Work Text:
He’d had you there. In the town, in his tiny bed. A night of wordless forgiveness, the night before he intended to leave with the army. You’d spent a week protecting him, from the worms, from the sins your father laid upon his feet. Sins he was happy to have carried. He’d done what was right, you know now, you knew then. In the end, no sacrifices either of you made had been enough to save the town. But there, in that bed, knowing it was beyond your control was a comfort.
He’d looked you in the eyes for the first time in years. Dead tired, the both of you. Too tired to fight or speak any longer. Your body moves on its own, bringing your lips to his. Slowly, not to scare him off like a timid animal. You kissed him there, for the first time in years.
He’d brought you there, to the edge of the bed where you laid down and stripped your clothes. He kissed you again, on his own this time. Your lips, your throat, your chest, your navel. His eyelashes, like a bull's, sweeping across your skin. He knelt on the ground before you, knees imprinted by the uneven floorboards. He brings his head to the crux of you.
He’d had you there. Not looking you in the eye, not anymore. His eyes are shut of course. His head buried in your neck, knees imprinted by the woven blanket beneath you. His scarred hand on your throat, barely pressing, not to scare you off. You finish together, an unfair nicety to the town below. You notice pricks of blood where you’ve scratched his shoulder blade. It’s your right to draw blood, is it not? Does it still feel like a sin?
In the tiny bed you stay with him, a few precious hours you have. There is work yet to be done. Or is there? The fate of the town has been sealed.
The army wouldn’t have him. Not after the last time, not after an errant bullet split him open, left him changed. Left his hands forever shaking, his mind forever torn. Still, he insisted. To pay for his sins upon the town with more blood. You go to him there, on the tracks, herbs pushing through and grazing his boots. There with him, fill in what words were unsaid before. He is doubtful to believe you, but at least he can hear you say you love him.
The children are herded down from the polyhedron, the sparkling deity of the future, the burden placed on the past. A single bag is packed. A blanket, a journal, a photo. Items that can pass as a child’s belongings. You give the bag to him, your son. Tell him where to meet you upon arrival to the capital. In the back of the train, neither soldier, nor doctor. You are cargo, and you are silent. You and him. You hear the blast, feel the shockwaves in your chest, under your skin, rattling your lines. You don’t dare peer outside. To see the town, the village, the stone formations. Where your father lies. Perhaps the plague was a mercy to some.
The train travels further than you ever had as children. The four of you. You will go further, the two of you, bringing them with you, a photo in a bag.
Connections from your years gone away find you a home. Four walls, two beds, a fireplace, a stove. She cries. Oh, how she cries. It makes you cry. It makes your son cry. It makes him bring the three of you together in his arms. The children do not understand, neither do you. It is unfair, but it is necessity. Here, you are alive. You and the family you’ve made.
Things get better. Really, truly. Your children call you aba, they call him papa. There is less fighting, disagreements are minor and jovial. You hold each other tighter, small touches, more common, more sincere. He becomes gentler, in the words he uses, in the tone he uses. When you have time to each other, he is gentle, you are no longer worried you’ll scare the other away. Not in these moments, where your bodies profess their love for each other.
For men with medical experience, a job is easy to find. Nurses, caring for those returned from the war. You see men, destroyed how he was, how you were. Mind and body. Your children accompany you, watched by the cooks and older staff. She cries. Oh how she cries. She wants to be beside you. You are all that is left of the steppe she lived in. Of the pretty herbs she would collect, that she would speak to. That she showed you how to speak to. She says she cannot hear them now, neither can you. Not anymore.
He has a day off, he is home with the children. You return home, pass your children playing in the snow, wearing coats you could hardly afford. He is there, sitting before the fireplace. He doesn’t speak. You bring your hands around his front, kiss him behind his ear. He is breathing heavier than he should. Trembling more than he should. You sit beside him, on the bed, he does not look to you. His eyelashes, like a bull's, droop from the droplets upon them.
He asks you if this is right. If he deserves to have this, if he has atoned enough to deserve this. To be able to continue living. He asks if you’d ever mourned him, your father. You had. Since the day he’d sent you away, you had. You don’t ask him how your father treated him after you’d left, you don’t have to. You don’t have to ask if he had mourned your father, relief is just as sorrow-filled.
You make him look at you now, carefully, not to scare him away, the timid animal. His eyes are wide. A bull's before the slaughter, by those who have the right, inherited from their fathers.
You tell him you love him, his lips quiver more. His face, first stone, now sand. He clings to you, and he cries for the first time in years, staining, eroding his skin. You whisper to him in a language you could never forget.
You feel the earth pulse beneath your feet, below the floorboards, your hearts beating in tandem.
You haven’t had a cycle since you came to the capital. Starvation, stress, latent effects from hormone supplements. Three months now. The snow continues to fall, your stomach is larger than it should be. Warmer to touch. You worry, for the money, for the space, for the future. He cries for the second time that month when you tell him. When you tell him he deserves it, that you love him. Your son celebrates, your daughter pouts, then celebrates.
It is nearly summer now. The city is humid, with smog rather than marsh air. It clings to your skin and clothes. Sweat is dripping from your neck, but not because of the heat. You bring your child into this world on the bed where you’ve laid your head. Safer for you, for your family, than going to a hospital. Stanislav delivers it, equipment stolen from the job you’d left before your stomach would show beneath your clothes. Your children are around you, a cool cloth brought to your head, a small hand placed over yours. You hadn’t wanted them to see this, but they insisted, to be there, at the very least. You try not to worry them, worry him. It hurts, it scares you. You think of your mother, how scared she must have been. How much it must have hurt. How much it hurt your brother, your father.
You feel numb, and the pain is gone. You hear your son's voice, you hear his voice, hurried, scared. And then you hear your heartbeat. The heartbeat of the earth. You see her arteries, her capillaries. Ripped open by those who hadn’t the right.
You wake, and the pain is back, but only radiating. You and the bed are cleaned. The room is dark, but the windows are open and the moonlight drapes over you. Your children are sleeping soundly, exhausted from the excitement of the day. You hear a voice, but it is real. It is beside you, cooing, singing misremembered songs in a language you’ll never forget. He sits up beside you, a bundle of blankets in his arms. You are about to stretch, to reach out to him, to hold him. The wetness in his eyes stops you. He is smiling, genuinely, unhidden. His eyes, like a bull's, sleepy, filled with immeasurable love. You move slowly, not to startle him, you tug his arm to lay down.
He places the bundle on your chest so that he may move, and you hold your child for the first time. He puts his head on your shoulder and beams up at you, tears unfallen twinkling in the moonlight. You lay awake with him there, you don’t know how long. He gets up, moves over the cradle he built from oak, puts it beside your bed. You hand him your child, and he embraces them again before unravelling the bundle and laying them in the bed, as gently as you’ve ever seen him. He sniffles, looks to your other children in their bed, and back to you. You extend your arms to him, and he falls into you. You wrap that woven blanket around his shoulders. You press your nose to the fuzz of his head. He thanks you. For giving him this, another chance, a family he feels like he deserves. You hold him tighter, you tell him you love him. He tells you that he loves you, and he closes his eyes.