Chapter Text
“Well, isn’t this a surprise? The prodigal son returns.”
Artemy scratches at the dead skin behind his ear, trying to look as disinterested as possible. “What do you have on you for food at the moment?” he asks, eyeing the wares that stock the shelves behind the counter.
The old shopkeep raises an eyebrow at him, but moves aside to check his inventory. “I would’ve thought you’d be eating at your father’s place.”
“Wasn’t sure if he was awake yet.”
“Oh, he’s awake all right. You’re not the only big city guest we have at the moment.” He presents his findings: a few apples browning near the stem, three strips of dried meat, some day-old, stale bread, and a wedge of cheese. “Shipments don’t come in until later, if the trains decide to run at all. You’ll find much of the same at any place you go to.”
Whether he’s being truthful or not is far from Artemy’s concern; he’s not about to travel another fifteen-minute’s distance to the next store. He points at the meat, flashing him two fingers to select the quantity. “Can’t say I’m used to hearing about visitors around these parts.”
The shopkeep clothes his palm with an uneven cut of fabric and scoops up the rations. “Well, a lot has changed since you left. You probably saw that new monstrosity lifted above Town.” He briefly looks up to gauge Artemy’s reaction, unable to hold onto his previously neutral expression. “Yeah, and that’s just the beginning of it. I guess if we’re being fair though, you’ve changed too. You’re not the same boy I remember begging for scraps outside my window.”
Artemy pretends to be interested in some nondescript item displayed on the surface of the counter. “Ten years changes a lot,” he agrees, hoping it will stop that conversation thread before it reveals anything too embarrassing.
“That it does. No one knew what to expect when the youngins started rumour-mongering about Isidor’s son coming home. Made me assume that it was you who came to Town the other day.” Both elbows braced on the counter, he leans forward like he’s about to tell a few secrets of his own. “You should’ve seen it: all the Kains’ servants running around. They were speaking nonsense. No one’s seen Simon since either.”
“Who is he, the governor?”
“No, some doctor I believe. Something like that.”
Artemy wears his confusion plainly. “What use is a doctor here? Father’s managed all this time.”
“That’s what I said. But, the old man’s getting older. Maybe he thought you weren’t coming back and found himself a replacement.”
He swallows around the hard lump in his throat. “I can assure you that’s not it.”
“Well,” he smiles at him, handing over his wrapped package, “he’ll be glad to see you. You shouldn’t keep him waiting much longer.”
Artemy pops open the buttons from the pouch on his leg, but is unable to retrieve his coin pouch before the shopkeep waves an arm in front of his face, shaking his head at him once he’s got his attention. “No need for that. I won’t accept anything you give me.”
“But–”
“No,” he says, firm. He uses his eyes to point at the bundle, an unspoken demand that he pocket it. Artemy obeys only out of fear of offending him if he refuses, though he makes his reluctance known. Even if the other man means well, being the recipient of his charity has made the thought of eating unbearable.
He knew the worst parts of Artemy as a child, and some of those hold true even today; unfortunately for him, Artemy never grew out of his defiance, and the coins he’s owed are left where they will be found on his way out the door.
Maybe his memory is serving him incorrectly, but he doesn’t remember there being this many people out so early in the morning, certainly not with the intent to loiter around unopened storefronts. Every other woman he comes across has a walking partner to hang off her arm and listen to her give an opinion on the current events, which more often than not is a story gained from others’ witness testimonies and a fair bit of hearsay. The men are no better, and he counts himself lucky that it’s too early in the morning for them to lose any remaining sensibility to alcohol. All of them share one thing in common, and it’s that they have yet to determine why Isidor Burakh and Simon Kain have sought company from the West.
None of them seem to recognize him, though whether that’s because they’re too swept up in their own nonsense to look past themselves or because he’s finally grown into the tendons and muscles that once hung down a gangly teenager is hard to say. It benefits him up until he reaches the boundary of his father’s property, where a dense mass of people have pressed themselves as close as the two posted guards will allow, standing on the tips of their toes in the hopes that it will help them see over the rows of heads blocking their view.
A few individuals gasp in surprise at seeing him then, but he doesn’t stop to converse with them. Sensing the situation could turn at any moment, he pushes his way to the front, feeling the crowd slosh around like fluid to make way for him. Someone says his name, then another. Word travels quickly when everyone’s in one place and soon it’s all he can hear. People begin pushing to get a look at him, bodies shoved into his back from people bringing up the rear.
The guards intervene before someone can get trampled, shouting for order loud enough to rival a pistol fired into the sky. There must be some of his father’s image in him yet, as the one nearest to him admits Artemy on the basis of his name, beckoning him to come through before he’s crushed against the gate by the force of the Town. Without looking back, he flees to the front door, leaving behind a commotion that could be heard from the other side of town.
No voice objects to his entry as he closes the door behind him, even though knocking before entry was one of his father’s most important rules. A heavy small stagnates in the air, one he can taste on the back of his tongue. As evidenced by all the firmly shut windows, it’s been trapped inside the room for days. The curtains’ cord tiebacks are knotted in front to prevent the drapery from being parted, and subsequently, from any attempt to open their house to the outside world.
The element of surprise is denied by the squeal of an old floorboard that he always tripped on as a child. But instead of his father shouting at him from down the hall to be quiet, the reprimand comes of someone emerging from the kitchen, holding a tray.
Artemy feels his heart hold onto the gush of blood it was about to pump. It takes him a second to understand what he’s looking at, why his best friend's face is found on that thin head of hair. There’s a dim look of recognition there, but it’s not lit by any camaraderie or relief at seeing him; rather, something akin to disappointment.
“So you showed up,” Stakh says. No it’s good to see you’re well or I’m so glad you made it home alive. Not even a cheap hit at the uneven shave he had to do on the train that left a cut on the underside of his chin, what one could misinterpret as a lack of skill on his part with a razor blade.
“Came as soon as I got the letter.”
“That must’ve been an awfully long trip.”
“Several days,” Artemy corrects him. “The mail took a lot longer.”
“How long have you been in Town?”
“I don’t know, an hour?”
The strike of triumph in his eyes signals that Stakh has found what he’s looking for. “It doesn’t take an hour to get here from the station.”
They’re too old to be playing games like these. “What’s it to you?” Artemy asks, no longer humouring this new personality of his. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Stakh does not suffer quietly, heavily pronouncing his steps up the stairs as he makes haste to where he was originally headed. Artemy doesn’t let him escape so easily, nearly stepping on the backs of his heels. From over his shoulder, he sees the objects decorating the tray in greater detail: a large rubber bulb with two lateral tubular prolongations, syringes, a paraffin-coated tube, and two short valves. Enough weaponry to make a patient pass out from fear before they make the first incision.
“Your timing could use some work. You’re interrupting something important,” Stakh says. They pass by several empty cots, partially obscured by folding screens.
“I gathered from outside. Is my father here?”
Stakh’s sensitivities make him irate at the simple question. “Where else would he be?” he mutters, abruptly stopping at the first door on the second floor at the risk of Artemy bowling him over because of his momentum.
It’s then Artemy realizes that they’re about to enter what was once his childhood bedroom, though Stakh treats it like any ordinary room as he moves the tray to one hand to free up the other. When he pushes the door in, however, it meets resistance on the other side. He fights it with a persistent shove, limited by what he can do with only one half of his body. Artemy’s one more push away from coming closer and dealing with the problem himself when it suddenly gives way, creating an opening just wide enough for them to pass through if they walk sideways and are mindful of the space their shoulders take up.
The room is heated from the anticipation of the bodies packed inside of it, forming a barrier of shoulders, elbows, and knees that slot into each other to form one congruous shape. Stakh slices through the line by exploiting a weakness in its side: a young servant woman polite enough to let him through. Artemy takes advantage of it before she can resume her place, earning him an objection that turns the heads of those seated in the inner fold. None of them maintain the annoyed look for long, not after they realize who’s in the room with them.
After all these years, part of him is triumphant at managing to finally surprise his father. It’s short-lasting, like everything between them, but he commits to memory what the momentary lapse of omniscience looks like. On his father’s face, he sees the years of disturbance and conflict told by the new folds of loose skin and their darker pigmentation, events that Artemy never got to witness and are told to him secondhand. The age spots are what trouble him the most; no matter how good of a physician his father was, their appearance was always going to be inevitable, their reason for existing a horrible foretelling of the future.
The world takes a step back to give him and his father space. With the hand enveloping Artemy’s nape, his father brings their foreheads together in greeting, squeezing once to show his affection. Otherwise, his father does not break custom, returning Artemy to his own body seconds after respecting by touch that they are father and son.
“Khybyyn,” he says softly. “Bite kholboön. Be khara.”
“Khaya dee, Esegher,” Artemy responds in turn. His tongue trips on the polite form of address, but wouldn’t dare call his father Aba in front of others. It’s not a moment that an audience is supposed to witness, but they at least have the sense to remain silent as the two reacquaint themselves with what the other has become since parting at the station.
Selfishly, he wishes to be under his father’s power for even a few seconds longer, before they have to acknowledge the other undeniable presence in the room with them. He’s looking at Artemy with flared nostrils, using the limited information on offer to make a judgement about the situation. If he wasn’t handcuffed to the bed, he probably would have fled the moment Artemy exposed an opening in the human barrier.
His father is speaking to him but Artemy can’t look away from their captive. When their eyes meet, both of them see a mirror image of their confusion reflected back at them. That brief second of mutual understanding empowers the man to renew his struggle to free himself.
“...weren’t sure when you’d be coming back, but we couldn’t wait any longer for you.” Artemy startles from the hand jostling his shoulder. He looks to his father for explanation, but receives none. “You–”
“You have to help me!” the man shouts, desperately trying to make a spectacle of himself so that Artemy will turn back to him. He sounds as though he’s been gargling gravel and dull scalpel blades for the last couple of days.
The sight of Artemy elicits hope, possibly because he’s still clad in his service uniform and the associations with the outside world that it represents. The man twists into an arachnid's pose as he takes advantage of the limited mobility offered to him. He doesn’t get farther than hooking a leg over the side of the bed, unable to touch the floor. It’s the closest he can bring himself to him.
“They’re holding me against my will. Please do something.” Hair fringing his eyes, he lets his sorry state do most of the talking: the three missing buttons on his dress shirt, the bruising that is barely visible because of the absence of light. Artemy doesn’t know this man, but to see him disgraced by these circumstances is hard.
His father lowers his head, almost touching his clavicle with his chin. Whereas Artemy remembers the tongue lash for speaking out of turn, this man is shown patience normally only afforded to those who are young children.
“Bachelor Dankovsky, this is my son, Artemy. Though I hoped you two would meet soon, I did not anticipate this being your introduction. You will have to forgive me.”
That connection they shared is lost upon hearing the word son ; Artemy contracts the man’s hatred of the townspeople the second he’s affiliated by blood to his captor. It burns through him.
Using Artemy’s shoulder, his father manoeuvres him closer to speak directly into his ear. “You’re owed a proper explanation, but it will have to wait until after,” he tells him. “I have some people I’d like you to speak to now that you’re here. Sahba-ötün has waited all this time to meet you.”
Artemy angles his head to point. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Later, I’ll explain. If you had been here sooner, I would have asked for your help. However, I’m not going to ask you to pick up your tools so soon after arriving.”
“Are you performing a surgery?”
There’s a second of an internal debate in his father’s head that he’s not privy to, judging by the way he carefully inspects Artemy’s face. Eventually, he yields. “How learned are you in transfusing blood?” he asks.
“I know the method of blood vessel anastomosis, by suture.”
His father pulls back, nodding to himself. “After you’re settled, I will teach you a method that does not require you to unite the artery of the donor with the vein of the recipient. It’s an important skill for a menkhu to have.”
“You’re not cutting me open and draining me like a pig!” the man objects from afar, emphasizing his point with a loud yank that rattles the furniture he’s resting on.
“The blood has already been provided, erdem,” his father replies, the picture of calm.
Far from reassuring the man, it makes him explode with intensity. “So you’ll inflict an unnecessary wound to give me blood I don’t need. You’d risk complications from infection, and for what?”
“To give you what you wanted, what you came here for.”
“A slow and painful death? I’d rather you bludgeon me now than try to justify this as being something I asked for. Say what you want if it helps you sleep on a guilty conscience, but don’t try to project that onto me.”
“I can’t force you to have a realization. The only thing I’m responsible for is entering you into a state where it’s possible.” He looks for Stakh, giving him a nonverbal cue that prompts him to advance on the captive, intending to grab one of his outstretched limbs.
“No!” The headrest thumps against the wall from the force he’s using to pull at his arms. He’s trying to slip his wrists out, but the fastenings have enclosed each of them with thick leather that can’t be bargained with. “Get your hands off me!”
“Artemy, hold him down before he dislocates his shoulder,” his father asks, as he walks toward the pharmacy operating on dressers and end tables pushed into the corner of the room. Stakh’s tray balances there, as does a small army of vials and tinctures with illegible labels wrapped around the barrels.
Holding him down is easier said than done when the man is determined to not be touched. Saliva sprays from his mouth as if he’s a rabid cur. Stakh has to stretch his body over his knees to stop the man from driving the ball of his foot into Artemy’s stomach. The animosity the man has for them is vicious; it’s teeth-gnashing and hair-raising, from someone who’s been backed into a corner with no other way out but through. Artemy half expects to be gouged by the snap of his teeth when he pins his wrist down to the bed covers.
“Calm yourself, erdem, this is what I told you would happen.” Artemy looks over his shoulder to confirm his father is behind him, passing a needle bevel through the vial’s stopper to draw medicine. The clear solution inside is unexceptional in every regard, giving no clues as to what’s about to be injected.
The man only restrains himself enough to speak clearly. “Not like this. You didn’t say this.”
Ignoring him, he turns to Artemy. “Keep his head to the side, arm extended,” he instructs.
Using the meat of his palm, Artemy applies enough pressure at the temple to pin the man’s head to the pillow. Grease and sweat from his unwashed hair force him to drive his hand down to maintain a firm hold. The man tests the strength of it, but gives up on trying to lift his head once he sees Isidor approach from over Artemy’s shoulder.
There’s a rim of panic around his pupils that spasms when he sees the point of the needle his father is wielding. Unable to move his head, the only person he can look at is Artemy.
“Don’t,” he asks, the tremble in his voice betraying his fear. There’s not much Artemy can do aside from stroking the pad of his thumb over his forehead, far from comforting and yet the only thing he can do to convince him he’s sorry.
Preoperative sedation was a rare occurrence growing up, though one wouldn’t know it from watching his father administer the medicine with the practiced ease someone only with his years of experience could have. The man’s breath pinches when it’s poked into his vein, but he at least has the wherewithal not to move around and inflict a greater injury on himself. If he has a background in medicine, then he must know what happens to patients that act out when they’re on the slab. He knows just how much pain a doctor is capable of inflicting, how many arteries can be severed before a man bleeds out. Perhaps it’s that knowledge that’s fueling his reactions, a thought that brings a new onset of sympathy for him.
Artemy holds him down for as long as it takes for the effects to start showing, watching as he can’t maintain the clench of his jaw muscles and his face gradually begins to slump. His last few moments above water were spent looking at Artemy with an emotion he can’t describe, much more complex than a simple declaration of anger that would make sense in context. Even as he disappears, it lingers behind those sagging eyelids, as though he’s still turning it over in his mind.
He hears the man’s breathing even out, the now subtle motion of his chest the only outward tell. Artemy slips a hand under the thin layer of his shirt to pull the threads over his bare torso, his attempt at preserving the man’s dignity. Behind him, his father watches; Artemy can tell without having to turn around, his father’s eyes operating on him like a drill piercing the back of his skull.
“What now?” Artemy asks him, still looking down at the man in his half-conscious state. Is it reasonable to fear that he will be carved up like a sacrifice?
“You are to leave so we can perform the procedure. The same to all of you,” he addresses the room at large. “Your patronage is needed elsewhere at this time. We will send word when there is some, but for now I must ask you to leave.”
Of all those in the room with them, only Stakh continues as he was before, palming over the creases that pattern the bedsheets, smoothing them down to pillow the man’s ankle as it’s lowered. He arranges the leg as though it’s to be on display in a glass case, using a level of care that Artemy didn’t know he was capable of. It’s in stark contrast to the savagery ripping up the man’s wrists. Friction from the struggle to break free has removed several layers of skin, and abrasion and heat have caused the wound to swell and bleed. The severity of the injury is in part because their patient has persistently rubbed against the surface long past the point of it being excruciatingly painful. And it happened under his father’s watch.
He acts on the courage to speak while it’s still young and impulsive. “Esegher, I–”
Father holds up a hand for silence. “I know you have questions, but as I told you, I will answer them later. We can’t wait any longer; the blood only preserves for so long.”
He has so many questions he wants to ask, objections he wants to raise. This is not how he imagined their reunion would be. Far from salvaging their relationship, it only gives him another reason to doubt how well he truly knew him.
His father has none of those reservations, gently leading him by the cheek to look at him one last time. “It is good to have you home.” He taps his fingers against the side of his face, twice. “Now go, I will be with you soon.”
He uses that same hand to gesture to Stakh in their secret language, one that prefers gesticulations to words. Artemy’s been away for so long that he’s no longer proficient in it. Somehow, here in his childhood home, in the bedroom he grew up in, at his father’s side once more, he’s never struggled more with what he’s supposed to be.
Artemy turns toward the direction of the door, the new angle showing him the faces of the Kain family standing at the entrance, which couldn’t be identified from behind. He only barely manages to put Maria’s name to the woman looking back at him, bearing almost no resemblance to the young child he remembers hiding behind the legs of the adults in the room. She, like her mother before her, commands the room without needing to say a word, her spine completely straightened to give her as much height as possible. If she would look away from their patient, they might have briefly spoken to exchange pleasantries; however, he’s not the one she’s interested in.
Yet, there is one member of the Kains who seeks an audience with him, calling his name after he’s exited into the hallway. Georgiy reveals himself when he turns his head to see who it is, clearly having waited for him at the expense of being with his family when he exited into the throng of people gathered on the perimeter.
“Honourable judge,” Artemy greets him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Georgiy exaggerates his widening eyes. “So formal. The years have changed you. May I?” His hand in the air like he’s about to testify. Artemy stills under the eye of his judgement and watches the hand extend to his face. He carefully evaluates Artemy’s appearance, using his thumb and index finger to push his head to the side.
“You’ve grown into your father’s likeness,” he says, satisfied.
Artemy doesn’t know what to say to that, so he nods in agreement. He grew up hearing the opposite: that, unlike his late brother, he could be abducted by one of the townspeople thinking he was one of their own, wearing the graft of his mother’s eyes and nose on his face. Members of the Kin thought he was too young to understand why they were so upset about puberty trimming the baby fat to reveal one of their oppressors looking back at them, and it would creep up like an uninvited guest whenever the topic of his birthright came up.
Georgiy takes his hand back. “It is no coincidence that you find yourself back here days after the arrival of our Bachelor. Simon was certain that would happen.”
Artemy thinks back to the other people he saw in attendance, but remembers no winding beard. “Where is Simon?”
“In a deep meditation. This process is hard on us all, but it asks him to sacrifice the most. When you freely give part of yourself to another, you’re left vulnerable not only in body, but in soul.”
“That part of him–you’re referring to his blood. That’s what they’re giving him.”
“Of course. Blood is the cure of our ills, the source of our living power. The loss or exhaustion of it perverts us. But if you let it pass through your lips, you can dispel the weakness and infirmities of old age. So we are bleeding him of his earthly ties to forge something stronger that defies the nature of humanity. Blood is the only known remedy for the disease that plagued him, and we were not willing to let him suffer in vain.”
“So be it, but why tie him down? If it’s what he wanted, he wouldn’t fight you.” He speaks softly, to not openly question his father where he can overhear.
“Because it’s more than just blood we are giving him. All that Simon is, he will become one day. We have to ensure he is ready for it.”
Artemy doesn’t appreciate the runaround, but knows better than to pry. If he were supposed to know the truth, they would have told him by now.
Georgiy takes his silence for apprehension and trades some of his wisdom for a gentle tone of voice. “Rest assured, he was chosen with great consideration. Decisions like these are not made impetuously; they come from certainty beyond a reasonable doubt. You will see.”