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When Dankovsky offers Artemy the use of his bed, Artemy’s first instinct is to decline.
It’s not that he isn’t tired, for he is, in his bones, in his soul. He knows the way he has been running himself ragged, on too little food and sleep, is courting a total collapse of his system and, perhaps, of the town. It’s possible the damage has already been done, that the secret to the panacea has slipped through his fingers because his starved mind was too preoccupied with bread and rest to follow the Lines. No good can come of the way he’s been treating himself, yet what other choice does he have, when it seems like every time he spares a few hours to sleep he wakes up to more districts infected, more bodies in the streets, more friends in mortal peril?
This is all true, but it is not the reason he almost turns down the Bachelor’s offer. It’s because of the Stillwater, and of the dreams Artemy fears he will have, if he chooses to sleep in that puzzle box of a building.
He’s made his peace with the odd dreams he’s been having since returning home, chalking it up to stress and the twyre being in bloom, but the Stillwater has been known for driving its residents mad long before the Sand Pest reared its head. The fact that Eva Yan seems able to endure it only sharpens Artemy’s suspicions, for she is as unlike him as it is possible for a person to be and yet still be, somehow, of this place. As for Dankovsky, Artemy doesn’t know him well enough to know if the Stillwater’s wrong geometry poses a threat to his sanity. Dankovsky is an outsider, from the Capital, and for all Artemy knows that place is full of structures such as this. Certainly a man who lives directly under the eye of the Powers That Be must be used to enduring riddles with no apparent answer.
Artemy is frightened to sleep in the Stillwater, but he also has no interest in betraying this information to Dankovsky, who already thinks of Artemy and the rest of the Kin as backward, superstitious, and doomed. If- when- Artemy discovers the panacea, he may very well need Dankovsky’s stamp of approval to get it distributed throughout the town in a way that saves as many people as possible. He cannot afford for Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine, seen by many to be the town’s only hope of salvation, to write him off as just another uneducated peasant. He already considers it an unbelievable stroke of luck that the Bachelor was willing to take his theory about the bull’s blood seriously.
So Artemy accepts with only a token protest, and stretches his body out on the strange bed. Barely a meter away, Dankovsky sits hunched over his perplexing analyzer, muttering words too frantic and foreign for Artemy to catch. Despite the bags under his eyes, Dankovsky is as nattily-dressed as ever, and the room is neat as a pin, but when Artemy lays his head down on the pillow his nose is filled with the smell of rust and smoke. The man who sleeps in this bed is not doing well, fine clothes and haughty Latin phrases be damned. This is the smell of a man who is fighting Death, and losing.
Still, Artemy’s body is crying out for sleep, and the moment he closes his eyes he drops under. Against all odds, his sleep is dreamless.
He is woken by the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
Training overrides inertia, and Artemy is on his feet before his eyes have fully adjusted to being open again. He feels a brush of panic as the room spins, knowing he’s losing valuable seconds to defend himself against whatever threat has manifested while he slept. He puts his fists up blindly, for all the good they’ll do him against a gun. Who even has a loaded weapon in this town anymore? The only people not desperate enough to sell their bullets for food are the ruling families, and none of them have cause to dispose of either him or Dankovsky, not while the plague still rages and they are both still of use.
A thought, then, that perhaps they’ve decided the town is beyond saving, and all that is left to do is remove any witnesses to their failure.
Before Artemy can articulate the plea for just a little more time, just a few more days to unlock the secret, his vision clears and he sees that very little in the room has changed. The window still shows a dark sky outside. The walls still stand, the clock by the stove still ticks. Dankovsky is still sitting at his desk, his shoulders tensed as if he expects a blow.
Then the Bachelor’s arm moves. Artemy sees the glint of metal in his hand, and realizes in a horrified instant what is about to happen.
”Dankovsky!” he barks, and crosses the room in two steps. There’s no time to consider whether startling the man will only turn what would have been a suicide into a fatal accident. All Artemy can do is act, and so he does, seizing Dankovsky’s arm and wrenching it upward and back. There’s a cold, eternal moment where the barrel of the gun is pointed directly at Artemy’s face; he feels a phantom pain between his eyes where his skull would be pierced. Then the gun’s trajectory continues and it’s now pointed at the ceiling, and Artemy can safely pluck it from the Bachelor’s grasping fingers.
He expects an outburst to follow, an explosion of angry words or even fists; Dankovsky is no fighter, but neither is he one who takes kindly to his will being thwarted.
What happens instead is even more alarming, and runs counter to everything Artemy has come to understand about the Bachelor. As soon as Artemy pries the gun free and releases Dankovsky’s wrist, the man slumps back over the desk, as if his spine is no more substantial than a blade of steppe grass. His hands come up to cradle his head, fingers digging furrows through black hair gone greasy from lack of sleep, and the tension Artemy sees in them are now the only indicator that Dankovsky is still flesh and blood, and not a doll tossed aside after a rough bout of child’s play.
One thing is obvious: the bull’s blood is not the key to a vaccine.
The gun in Artemy’s hand feels unpleasantly warm. He sets it down, out of the Bachelor’s immediate grasp, and kneels down at the man’s side to try and look him in the eye. Dankovsky doesn’t move, his face hidden from Artemy by his arms, so Artemy grabs the chair and pulls it back and around with a sharp tug. The chair legs squeal against the floor, and this, at least, seems to have an effect. Dankovsky’s whole body twitches, and he lifts his head a little bit, just enough for Artemy to catch a glimpse of brown eyes dulled with despair.
“Erdem,” Artemy says, grasping the Bachelor’s upper arm and squeezing. Even through the fancy snakeskin coat, Artemy can feel the bones of Dankovsky’s arm. “You cannot do this. So the bull’s blood is not the answer. We learn what we can from it and keep trying. That’s how it’s done at your laboratory in the Capital, isn’t it? The scientific method?”
At the mention of the Capital, Dankovsky’s eyes deaden further, and Artemy understands that bringing it up was a mistake. He tries to switch tactics, inwardly cursing his unlearned tongue. His wisdom concerns the Lines of the body, nerves and muscle and blood, but the lines of the mind are still a mystery to him, and careless words in this case can cause as much damage as a scalpel in inexperienced hands.
“The town needs you, oynon.” He moves his hand from Dankovsky’s arm to his knee, hoping the touch combined with the term of respect will ground him and remind him of who he is, or at least who he could be. “The town would have crumbled in days, without your work at the hospital.”
“It’s only been days, Burakh.” Dankovsky’s voice sounds like it’s been smothered under morphine. “The town can still very well crumble.”
“It will do so faster, without you,” Artemy insists. “The hospital-“
“Stop calling it that,” Dankovsky snaps. “If you don’t remember, that ‘hospital’ is nothing more than a theater with a couple dozen beds shoved inside it. A hospital is supposed to be a place where sick people enter and healed people come out, not a…a factory that produces corpses. All I’ve given your people is a place with a roof over it for them to die.”
Artemy doesn’t care for the way Dankovsky hisses at him through his teeth, like Artemy’s a cat or a misbehaving child, but at least he’s starting to sound a little more alive.
“You told me yourself, that our failure was a given,” Artemy says. “That it was only a matter of degree, how many people we save and how many we lose. Have you been to the uninfected districts? There were children playing there today, healthy children. Do you think those children would have had a chance to be playing today, if you were not here?”
Dankovsky laughs, and it’s a bitter sound.
“Mors certa, hora incerta.”
Whatever that means, Artemy can feel Dankovsky slipping from his grasp again.
It’s the Layers, as it always is, he thinks, and it’s as if he can feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, hear his voice in his ear. You must find which one is poisoned, before it can be treated.
Assurances of hope and respect are not working. It’s a different part of Dankovsky’s mind that needs to be revitalized, before the whole can function as it should.
Artemy does not know the Bachelor that well. They’ve only spoken a handful of times, and for most of it, they were arguing. It’s that Dankovsky that Artemy is trying to reach now, the one he first met, unafraid to stare down a man who he had every reason to believe was a murderer.
“Fine. If you insist on punishing yourself, you could at least spare the rest of us the consequences of your arrogance,” he says.
Dankovsky’s eyebrows twitch, and Artemy dares to feel a flicker of hope.
“Half this town still thinks of me as a ripper,” he continues. “Do you really I can afford to be seen leaving a building where you were found shot dead inside?”
“Considering my reputation among the townsfolk, I think it’s just as likely you’d be elevated to the status of local hero.”
The words are still grim, but there’s definitely a sardonic lilt to them that was not there before.
“Among the common folk, perhaps,” Artemy says. “But definitely not to the Kains.”
At that, the Bachelor wrinkles his nose. “That depends on which Kain you ask, I think. And on which day you ask them.” He sighs and, at last, moves, his hand patting at his inner pocket. “If I’m going to continue being alive, I need a smoke. Do you mind?”
Artemy shakes his head, and sits back on his heels as Dankovsky produces a hand-rolled cigarette and lights it. He realizes he’s still effectively kneeling at the man’s feet, and rises, disturbing the haze of smoke that quickly fills the small room.
“The mistress of the house doesn’t mind you smoking inside?” he asks.
Dankovsky stares at the burning tip of the cigarette. “I never asked,” he confesses. “I don’t suppose she would tell me, even if she did mind. Eva is…remarkably generous.”
There’s a lot that can be inferred from that statement, and from the way the Bachelor’s eyes soften when he speaks Eva’s name.
“You’re fond of her,” Artemy says, and he isn’t sure why it feels so much like an accusation as it leaves his tongue.
“I am. Who wouldn’t be?” Dankovsky’s eyes slide up to Artemy’s and linger there, smoldering like the cigarette in his hand. “You’re implying something more than that, though. Is my reputation in this town that of a rake, as well as a tyrant?”
To his extreme consternation, Artemy feels the back of his neck grow hot. It galls him to realize that what the Bachelor is saying is exactly what Artemy was thinking of.
“I meant no offense, emshen,” he says.
“I know that.” Dankovsky sighs again, and takes a long drag. “To answer the question you are too polite to ask, no, I am not fucking Eva.”
The expletive is unexpected, and doubly jarring when delivered in Dankovsky’s city-soft voice. Artemy must fail at hiding his surprise, judging by the chuckle his silence earns him.
“You think we don’t know how to curse in the Capital? Or did I give the impression that I’m above such earthly concepts as human reproduction?”
“I…” Shudkher, why does his tongue feel so heavy? “I’d have thought there was some Latin term for it you’d prefer.”
Dankovsky’s eyes narrow against the smoke.
“There are. Several. I became quite familiar with them in medical school.”
Artemy has no idea what to say to that. Worse, he knows his silence is, in itself, saying something.
“You attended medical school in the Capital, did you not?” Dankovsky continues. “Dropped out, of course. But still, you must have had time to learn a few elevated terms.”
It seems that Artemy can do nothing that doesn’t rebound on him in some way; now that he’s gotten Dankovsky talking, he seems determined to stay on the one topic Artemy would rather avoid. It’s a dangerous one, made all the more so by the…associations that come up for Artemy, when he speaks of such things with a man like the Bachelor. Artemy’s experience is not broad, given the risks, but there were a few boys in medical school. Boys with soft hands and lofty ideals, like Dankovsky. Boys who saw in Artemy a chance to experience something coarser than their Capital upbringing could offer them.
Even then, Artemy had known when he was being condescended to. But he was young, and free of the confines of his small town, and had not always been able to resist temptation. And so here he is now, years later, watching the Bachelor smirk at him and suck on his cigarette, and it’s impossible for his body not to remember certain ways this conversation could go.
“I should be on my way,” he says.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Dankovsky replies. “You’ve thoroughly spoiled my plans for the evening, you know. The least you could do is indulge me in some conversation, now that you’ve talked me into enduring another day in this town.”
Artemy’s jaw drops. He can’t help but be impressed by the gall of it; the Bachelor acting like not shooting himself is some onerous favor for which Artemy owes him dearly.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Honestly? I want to know why the subject of coitus seems to agitate you so. Your pupils are dilated, and your complexion has darkened by a few shades since we got onto the subject. Hardly what I’d expect, from someone as blunt as you.”
“Perhaps I don’t like discussing these things with strangers, erdem,” Artemy tries, knowing it’s a weak excuse. Every moment he spends here trading barbs instead of walking away, he’s playing along. And by Dankovsky’s sly smile, he can tell the other man knows it.
“Am I a stranger, Burakh? Even now, after you’ve slept in my bed?”
The silence causes the seconds that pass to stretch and sag, and in them Artemy can feel the weight of all that’s happened since his return - his father’s death, the attempt on his life by his would-be-avengers, the streets filling up with bodies, his own growling belly and exhausted bones - settling over him and rooting him to the spot. He cannot walk away from this. He can’t fight anymore, and he doesn’t want to. What he wants…
What he wants is for time to stop. Just for a little while. Or to step outside time, and be nothing and no one for as long as he needs.
He glances toward the gun on the table. Remembers how warm it felt, having just been wrested from Dankovsky’s hand.
This is a bad idea. Come on, Burakh, out you go. Down the stairs, one foot in front of the other, out the door and into the night where the town waits to beat you and stab you and call you Ripper for trying to save them-
“Artemy.” Dankovsky, sounding as if he’s leagues away rather than arm’s length. “Come here.”
Artemy feels his legs moving him closer, until he’s standing over Dankovsky, looking down. By the look on his face, Artemy can tell Dankovsky wants him at eye level, and so he kneels once more, and it feels like he could fall straight through the floor.
“Artemy,” Dankovsky says again, slowly, like he’s enjoying the taste of it. “Do you want to fuck me?”
Maybe I can blame it on the twyre being in bloom, Artemy thinks, with his last shred of rationality.
“Yes,” the rest of him answers.
The Bachelor closes his eyes, and breathes out softly through his nose.
“Good,” he whispers.
He takes a final drag of his cigarette, then extinguishes it. Artemy watches the ash fall from his fingers, as mesmerized as a child looking through stained glass, as Dankovsky begins pulling off his black leather gloves.
For some reason, the sight of the Bachelor’s pale wrists is what makes it all feel real. Artemy’s heart begins to race.
“Oynon,” he says, aware of how pitiful he must sound from here on his knees. “Are you sure-“
“Daniil.” One slender hand reaches out to cradle Artemy’s jaw, gently forcing it shut. “My name is Daniil. Not oynon, or erdem, or any of your other Steppe words.”
After days of fending off attacks with knives and fists, Artemy doesn’t understand how a simple hand on his face can leave him feeling so vulnerable.
“They’re terms of respect, er- Daniil. I didn’t mean-“
“I know. And I appreciate it.” Daniil’s thumb runs along Artemy’s jawline, a gesture so intimate it makes his head spin. “But it’s not what I want from you right now.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing you do.” Daniil leans forward until he’s nose to nose with Artemy, their lips just a few centimeters away from touching. “I want you to fuck me. And I want you to do it well enough that we both forget we’ll probably be dead in a week.”
Deteriorating mental state or no, Artemy knows a challenge when he hears it.
He doesn’t rise up off his knees. He reaches around and grips the hair at the back of Daniil’s skull, and pulls him down into a rough kiss.
The Bachelor sighs something - it feels like yes- against Artemy’s lips, and then allows himself to be pulled bodily off the chair. His weight against Artemy’s chest is too light; it feels like the snakeskin coat might be the only thing holding his bones in their proper structure. The mental image chills Artemy, but not enough to stop him from easing said coat off Daniil’s shoulders. Daniil peels the sleeves off his arms and immediately sets himself to the fastenings on Artemy’s smock. The buckles slip from his fingers once, twice, his hands shaking too badly to get a proper grip. He curses between his teeth.
Artemy gently pulls his hands down to his sides, then undoes the fastenings himself. He’s seen Daniil’s hands shake like this before, usually at the hospital, at that point in a shift where exhaustion starts to feel like fire ants crawling beneath the skin. He doesn’t want to think of what it might mean, that his hands are shaking the same way now. The Bachelor is not well, Artemy knows this. He hasn’t been well since he stepped off the train and he will likely not be well until he is far, far away from this town. If Artemy wants him, he can only have him like this; frayed at the edges, bones showing through his skin, smelling of rust and dirt and despair.
He sheds his butcher’s smock, then pulls off the sweater and undershirt beneath, knowing that he, too, is hardly in his prime at the moment. His ribs stand out like slats in a shutter, and then there are the bruises. The most lurid decorate his back and shoulders, courtesy of the odonghe, that night outside Rubin’s hideout. Those are still mottled red and purple, while the others, the ones from his arrival in town, have faded to a brownish-yellow that gleams sickly on his undernourished skin.
He sees Daniil hesitate at the sight of him, and burns with shame.
“Christ, Burakh,” Daniil murmurs. “Your loyalty to this town is admirable, I’ll give you that. To continue trying to save it, after its people have treated you with such violence. You’re either more tenderhearted than you let on, or you’re a glutton for punishment.”
Artemy won’t respond to that. If he’s being called upon to make a case for why the town deserves saving, he won’t do it now, not on his knees in front of a man who refuses to understand this place. He advances instead, rising up on one knee so that he can loom over Daniil more effectively. He places on hand on the Bachelor’s shoulder and pushes him back, and Daniil goes willingly, lying down on his snakeskin coat.
Artemy straddles his hips, and Daniil watches with the wide, blameless eyes of a calf that does not see the butcher’s knife.
Those same eyes focus on Artemy’s hands as he works on the Bachelor’s layers. Pin, cravat, waistcoat, shirtsleeves - Artemy can’t help but feel his surgeon’s precision is being evaluated as he removes and sets aside these pieces one by one. Shirtless, Daniil is not nearly as battered as Artemy, but his pallor and the texture of his skin is even more troubling. Without the layers of his clothes, he fairly reeks of dehydration, that pond scum odor undercut by a metallic tang that Artemy suspects is due to stimulant abuse.
The skin beneath Artemy’s hands feels like parchment, dry, prone to tearing. Before he can stop himself, Artemy imagines the way this skin would part beneath his scalpel, the edges falling apart with something like relief at no longer having to strain to hold the Bachelor in. There’s a line of dark hair from Daniil’s breastbone to his belt, precisely mapping where the first cut would be made. His organs will likely be shrunken, too dark, nearly pickled from stress and starvation-
“Burakh.”
He blinks, and looks back at Daniil’s face, and sees eyes that understand too much.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s not you, it’s…”
It’s been too long since he held a living body in his hands. He’s forgotten how to handle someone who can feel what his hands do, sense where his eyes linger.
I’m not sure I know how to love. He hears the words in his own voice, but he does not remember speaking them.
“I know.” Daniil sits up on his elbows and pulls Artemy down into a kiss. He still smells like Death, but he is alive yet, alive enough at least to thread his fingers through Artemy’s hair and breathe out softly against his lips. He leans back, and Artemy goes with him, his hand sliding up Daniil’s side and coming to rest over his heartbeat. It’s far too fast, battering against Artemy’s palm like a trapped bird, but it beats. It lives.
He lets his lips travel to the fluttering pulse point in Daniil’s neck, which earns him a sharp hiss and a tightening of the fingers in his hair. He kisses it, lets the tip of his tongue slip out for a taste, but does not dare bite or suck. Daniil makes a frustrated noise and lifts his chin, baring his throat further.
“It won’t do to leave marks this high,” Artemy chides him.
“So go lower,” Daniil growls. “I am not made of paper, Burakh.”
Artemy obeys, ducking his head and biting into Daniil’s shoulder. Daniil cries out and arches his back, and Artemy uses his hand on his chest to keep him pinned to the floor.
“Enough with that ‘Burakh’ business,” he says, kissing the reddening spot left by his teeth. “If I’m to call you by your given name, you should also call me by mine.”
“I’d love to,” Daniil replies, his nose buried in the crook of Artemy’s neck. “But sometimes formality seems to be the only way to get through to you. I suspect your military background is to blame.”
“Hm. You know a lot about me.” Artemy bites lower, into Daniil’s left pectoral, and draws out another ragged sound.
“Gah! If…if only you knew…”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Daniil’s fingers dig into Artemy’s knees, biting through the leather. “Take your cock out.”
Artemy is painfully aware of Daniil’s eyes on him as he undoes his belt. They’re expectant eyes, just shy of desperate. It makes Artemy remember that this man is fresh off a suicide attempt. He closes his own eyes and takes himself in hand, trying to pretend that nothing outside this moment exists. If there is no past and no future, then nothing he does in this room can be wrong.
It’s a lie. But it’s enough to get him to full hardness, that and Daniil’s breathy shudder from below.
“Mirabile visu.” Artemy feels a brush of fingers against his own. “May I?”
Instead of answering, Artemy releases himself. Daniil’s hand is warmer than his own feels, and softer, calluses only on the index finger and thumb. Left by long days scribbling in his casebook, no doubt.
“Show me.”
Still with his eyes closed, Artemy closes his hand back over Daniil’s and guides him into a slow, steady rhythm. He can feel his blood pulsing through their joined hands, turning his cock a lurid purple-red. He’s so sensitive that the drag of Daniil’s palm over his skin almost hurts, makes him clench his teeth and huff sharply through his nose as the pleasure builds, then plateaus, then builds again, step by torturous step.
“Gentle hands,” Daniil murmurs. He squeezes a little harder, making Artemy gasp. “Even with yourself. I suspect most of your lovers expect you to be a brute in bed. Must be disorienting for them.”
Artemy opens his eyes to the return of that infuriating smirk. He tightens his grip over Daniil’s hand on his cock, then grabs his other wrist with his free hand and pins it down at his side.
“I can be rougher, you know. Is that what you want?”
Daniil nods, and Artemy leans forward and rolls his hips, holding Daniil’s hand in place for him to fuck into.
“Have you considered…Daniil…” he speaks between thrusts, “that I may be gentle…for your own good?”
That earns him a scoff, of all things. “You sound like Big Vlad.”
“Amaa tat, khonzohon,” Artemy snarls. He lets Daniil’s hands go, grabs him by the hips and flips him over, not bothering to be gentle at all. He has no idea if Daniil is aware of just how much the comparison to Olgimsky would sting for him, but he knows it was meant to goad him into beastliness. Fine. If the Bachelor wants the bull, he can contend with the horns.
Daniil makes a ragged noise of encouragement as Artemy undoes his belt and yanks his trousers down around his knees. With one hand, he grabs Daniil by the back of the neck and pushes his head to the floor, forcing him to arch his back and spread himself open. Then Artemy spits, directly on Daniil’s exposed hole. Daniil whines through his teeth.
“You don’t want gentle. Fine.” Artemy rubs his saliva into Daniil’s hole with his thumb as he speaks. It’s more of a warning than any sort of preparation; the spit’s not nearly enough to ease the way. “I won’t waste my time trying to make you feel treasured. But you’re going to have to relax if you want a chance of walking tomorrow.”
“Wait.” Daniil tries to get up, and Artemy doesn’t let him. “In my bag…just let me-“
“Tell me.” Artemy says. “I’ll get it. You’re staying right here.”
“Blue glass bottle, near the bottom.” Daniil points toward his carpetbag, lying open next to the desk. “Just let me see it first, make sure you haven’t grabbed the novocaine instead.”
Artemy rolls his eyes, but does as he’s asked. He fetches the little bottle from the bag and holds it in front of Daniil’s face, which is still pressed obediently against the floor.
“Yes,” Daniil breathes, his eyes falling shut. “That’s it.”
There are questions to be asked, Artemy thinks, about why the Bachelor carries such a thing with him. Perhaps it’s only a habit, or perhaps he’s not as friendless in this town as he claims to be. There’s something going on with him and one or possibly both of the Stamatin brothers, Artemy is almost certain…
It doesn’t matter. In this moment, there can be no denying who Daniil belongs to.
The oil is cool when it comes from the bottle, but warms quickly to Artemy’s hand as he rubs it over his cock and Daniil’s hole. He lets a fingertip slide in, then two, to give the man a chance to change his mind if nothing else. He’s seen Artemy’s cock up close enough to know how it compares to the girth of his fingers; if he has trouble taking this prelude, there’s no way that things will be able to go any further.
Daniil moans and mutters something unintelligible between his teeth, but he doesn’t tense up, or tell Artemy to stop. Artemy replaces his fingers with the head of his cock, moving around Daniil’s rim in slow, broad circles. Teasing Daniil, but also indulging himself, because this is the most in-control he’s felt in days and will likely be the last for a long time. He is not as resigned to failure and death as the Bachelor seems to be, but he’s not naive either. However the plague ends, the days that follow will be hard, and full of grief.
The next time Daniil whines, and even dares to push back impatiently, Artemy reaches over to give his hair a sharp tug.
“Be still,” he orders. “You already know I’m going to fuck you. If I take my time about it, it’s because I wish to. Now will you be good?”
Daniil’s sides heave like a bellows as he nods, forehead grinding against the floor. Artemy also notices he is sweating, a thin sheen of it on his back that smells like spent morphine ampules. He is going to break, if Artemy puts him through much more. He is probably going to break regardless.
Artemy pushes the head of his cock in, braced for a yowl of pain or a demand he stop. Instead, the fight seems to leave Daniil completely. His spine dips and his hands, which had been clenched in the fabric of his jacket, relax and go limp.
Other parts of him relax, too. The slide in is easier than it has any right to be, and Artemy finds himself fully sheathed with only a few short thrusts.
“Good,” he breathes, rubbing his hand over the small of Daniil’s back. “That’s much better. You’re doing very well, Danya.”
The diminutive falling from his lips surprises him, and he wonders if using it was overstepping, but Daniil either does not hear it or does not care. The jacket beneath him has gotten so bunched up that it’s now more or less a pillow for him to bury his face in, and it’s possible he’s completely forgotten about Artemy as anything more than an object on which to impale himself. He makes only low, muffled noises as Artemy grabs his hips and begins to fuck him in earnest, and makes no move to touch himself.
Curious, Artemy reaches around to touch Daniil’s cock for the first time. He’s only half-hard, but fills quickly in the warmth of Artemy’s hand.
“Wait.” Daniil’s head jerks up. “Don’t…don’t make me come, not yet, please-“
“I won’t. I have you.” Artemy squeezes gently, and slows his thrusts. “You trust my hands, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes.” He’s almost sobbing now. “Your hands…oh my God, why are you slowing down, you bastard?”
“I don’t want to be finished yet, either,” Artemy says.
I don’t trust you not to pick the gun back up the moment I’m gone, he of course cannot say.
“I like you better like this,” he goes on. He drapes his body over Daniil’s, pulling his back flush against his chest, nosing at his ear. “You smell better now. Like blood. Warm, fresh blood.”
Daniil shudders, giddily. “I thought you were a ripper, not a vampire.”
Artemy laughs, and bites him, on the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. Not nearly hard enough to draw blood, but still Daniil hisses and writhes against him. He has no chance of wriggling free, not with Artemy’s arm wrapped around his waist and his cock buried in his ass. That may be why he starts to struggle harder; there’s a certain freedom in knowing escape is impossible, a freedom to thoroughly exhaust yourself in the futile attempt.
Or maybe he only wants to goad Artemy into using his full strength to hold him down. Artemy is happy to oblige. Bracing his free arm against the floor, he bears down and fucks Daniil hard, using him the way his lovers in the Capital always begged him to. Back then, he always worried about taking things too far, about hurting someone, but he’s free of that fear now. There’s nothing he can do to Daniil that is worse than Daniil has done, and will do, to himself.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” Daniil is groaning out the words like a litany, over and over. He seems desperate to keep himself from touching his cock, clawing at his own hair, at Artemy’s arms, at the floor beneath them. When Artemy reaches down to touch him again, he feels him leaking freely, slick all the way down to the dark hair at the base.
“I’m going to bring you to the edge,” Artemy pants against his ear. “But not over. Not until I want you there. You trust me, Danya?”
“Yes,” Daniil whimpers. “Yes…Tyoma.”
Artemy kisses the side of his neck, without teeth this time. “Good, khөөrkhen.”
He closes his hand around Daniil and strokes him, firmly from base to tip. He can feel Daniil’s heartbeat throbbing through his rigid flesh, the heat of his blood, the way the skin tightens as his balls draw up. This, too, is the Lines, the connections between Daniil’s body and his mind, the way a million nerve endings coalesce into a single burning pillar of need. Artemy can feel them, and he can manipulate them with a curl of his fingers, a twist of his wrist. It is as natural, and as sacred, as parting flesh with a blade, as lifting the heart and lungs free and spilling their secrets into his hands.
His own pleasure is a distant thrum in the background, slowly building but not overwhelming, not yet. He could go on for a long time like this, and wonders if he should, if he can draw this out long enough that Daniil is reduced to begging him to finish.
It’s a thought. If only they had more time.
“Fuck, fuck, I’m close.” Daniil’s fingertips scrabble at Artemy’s hand.
“I know,” Artemy replies, slowing down only by the smallest degree. “This is where I want you. Shut your mouth and be close. You feel so good like this, Danya, you have no idea.”
The sound Daniil makes in response to that is one Artemy didn’t even think him capable of, a guttural wail like he’s been wounded. A few curses slip out, too, which Artemy chooses to ignore. He doesn’t expect perfect obedience from Daniil, not at this point. He only wants to see how far he’s willing to let Artemy take him.
The Lines are converging, knotting together, drawing tight. Every movement is of consequence, now, the inevitable almost on top of them.
This will end. Artemy doesn’t want it to, but there can be no other way.
He tightens his grip and pumps Daniil’s cock, hard, fast and undeniable.
“Tyoma!”
It’s not Daniil wailing Artemy’s name, nor clenching around him like a vise, that pulls Artemy over at the same moment. It’s the smell of him, as he comes, the smell of earth and life and salt spurting from his cock and over Artemy’s fingers, washing all the other scents away.
“Danya,” Artemy moans, wrapping his arms around him as he spills deep into his core. “Danya, Danya.”
He can say nothing else, it seems. Just as well. He will likely never say it again, after tonight.
They collapse into a tangled heap on the floor, sweat gluing them together chest to back. Artemy’s knees howl in protest, now that he has the attention to spare for them. He groans and rolls onto his back, then gasps as his bare ass hits the cold floor. He pulls his pants back up, but doesn’t refasten his belt just yet. For once, he doesn’t think his hands are up for even a simple task.
Beside him, Daniil pants like a dog against the bare wood. There’s a damp spot beneath him where he must have drooled, as well. Artemy would tease him about it, if he had the capacity to speak at all. As it is, he barely has the strength to stretch out his arm. Daniil’s eyes track the movement and, after a few more moments of catching his breath, he inches closer until his head rests on Artemy’s shoulder.
The ticking of the clock fades back in, as their heavy breathing slows. Seconds, falling away like snow, piling up into minutes, into hours, time Artemy cannot get back. He shouldn’t be here. Death for the town moves closer with every moment.
Yet he’s holding the fighter of Death in his arms. And if he dares to let him go…
“I really hope you don’t shoot yourself, Daniil,” he says.
Daniil huffs a laugh. “Your pillow talk needs work, Burakh. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
It’s said with fondness, but all Artemy can focus on is that he’s already Burakh again. The moment, whatever it was between them, has passed. The stage is being cleared, the set broken down. A new pantomime is rehearsed at the Theatre.
“I wish you’d promise,” Artemy says, ashamed of how childish it sounds.
Daniil says nothing. Out in the Bridge Square, a bell tolls, and Artemy’s blood cools by several degrees.
“They say an Inquisitor will arrive in the morning.”
“He won’t touch you,” Daniil says, with unexpected ferocity. “That, I can promise.”
“Thank you, oynon. But you needn’t worry about me. I can defend myself from him.”
“No, you can’t,” Daniil sighs. “You couldn’t tomorrow, anyway.”
“What?”
Daniil sits up suddenly, the tranquility flown from his body language as if it had never been there. He yanks his pants up, fastens his belt haphazardly, then starts groping around for his other clothes.
“Burakh, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” The way Daniil is moving is making Artemy nervous. There’s so much sudden energy, in the way he jerks his shirtsleeves over his arms, ties his cravat like he means to strangle himself with it. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to believe that he intends to march down to the Bridge Square, revolver in hand, and shoot the Inquisitor on sight.
“For what will happen, earlier today.” Daniil laughs, or maybe just coughs. “I am trying to find a way that this ends, without us at each other’s throats. Without the town dead, without Simon Kain’s dream in ashes. I thought, with the bull’s blood, with us working together, we might…but no. This is another dead end. I cannot let you waste your time.”
“Daniil.” Artemy climbs to his feet, tries to reach for Daniil’s arm, but Daniil jerks away.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’ll remember this. I will. It won’t matter to you, but…it may mean something yet. Finis origine pendet.”
He turns toward the clock. The set of his jaw and the glint at the corner of his eye fills Artemy with dread.
“Daniil, wait, what are you doing-“
“Goodbye, Tyoma,” Daniil whispers, and touches the clock’s face.
Artemy reaches out for him, but the room is no longer a room. It’s a Line, flattening, stretching out into nothingness.
The Line snaps, and the moment is gone.