."
If this wasn’t so strange, so unexpectedly intimate, Artemy might have seen how childish this whole thing is. But his blood buzzes under his skin. He feels too big for his bones, at risk of cracking open his seams. "You mentioned an oath,” he says tentatively. “What can we swear to each other?
The room is so cold, but Artemy feels feverish. Daniil’s hands are just as hot as his. Artemy can smell their mingled blood.
"I swear eternal devotion to you, Artemy Burakh."
He says it so seriously. His eyes shine as he stares straight at him, not through him, but right into the center of him. With himself so thoroughly seen, with all his scars and calluses and fumbling paws met with this wholehearted acceptance, Artemy can’t bring himself to deflect or obscure the truth of his words. Even if this is all for nothing. Even if it’s all some joke. Artemy tells him the exact definition of his own ending word. "Daniil Dankovsky. I swear to stay by your side."
"Through sickness and health?"
"Beyond death."
Something in Artemy’s chest gives one final lurch. Like a stone lodged in a grail comes loose at last, the wound in his heart runs clean. It floods into the rest of his body, warm and steady and right.
Daniil is the first to let go of their hands. Artemy looks down to see them utterly smeared in blood. It branches into the lines of his palms, collecting in the cracks of his fingers. Danill presses a thumb against his cut. He shifts it aside, releasing a fresh swell of blood. Then he bends down and presses his hot, wet tongue to it.
Artemy gasps through his teeth. He can’t help it -- it hurts. But when Daniil flicks his eyes up to him the wires in Artemy's brain misfire and twist it into pleasure. Daniil swallows as he straightens up. Without a word Artemy returns the favor. The taste is metallic and not at all appealing. The smell brings to mind many unpleasant memories. But the fact that this blood belongs to Daniil overrides all of it. He cups Daniil’s face and before he can properly lean in, Daniil is kissing him. One long, lingering kiss that seems to seal their oath in perpetuity.
When they part, Artemy only retreats far enough to lean their foreheads against each other. "How do you feel?" He asks with a voice like twyre rustling in the summer steppe.
"Like we just got married."
Artemy's heart jumps. Like a fish out of water it thumps and kicks against his ribs, and he quickly presses their lips back together before it can leap out of his mouth. Daniil's bleeding palm finds the back of his head and sticks to his hair. His grip twitches and almost retreats when he realizes, but then it digs in deeper and twists, wrenching a noise from Artemy's throat.
"How about we test the stability of that couch now?"
---
The next morning is so calm it’s easy to think the storm never happened. Smooth snow blankets the streets. The sky is a gentle, clear blue, without the slightest gust of wind. Even the power is already fixed by the time the two of them rise and share a meager breakfast whipped up from the storage room. Stanislav is only mildly surprised to see them there together with food arranged across the main desk when he comes in.
While he talks about his suffering sleep schedule and his attempts to brave the storm last night to cover the meager, twisted plants in his yard, Artemy sends furtive glances toward the office. They’d cleaned everything well, better than it was before even, but Artemy’s ears still burn everytime he looks in that direction. It doesn’t help that Daniil smiles whenever he catches him doing it.
He doesn’t get a chance to bumble his way through a confession. Just as the rest of town starts to wake a flurry of snow blows in from the door as a tangle of bodies stumbles into the lobby, one man hanging off the other like an extension of his shabby, limp coat. And just like that the soft, calm morning demands the sharpest of attention.
"He's slipping away from me," Peter Stamatin gasps, white-faced, lank hair clinging to cheeks shiny with anxious, twyrine-infused sweat. "I can feel it... he's nearly gone to us."
Stanislav is the first to reach them. "What is it? What's wrong?" In just a few steps he takes the other Stamatin into his arms with ease and tries to get a look at Andrei's face, but his head just rolls limply into the crook of Stanislav's arm without a sound. Artemy is close enough now to see the sickly gray pallor of his skin, the rapid pulse jumping in his throat.
"His stomach--oh it's been bothering him for days. Said he wouldn't go to the clinic, said it was nothing. I couldn't drag him here, not until he stopped responding. He can't hear us where he's gone." Peter whispers, clearly on the verge of overwhelmed panic.
"No, but I wouldn't risk it. Don't say anything too risque." Artemy says, rolling a medical table over to the frenzy at the entrance. "On the other hand, try it. It might wake him up."
Daniil smoothly lifts Andrei's legs and helps Stanislav position him on the table while Artemy holds it steady for them. Andrei's body twitches when it’s let go, trying to curl itself protectively over his middle. Peter groans as if the pain is his own. Stanislav takes him by the arm, guiding him back to the entrance area. Daniil yanks the curtain shut after them and turns to assess the patient.
"He’s in shock."
"Likely." Artemy has Andrei's shirt rucked up, prodding gently at his hard abdomen. The lower right side is hot to the touch, firmer than any other spot. His barest touch causes Andrei to start shivering, though it’s not enough for him to regain lucidity. When Artemy looks up, Daniil already has a tray laid out for blood collection. "Can you check for infection?" he asks. "It's either his colon, or the appendix--a blockage from the looks of it. We'll need to operate."
Daniil tightens the tourniquet on Andrei's bicep with a grim nod. While he carries away a vial to the scope in Stanislav's office, Artemy prepares for surgery. Tools, sanitation, the removal of most of Andrei's clothes. It's almost an indulgence, to take so many precautions; a privilege he didn't have a year ago, cutting open bodies in dirty streets with dull knives, his pack heavy and wet with unmarked organs. But then, those operations had all been posthumous. Andrei is still very well alive, and Artemy would like to keep him that way.
Artemy has to briefly catch his breath at the sink as soap stings the still-red cut on his palm. He tries to push it from his mind as best as he can. Stanislav breezes through the curtain as Artemy snaps on a clean pair of gloves and frowns at the state of Andrei. "I gave Peter something to calm down, but if he starts crying again..."
"There won't be anything to cry about. He'll be okay. That goes for both of them."
Swallowing hard, the doubtful worry on Stanislav's face starts to give way to a practiced calm. "I'm going to open him up," Artemy says. "Prepare his anesthesia."
Stanislav quickly moves to gather what he needs. "What is it? An obstruction?"
Thoroughly swabbing disinfectant over Andrei's belly, Artemy takes a deep breath of the stinging, cleansing scent, and lowers his lids. Through his lashes he can see dark, twisted lines branching out angrily from under his hand. He tries to see deeper... tries to pinpoint the exact nature of distress, but as soon as he moves his hand to look underneath it the lines swim from his eyes like scattered insects.
"An obstruction, a burst appendix -- The result is the same." Looking up at the office door Artemy tries to pluck the results of the blood test with the weight of his intent. A moment later Daniil strides out with a hastily written note, his handwriting undeniably flourished even when abbreviated.
"Increased white blood cells sufficient with infection," he reports. "If it's his appendix, he could develop peritonitis. I'll have to take another sample from the area to be sure."
Artemy sucks his teeth. "Alright. Let's not waste any more time."
"What would you have me do?"
"Stay near. Have a clamp ready if an artery bursts. Otherwise, I know what I'm doing."
While Daniil goes to wash his hands, Stanislav approaches the table with the anesthesia device in hand. "Artemy, is this alright?" he asks, watching Daniil's back. "Allowing him to be involved. He isn't--"
"Will you tell anyone?"
The calm mask is still firmly in place when Stanislav looks at him. "You know I won't. But if the kin catch word of it, there will be hell to pay."
“Do these walls have ears, Stakh? How will they hear about it?”
"Artemy, they have a way of knowing things..."
Sorting out his tools, Artemy's fingers pause on the unblemished silver coating of the scalpel carried here all the way from the Capital. Sterilized since last night’s use. "Who is Master here?" he asks quietly. "Who carries the Bone Horn?"
"You, of course. I'm only saying--"
"Nothing I haven't already considered. He shares my home, my hearth. If the kin have any sense they'll remember I didn't expel the Sand Pest on my own."
"Certainly. I'm not one to talk, either. Only... I hope you two know what you're doing."
Artemy meets Daniil's eye across the room. His sleeves are rolled up and secured in place with garters. The apron he's pilfered from somewhere is too big for him, the strings have to be tied in front. There's not a trace of worry in his posture, only a readiness to do what needs to be done, a sharp focus in his movements.
"There's not a doubt in my mind." Artemy says, and turns his attention to the patient. "Begin the anesthesia."
Stanislav carefully secures a brass mask to Andrei's pinched, clammy face. In seconds his features smooth out, his limbs fall slack, and his breathing evens out. The tension in his belly under Artemy's thumb dissipates. His scalpel glistens when he picks it up. "Have the tray ready." he says to Daniil, who bends his head close and waits.
The first incision is steady and true. A dark line of blood quickly wells up in its wake, briefly reminiscent of the dark angry lines that flared earlier. They aren't visible now, but Artemy knows the path to take. The abdominal muscle parts next, opening to a glistening red, inflamed map of meat. Daniil's gloved fingers hold the flaps apart. With half a mind Artemy remembers how those fingers had looked holding open a different body part the night before. The now familiar smell of his hair bent close does nothing to help dissipate the memory, and Artemy acknowledges that this may be a dangerous distraction yet.
But then those fingers point to a dark mass in the viscous hole, and Artemy falls back into focus. "There." Daniil murmurs. "It hasn't burst yet. Not entirely."
But already several small tears have formed to leak a foul pus into the abdominal cavity. Artemy wastes no time in tying off the appendix, choking off its final source of blood from Andrei's body, effectively keeping it from spilling further. The cut that severs the offending organ from its host is clean and quick. Daniil makes a noise--of appreciation? Approval? Artemy doesn't know. His fingers feel just as warm as they had been inside of Daniil's body, between his legs. With a pair of pliers he completes the extraction. The appendix hits the tray with a wet pop, fulfilling its final desire to burst apart. Daniil is quick to set it aside, well out of way.
Saline is flushed into the abdomen, the muscle wall is shut with stitches, then again the outer skin. The brass tube is removed from Andrei's mouth. Blood is washed away, gloves are disposed of, tools set aside to be sanitized. Daniil's hand spreads across Artemy's shoulder--a steadying, warming touch--gone again before a word can be spoken. He quickly takes his samples and disappears into the office, leaving Artemy with Stanislav's look full of a hundred questions. The only barrier between them this time is Andrei's sleeping body.
Swallowing a sigh, Artemy begins preparing the sanitization solution for the tools. "If there's something more you want to say, Stakh, just say it."
For a time the only sound in the room is the clink of Artemy's tools and Andrei's steady breathing. When Stanislav finally says something the tone is altogether different from what Artemy expected. "I'm glad he's here, you know." he says. "For your sake as well as the town's. I know how you've missed him. Hell, I'm far from the only one who's noticed.
"I'd forgotten. How he is. How you two operate of a similar mind. I think if he becomes a part of your household proper, the kin will have to abide by it."
"What are you saying?"
"This town has a way of absorbing outsiders it deems worthy. You wouldn't think they ever lived anywhere else, looking at the Stamatins. But they have fundamentally changed this place, with brick and mortar, irrevocably. With time it may shape to Dankovsky's will, too."
"What if this shape of his isn't to your liking?"
"Whatever shape he carves, it will be because you have placed your faith in him. I think, somehow, he was meant for this... To be here, acting as your other hand. It's as if the same connection that ran between Simon Kain and Master Isidor now runs between the two of you."
Artemy goes cold at the mention of his father. He faces Stanislav, his heart dully thudding in his chest. "That doesn't sound like something you would say.” he says after a while. Has Clara been by?"
"Capella, actually, when she was here the other day. I didn't think much of it, she's always saying strange things. But, seeing you now... is it entirely wrong to think there might be some truth to it?"
"Daniil isn't a Kain."
"No. But the Polyhedron opened to him all the same."
Artemy swallows thickly. Cold water drips from his fingers. "Set your mind at ease, Stakh. Things are different now."
"I trust you, Artemy. I do. It seems no matter what, this town is on a course none of us can fully predict."
"As long as I have a say in the matter, it will be for the good of all."
Stanislav nods, seeming to accept this. He adjusts the blanket on Andrei into a more comfortable position. It only serves to make Artemy feel colder. "Go tell Peter the surgery is over," he says quietly. "I'll finish cleaning up in here."
Alone, Artemy lines his tools out to dry and puts away his supplies. Try as he might, he can't discredit Stanislav's--Capella's--comparison, and it doesn’t sit well with him.
But regardless, a choice has been made. A choice that, this time, overlaps with what they both want. An oath has been sworn, and whatever the outcome may be, Artemy will see it through. Wherever they go they will walk the path together. That is what they promised to each other. A bond made in blood is not one to be broken. Surely, with Artemy here to ground him, Daniil won't stray too far into the realm of impossibility, won't lose himself following the path of a man that briefly broke the bounds of humanity.
As longs as Artemy's blood flows through him, he won't go down that path alone.
---
After setting up Peter with a spare bed in the recovery room next to his brother, Artemy finds Daniil asleep in his chair at the front desk, wrapped in Artemy's coat. Seeing him so thoroughly put out reminds him of how little he slept himself, given their activities.
Never in his life has Artemy spent so much time with a lover. That isn't to say he's had many. But he never thought it could be like this. That he would want it to be this way, that he would find so much pleasure in learning another's body, languishing in all its corners and creases. In Artemy's eyes every part of Daniil is interesting, alluring, none the least arousing. It had been difficult to close his eyes and drift off last night, even when the heady desire had long burned off, satiated to an unfamiliar degree. Because every time his eyes stubbornly drifted open again Daniil was already looking back at him, touching him lightly with the same reverent curiosity.
"Stanislav is going to watch the twins for a while." he murmurs, leaning across the desk. "Do you want to head home to rest? I can give you the key."
Daniil shifts in his seat and reaches up to rub at his eyes. A sound like crinkling paper follows the motion. Artemy looks down to see a letter held in his lap, and freezes. Daniil's thumb is still covering the worn smudge of his own signature.
"No, I'm alright. Thank you." Daniil says, slightly slurred from his nap. "I'd like to speak to Peter while he's here."
"... He's with Andrei. But the smell of antiseptic makes him nervous, he says. He'd welcome a distraction. You can explain the antibiotic regimen."
Daniil stands, nodding to himself. When he notices the letter still in his hand they both look at it for a while. There's a pounding sound in Artemy's ears loud enough to burst. "I've been wanting to ask you," he says. After all they’ve shared, asking this much doesn’t feel forbidden. "If you had no idea of the reception you'd get when you came back, why did you sign it that way?”
Daniil sets the letter down between them. His bare fingers graze the paper, a white bandage tightly grasps his right hand. "Something clicked into place the moment I met you, Artemy. I thought--here is a man I want to work with. A man I would kill for. I didn't have to think twice about it, and that should have told me enough. Though I knew the nature of these feelings, I didn't understand their weight or permanence until I tried to leave it all behind.
"I learned that no matter what, a part of me would belong to you. Even if it wasn't wanted. If it sounds too hasty or misguided, it really wasn't a choice. An entire year away from you and I was still utterly attached.
"I think, if I ever attempt to leave again, I would lose an irretrievable part of myself. My body might even cleave in two."
Daniil's weight on the letter is heavy enough to form a new wrinkle. Artemy gently takes his hand and presses a kiss to the dressing. A steady pulse hammers against his lips. "If that were to happen, I would find you and sew you together again. I'm somewhat of an accomplished surgeon these days."
Warm fingers wrap around his, and an even warmer smile curls up at him. "It would be an honor to lay under your knife.”
When he leaves to speak to Peter, Artemy stays behind in favor of resting his heavy body against the desk. He traces the surface of the letter one more time. And from behind the curtain of the exam room he idly listens to their drifting voices.
"Oh... Bachelor. Did you help with the operation?"
“I only held the collection tray."
Artemy’s stomach flips to hear the smile still evident in Daniil’s voice.
Then there’s the sound of shuffling like a body sitting up in bed. Peter Stamatin still has the stuffiness of tears entwined with his words, but as he keeps talking his tone builds in confidence, and in hope. He says, “Listen, I've given thought to what you said to me. It isn't much, but I've come up with some preliminary sketches. Suggestions more than anything, rudimentary fragments. But if you want to take a look we can discuss the finer details. There are many possibilities to unravel, and I'd like your essence to be an integral part of the building. When can you come by?"
---
EPILOGUE
Bones
Spring in Town-on-Gorkhon is a long, gray, rainy affair. Days pass by in a loamy, damp haze. During brief periods of dryness the earth is quick to offer up pollen from fresh wildflowers, awakening trees, and budding twyre -- expelling as much of their powder as they can muster as if knowing the everpresent drizzle of rain will soon wash it all away again.
Subsequently, Spring makes Artemy sneeze loud enough to rattle the house, and curses Daniil with a rampant desire for spiced tea to clear his sinuses. But when the last of the gray snow mounds melt for good, when the air has warmed enough to store scarves and hats in the back of their wardrobes and the river had swelled to twice its regular size, Daniil meets Artemy outside the clinic at the end of his shift and stops him when they reach their favorite bridge to press a slightly worn key into Artemy's palm.
There wasn't ever a question on whether or not to bring the kids this time.
Even after a full two days out on the river, Murky is just as eager to sit on the pier with her fishing pole for hours on end, catching little more than finger sized fish with a content smile on her face. Sticky, however, finds far more fascination in studying dug up fish bones and searching for other odd things buried in the dirt surrounding the hut left behind by those who used it before, kin or otherwise.
Even Daniil catches his own fair share of fish this time. With his health in good standing, he chats away with Murky and unhooks each of her catches without a single cut to his fingers. But to no one’s surprise the one with the most catches at the end of their trip is Artemy. It gets to a point where he has to release more than he keeps, due to the stash of fish already set aside to bring back to Stanislav and the others.
When there's another tug on his line, Artemy thinks it might be worthwhile to extend the offer of free food to Clara, to be sure none of it goes to waste. He hasn't seen much of her since the New Year, when she had spoken in increasingly jumbled riddles and goaded Daniil into making his and Artemy's affections clear in front of all gathered at the Broken Heart’s late night celebrations. It must be hungry work, being her.
He reels in slowly. Whether there's anything on the end of his line or not he's already decided this will be his final cast. It's getting dark, and the smell of cooking coming from the hut has been making his mouth water for some time now.
An utterly unexpected result of Daniil's stay in town had been Lara's offer to teach him a thing or two about cooking, beyond the basics picked up by a city bachelor. When Artemy asked him why he went to Lara for advice instead of asking him first, Daniil explained that he wanted it to be a surprise. In fact his words had been something along the lines of wanting to charm every one of Artemy's organs. Having so charmed two of them already, the next target in his sights was none other than Artemy's stomach.
It's anyone's guess as to what he plans to do about Artemy's kidney or gallbladder. But even if it takes the rest of his life to find out, the time spent waiting is a mystery Artemy is more than willing to have committed to.
The bob on his line nears the dock with his reeling. Whatever is waiting to surface doesn't feel overly large or heavy, but it's still strong enough to likely not be an errant clump of tangled reeds. With a final heave the hook breaks the river's surface with a splash, carrying a lively, typical, non-mutated fish. A small pair of hands reaches out to grab the slippery creature, and Artemy carefully walks Murky through the process of unhooking it herself before dropping into a bucket with the rest of the evening's catch.
The grass is still soggy underfoot from an earlier rainshower as the two of them make their way up to the hut. The sky is sharp, the clouds high, the air big in his lungs. Artemy takes a deep breath, savoring the crisp scent of grass, river, and fish surrounding him. Smoke from the fire Sticky is building reaches him with a change in the gentle wind.
"It's looking good." Artemy says, nodding to the budding flame contained in the ashy clearing. Sticky carefully shoves another stick into the arrangement and smiles at his work.
"Is it time to carve the fish now?" he asks.
"These can be eaten skin and all. You can help skewer them."
Eyes brightening with the permission to wield sharp objects, he jumps up to critically examine the contents of the bucket while Murky warms her hands by the fire and boasts about her new skill at unhooking.
Shortly after Artemy settles himself, the hut's door opens and a metal pot appears. "Oh, good. You're back." Daniil says from behind it. "The salad will have just enough time to set while the fish cooks." He disappears briefly only to return with another pot, smaller than the first. Using the lid as a shield he pours hot oil over the mound of freshly shredded carrots in the big pot. A great plume of steam rises into the orange sky. Artemy smiles. There's a curl of carrot peel stuck to Daniil’s hair. One of his so-called charmed organs gives a resounding thump in Artemy's chest.
With only a few pricked palms, he and Sticky finish skewering and seasoning the fish as Daniil brings out freshly cut rye bread. Murky studiously rotates the first batch of fish cooking on the grill. The sky grows darker, and when Artemy comes back with an armful of blankets there's an empty plate waiting for him on the smooth rock beside Daniil.
The carrot salad nearly punches tears out of Artemy with its spiciness--clearly evident of Daniil's taste--but it's fine by Artemy. More than fine, for the warmth that settles in his belly to be fed by the man sitting beside him. He waits to catch Daniil's eye before landing a kiss on the tip of his nose. "For the food." he murmurs. Daniil's mouth is too full to respond, but the redness that climbs up his neck to his ears says more than enough. Much more than enough.
When all that's left is fish bones and breadcrumbs, Daniil spins a lecture about the constellations to Murky and listens to her point out new formations picked out by her brilliant mind. Sticky stokes the fire's embers, watching the orange sparks dance amid the stars above, and contributes names to Murky's creations. Artemy watches the people around him and acknowledges a peace so complete it settles into the very marrow of his bones.
Once Murky falls asleep Artemy scoops her up from Daniil's lap and carries her inside. Sticky trails after with his eyes half shut, mumbling about fish bones growing in the earth and changing into new creatures that live under the soil. Artemy smoothes his brow, tucks him in up to his chin, and returns to the night-aired steppe.
"You're quiet today." Daniil says, opening one side of his blanket to Artemy. "Is something the matter?"
The limp carrot peel is still stuck in Daniil's hair. Plucking it at last, Artemy uses the opportunity to card his fingers through his dark strands before settling against Daniil's side. The embers glow a quiet red at the base of the firepit. Under the blanket Daniil's arm snakes around his back, firmly holding him close. Artemy turns his face into Daniil and says against him, "I didn't think I would ever have a family again."
These words--that Artemy thought would be too painful to say, flow out like the release of a festering blister, cleansed by blood spilling outward. Daniil doesn’t shy away from the intimate feel of it washing over him. “I think you do well by them." he says gently.
"It isn't just me. Half the town has a hand in raising them."
"They say it takes a village. But it's you they come home to. It's you they trust above all."
"Mm." Artemy nestles deeper into Daniil, pulling him tighter against his side. "If I raise Sticky as a menkhu, do you think they will accept him... as a Burakh? Will the knowledge come to him, if it isn't my blood that runs through him?"
"They say the town is changing. Even Clara doesn't know its trajectory. Perhaps it will no longer be blood that ties the Power of your line, but something else. Something... willed."
A deep laugh rattles through Artemy’s chest, resonate and clear. "You're starting to sound like them."
"I'm learning." Daniil smiles back.
Across the wide, endless steppe, Town-on-Gorkhon is only a dark shape on the horizon. But the newest addition to its silhouette sticks out like a foreign limb, rising from the center point of the Abattoir and the late Polyhedron. A tall pyre of scaffolding rises from the triangle lot where Peter once nearly burned everything he was and would ever be. From the ashes of a time buried in the past a new birth commences, with bones acting as fertilizer and mortar. Stars shine in the gaps between foundation lines, constellations rearranging into new possibilities.