Seeing you tonight, it's a bad idea, right?

by countryboy101

Summary:

Artemy Burakh hasn't heard from Daniil Dankovsky in ten years. But he's out right now and he's drunk. And he's got a letter from Daniil asking him to come over.
What could possibly go wrong?
In the most unforeseeable crossover in history, this is a pathologic fic inspired by Olivia Rodrigo's 'bad idea right?' I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1: I'm Sensing An Undertone

Artemy Burakh was pretty fucked up when he found the letter. He’d drunk practically an entire bottle of Twyrine trying to numb his brain, to keep himself from thinking about the things he had had to do that day. Being the town’s only hope weighed heavily on his shoulders. He reckoned he deserved to drink whatever made that burden lighter, even if it was only temporary. He was a doctor after all. Twyrine was his medicine.
Most medicines don’t convince you that hooking up with your ex is a good idea.
Artemy tried to still the tremor in his hands as he read the letter over.
‘Dear Haruspex,
I request that you visit me, soon, whenever you can tear yourself away from your work.
We have things to discuss (I always have things to say to you, I come away from our conversations dissatisfied, though what I have not said I never know), and I think of you whenever I am alone, and often when I am not. You are slowly killing me. Come see me tonight and finish the job.
Yours (hopefully)
Bachelor Dankovsky’
He read it five times, ten times, overthinking every blotch of ink on the paper, every comma, every full stop. Dankovsky wanted to see him again. The information ricocheted around his brain, unable to settle. More than that - surely Artemy wasn’t imagining the undertone in the Bachelor’s sentences. Was Dankovsky implying he wanted to pick up where they left off?
Artemy inhaled shakily. The logical side of his brain - which was reminding him of the pains he’d felt before, telling him that this is a terrible idea - was instantly silenced at the prospect of gay sex. Every coherent thought in his head morphed into an image of Dankovsky's stupid face.
The Bachelor was an arrogant prick and everything about him got on Artemy’s nerves. Everyone in town knew that Daniil Dankovsky was an annoying, pretentious outsider and he would have been very easy to avoid if it wasn’t for the unfortunate, no, apocalyptic fact that Artemy was attracted to him.
They had met in college, both studying medicine. From the moment he met Dankovsky, saw his hunched posture in his too-big clothes, heard his unnecessarily flowery sentences, watched his hands move as he spoke and stared directly into his piercing grey eyes, he knew he was well and truly screwed.
He despised him. He cared about no one’s opinion more. It drove him mad.
Eventually his madness drove him over the edge and he kissed Dankovsky when they were walking home from school in the dark, the cobblestones damp and slippery, Daniil’s face warm under his hand. And in the final turn of the screw Dankovsky kissed him back.
And then they proceeded to smash each other’s hearts into teeny tiny pieces, then grind those pieces down into fine sand, melt the sand into glass and then shatter the glass all over again.
When Dankovsky broke up with him he thought he’d never see him again. He secretly prayed he would. When he arrived back home in the steppe, ready to face an oncoming apocalypse, and saw Dankovsky, ten years older and heart rippingly beautiful, buying out the last eggs in the local shop, he was simultaneously more alive than he had been in years and desperately wishing for death.
And now this. A fuck-me letter.
He was so fucked.

Chapter 2: Wrecking All My Plans

Summary:

Artemy figures out how he's going to fool his friends.

Artemy pulled out a pen and paper and tried to think of a convincing enough lie to fool his closest friends. He was supposed to be meeting Bad Grief, Gravel and Stakh for drinks (lots of them) that night. This was how it always went - he’d start blowing people off to go blow Dankovsky, giving up everything else in his life for another hit of the drug. And he couldn’t tell his friends the truth of what he was going to do. He couldn’t bear to see their disappointment.
They had seen all his fury, despair, confusion and obsession when he was losing Dankovsky and as a consequence absolutely hated the Bachelor’s guts. Bad Grief wouldn’t even let him in the shop.
But more than that, he really didn’t want his friends to know where he was going because he didn’t want to hear their perfectly valid and sensible reasons that he shouldn’t go. Then he might actually have to listen.
Look, there was a plague ravaging the town that contained every person he had ever cared about in his entire life. More than half of those people were dead already. Some of them he had buried. Some of them he had killed. Every day he woke up knowing it could be his last. Every night he went to bed knowing he had done much worse than dying just to stay alive. His relationship drama was irrelevant in the face of that.
The Haruspex believed that a person’s life was small in comparison to the greater goal of saving everyone. The Bachelor believed people’s lives were irrelevant in comparison to some weirdly designed building. Dankovsky was a fucking idiot and it was a crying shame that the powers that be had made him so attractive.
So yeah, if Artemy had sacrificed all of his morals to try and save the world, and he was probably going to die from the plague or being burned alive or having a knife thrown at him or being beaten up by a worm or starving to death because the Bachelor had bought all the eggs or accidentally taking too much morphine, or one of the fifty people trying to murder him finally achieving their goal, and when he died he’d probably be remembered as a mass murderer who stole people’s organs and ate lemon rinds out of bins, he should at least be allowed to get his dick wet one last time. That was only fair.
Sleeping with a classist asshole was probably pretty low down on his list of worst sins, considering the whole mass murder thing.
His mind made up, Artemy finished his letter and went on his way.
(The letter reads:
Dear friends,
Can’t come tonight. I have to meet with Foreman Oyun for a special new trial - he’s going to have me try and eat an entire live cow to prove my worth as a member of the Kin. Wish me luck! - Artemy)

Chapter 3: I Know I Should Stop (But I Can't)

Summary:

Artemy runs into a familiar face. (One of the two people with said familiar face.)

Artemy was walking through the grimy, sepia tinged streets of The Town, praying to a god he no longer believed in that he wouldn’t run into any clouds of plague when he ran into something probably worse. Andrey Stamatin.
Andrey looked up at him and smirked.
Alright. So maybe Dankovsky wasn’t the only person in this town that the Haruspex knew biblically. He wasn’t some kind of village bike or anything. It was one time! One time that Andrey would never let Artemy forget he remembered.
He was home from college for two weeks and he and Dankovsky were broken up for the first time. When Dankovsky found out he’d fucked an architecht while Daniil was busy crying in a dark room they broke up for the second time. And now every time he ran into a Stamatin he could tell which twin it was by whether they were giving him a knowing, smug little smile.
The Haruspex liked his men annoying.
Andrey was looking like shit in a way that wasn’t completely unattractive. His eyes were framed by deep bags, his hair was lank and greasy, his skin paper pale. He resembled a sexy wendigo.
‘Andrey, have you been sleeping?’ Artemy asked, ever the doctor.
‘What do you think?’ Stamatin snapped back. ‘Would you sleep, if you were me?’
‘I don’t.’ Artemy replied. ‘ And I’m myself.’
Andrey’s expression softened a little. ‘And where’s a strapping young man like yourself going at a time like this? You should be indoors, waiting for death.’
Artemy weighed up the merits of honesty and in his Twyrine softened brain concluded that it didn’t really matter anyway. ‘Going to see Dankovsky.’
Andrey made a small choking noise. ‘Really? In a time like this?’
‘Especially in a time like this.’
‘He broke your heart Burakh. He is an outsider to this town. He will never be able to understand it or you.’
‘I know.’
‘So why?’
I can’t help it.’
Andrey’s tired grey eyes dropped to the cobblestones. ‘I don’t understand why you love him so much.’ he said bitterly.
‘Neither do I.’ Artemy replied.
‘You’ve been drinking right? Got any of it left?’ Andrey asked. Artemy was surprised he hadn’t asked sooner. He passed him the bottle of Twyrine and Andrey took it in his ink stained hands and tipped it back, draining it dry. They stood together watching the street in silence.
‘Andrey?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s alright. You can’t help it.’
They probably would have said more (or maybe just stayed in the silence, some things need not be spoken) if a gang of thugs hadn’t rounded the corner and begun throwing knives at Artemy’s head, forcing him to run.
‘Go get him back!’ Andrey yelled after him.

Notes:

Thank you all for the kudos!
+ happy birthday to Jarvis who I wrote this fic for. Love you so much baby.