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“Are you drunk?”
"Does that bother you, Burakh? Of course I'm drunk. More, if you must know. How else can I face another night of all.... this?” He gestures broadly. Daniil hiccups and falls forward in his seat. Artemy moves to catch him but he rights himself before he can reach. "There is nothing I can do. Nothing you can do. Nous allons tous mourir, mon ami. All our efforts wrought to dust..."
Artemy kneels down, sitting on his heels closer to face height. Places a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
"Oynon, come. Let’s get you some air."
"Yes, lets. We could frolic in the plague clouds. Maybe get stabbed? I haven't been stabbed in three nights, dear colleague. Oh how my guts have yearned for the sharp sting of steel."
He brushes the messy hair out of his eyes to check his pupils. Pinpoint and shaking. Strychnine? To keep him awake as he pickled himself. Bad mix, slowed and twitchy. Pulling his nerves in different directions.
"Not in the town, oynon. Can you walk?"
"Despite my best efforts, yes, yes I can."
Artemy doubted that. He moves to help him up only to be met with a swatting hand. "You brute! I am not some child you can throw over your shoulder."
"Don't tempt me erdem. That sounds much easier."
Artemy moves as if to lift him and that gets him to stand up. Preening at his coat like a cat. Smoothing his crumpled vest as they leave. Artemy ascends the stairs of the Broken Heart behind him in case he falls. Maybe the cool night air will sober him up. The silence they walk in is lovely, while it lasts.
"How do you do it Burakh?"
"Do what." It wasn't so much a question as it was an acknowledgment of the unstoppable spilling of words.
"Go on. In the face of all this failure, that is. At every turn, the shabnack awaits us. Morphing and eluding us in the lab, running us down like dogs in the streets."
"I didn't take you for a man of superstition."
"It's not, it's not superstition if - really? Honestly, Burakh? You see The Lines, and your people drink blood, and Kin women marry worms... and the shabnack is ridiculous?"
"It's a legend. Most of the kin don't even believe she has form."
"Unbelievable. Now I'm the crazy one."
".....where are you taking me?"
"The Steppe, oynon. Where knives and infection cannot find you."
Daniil murmurs in response. "Nothing out there but pollen and bulls."
"Peaceful."
"...Filthy."
Artemy chuckles. "Yes oynon, and filthy."
He stops at one of his favorite places. He can see for miles, a small hill ripe with twyre and covered in soft grass. "Come, sit." He slides out of his butcher's smock, laying it down on the ground as a makeshift blanket. He beckons the bachelor to join.
Daniil cocks his head to the side, brows furrowed in his usual petulant confusion, but he sits all the same.
"It's hard to breathe out here."
"Its really not. You'll be fine. You need the air. And the rest."
"There is no rest for us, Burakh."He sighed, shoulders drooping. "How do you take one more step? Boil one more disgusting herb? The town, the people, they hate us. They hate us and we're...."
"They're scared. We're all scared.” What choice was there to endure? The children, the people..…."Don't you have anything to fight for?"
"I did..."
Silence hung around them again. Less comfortable this time. Artemy didn’t know the right words here. He couldn’t coddle him like a child or tell him to sleep it off. He knew loss. They both knew loss. They both had futures stolen from them. He needed, they needed a respite. Time out of their own heads.
"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.
"I'm sorry, too. ...your father, your friends..." Daniil sighs, resigned.
They sit a moment, surrounded by the sounds of the Steppe. Of insects and skittering and the gentle silence between them. When he feels he can, Artemy leans in, pushing his shoulder against the bachelor’s. “Come here, look."
"At what, the dark?"
"No oynon, the stars." He extends his arm from beside Daniil's shoulder, trying to draw his line of vision along his own.
"Do you see that group of stars? That one is mother Bhoddo."
“Tsk. What are you talking about? I thought she was the earth."
"She is, but we also named those stars for her. Most of the stars are named for legends, for animals."
"What a childish exercise.” Daniil teases, but he does not move his shoulder away.
"Did you not go to school, oynon? You know they do the same in the capital, teach whole classes on it."
"Of course I went to school. I'm a doctor. But I was too busy studying modern medicine to draw pictures in the stars. Is that part of being an emshem?"
"I'm surprised you said that correctly."
"Please, you doubted the skill of my tongue?"
He laughs, instinctually bumping his shoulder into him. Playful, like they were old friends. "One day, Doctor Dankovsky, you can teach me all about skilled tongues."
He couldn't see the blush in the dark of the steppe, but he knew it creeped up the bachelors neck.
"I should of known you'd resort to such base humor."
"Brute?"
"Quite."
But Daniil returns the gesture, bumping his shoulder right back. A moment. And then his shoulder returns, stays pressed into him. The bachelors head laid on his arm now as well. Artemy slips his arm behind him, only partially to steady him.
"Well." he sucked in air. "I've never had any complaints. Are the kin... practiced in linguistics as well?"
"Are you interested in the knowledge of the Kin now?" He wasn't feeling particularly bold this evening, but their lines sing tonight. Their banter easing the way.
"Some, admittedly." he muttered.
He'll wrap his arm around his shoulder, and Daniil lets him. Notice, but not stop him mindlessly rubbing at his arm through the thick of his coat. He knew then where this night would go. He knew before. He knew days ago.
"And their tongues?
"Perhaps. Just one." Daniil tilts his head up, looking at him through thick, dark lashes. His hair was likely thick and dark everywhere. Artemy swallows. Shudkher. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't. But he will. He knows there is no other path. No other way this goes. Artemy was not often nervous. He was nervous now. Knowing was different than doing.
He leans in and pulls Daniil's chin further up with a finger. His hazel eyes flicker from surprise to smug to daring. No path but to taste lips that he knew would like taste like wine or whiskey or twyrine. Or all three. He's drunk. He's unraveling at the seams. And he's kissing him. Soft. As sure as he knew one night would lead to him trying, he knew Daniil would let him. They were two sides of the same coin. How could they resist joining together?
Daniil sighs, audibly, into his mouth. His shoulders are already heavy from the drink yet relax even further. He kisses him again, and again. Pulling him close with a gentle hand at the base of his skull. Trying not to fall backwards or over into him. Until they do, tumbling over like school boys on the grass. Daniil is sloppy with his affections, exhausted and frayed. But it's nice all the same. Romantic in a terrible way of kissing under the stars while an entire town falls apart.
He pulls away. Let's himself breathe. "We can't stay here all night."
"Mmm, Stillwater's too far."
"You can stay at the lair." He cards his fingers through his dark hair, like he had done it a hundred times before. Like all this time they hadn't been trading insults, then bruises, now spit.
"Are you taking me home, Burakh?" His lids are heavy, eyes hazy.
"Do you want me to?"
He smirks, eyes hungry. A wicked, knowing smile that lands right in Artemy's guts.
“Shudker, oynon, we won’t make it anywhere if you keep looking at me like that. Come, I don’t want to have to carry you back.”
“But you would.” He teases.
“Yes, oynon, I would.”
He helps him up, leading them the short distance back to factory. His arm draped over his shoulder, steadying him and keeping him near.
"Its not much, but it's warm.” Artemy defends as he closes the door. Daniil is already undressing. Fumbling out of his coat as he stumbles toward the too-small bed. Surprisingly quick with the buttons of his vest, his shirt. In only his underthings, he climbs into the cot. "Are you not joining me?"
Artemy realizes he's still fully dressed. Feet like lead move him toward Daniil. He reaches out to touch his cheek. More intimate than he's earned.
“Are you sure?”
He was practically pouting as he leaned his head into the touch. "It is against your oath as a doctor, as a surgeon, to rile a man up and leave him in such need. To say nothing of hospitality." Daniil traces a lazy line down his bare stomach. Watches Artemy's eyes follow to where the thin linen can barely conceal his rapidly filling cock. Artemy realizes his mouth is open. Dry. He's lost in the path of fingers teasing at the edge of a waistband. Dark hair over pale, flush skin. He licks his lips. He blinks.
"You're drunk, emshem, I - "
"We established that already." He snaps. A true pout forming on his face.
“Artemy, You can doubt my methods, and my bedside manner, and certainly my sobriety... but please do not doubt that I have wanted to feel those rough hands on me since we met.”
Artemy felt his cheeks darken. His eyes darken. Daniil pulls him in, stumbling him onto the bed. Warm hands make short work of pulling his sweater off. Run up under his undershirt, fingers digging into his pectorals. Daniil kisses him, nearly on top of him now, pawing at his chest and stomach.
“I've wanted to do that from the moment I saw you.” He says it like a proud statement. Like a victory.
“Is that all you wanted to?” Artemy teases. “Is this what's considered scandalous in the capital?”
“Hmph.” The bachelor huffed. “Oh no my haruspex, I have considered all kinds of ways you could take me.” He slides a clever hand down, shimmying the tips of his fingers into a waistband too tight to give them passage. Artemy fails to stifle a gasp. “Over the desk in the Stillwater, in the loft of the theatre after a particularly heated sparring of words.”
His hand wriggles for purpose. Artemy eases his way, removing his belt. Undoes his buttons.
“Maybe you'd back me against the wall, shut me up with your tongue in my mouth. Get me on my knees so you could shut me up with your cock instead.”
Artemy is unceremoniously pulled from his open pants, Daniil groaning as he measures the girth of him with his thumb and finger. That alone pools in his gut, but Daniil wraps his clever fingers around, strokes him experimentally. A turn of the wrist that sends him gasping on Daniil's neck. He bares it further, an invitation, a challenge.
Who is he to say no? To not take his share of flesh and claim the brazen doctor. Even if just for a while. Artemy thought he would taste more like all the poison he's content to fill himself with. But tonight, he just smells like want. Tastes like salt, and sweat, and some surely expensive cologne he enjoys more than he thought he would.
He lathes his tongue up his neck. A hiss escaping those bowed lips as Artemy bites at his jaw. He wants to mark him. He sinks his teeth bluntly into his neck, a tender spot below his ear. This one needs to be claimed. To forget himself. To be flesh and blood. He sucks at the skin. Sophomoric to leave such lovebites, but he's too overwhelmed to care.
Daniil shivers and encourages him with little moans. Artemy would make him whine. Turn that proud face into a begging mess. He's bucking into his hand now, too eager now to be embarrassed.
A hum in his ear, “Not yet, Artemy. I want to get you in my mouth.”
Artemy groans, throbbing in Daniil's hand. The bachelor trails a wet path down his chest. Slows at his stomach, kisses at his hip bones. Buries his nose in the mound above his cock before mouthing at him.
He's trying not to look at how much Daniil is enjoying himself, dragging his tongue up his length. His lips plump and pink around him. Tears at the edges of his eyes. Artemys biting the side of his hand. Struggling for composure.
Daniil is laid out on his stomach now, his own hardness rubbing against Artemy's leg as he mouths and sucks every thought right out of him. He wants to feel him, take him in hand, touch him in return.
“What about you?” he manages to breathe out. “I want to feel you.”
Daniil stops to look up and grins. Drunk on twyrine and his new-found power over him. “Mmm. How?”
“Any way you'll let me.”
He hums, looking around the room. “Do you have oil?”
Artemy swallows. The words drop like a weight in his stomach. Scrambles for a drawer.
”I’ll take that for a yes.” The bachelor laughs.
Daniil returns to his lap as he returns to the bed. Artemy slicks his fingers and the bachelor snatches them in hand, leading him between pale thighs. He can feel his impatience, but there's little room for that here. Finds his mouth again as he rubs circles against the rim of muscle. Teasing and prodding his way in. A sharp gasp against his mouth as he pushes a digit in. Looses himself in their rhythm, the slow slide of tongues, the steady thrust of his fingers as he works him open.
It's hypnotizing. His proud bachelor, fucking himself slowly on his fingers, drooling on his shoulder. Shuddering against him.
"Ready?" He breathes into his ear.
A shake of Daniils head and he lays him down for a better angle. Slicks himself up. Daniil groans, groans beneath him as he pushes in. Taking his time with every glide in, out, until hes in to the hilt.
Artemy pulls out just long enough to move him where he wants him, which is solidly on his lap. Daniil wraps his arms around him, mouth slack at his shoulder."Good? Ready kheerken?”
A muffled ‘yes, get on with it you brute.’ into his skin.
Artemy chuckles, and moves. Daniil's an easy weight to be manipulated. Easy To bounce his weight on his lap. Easy to grip at his hips to roll them down. To guide his head up and brush the sweat-slicked hair on his forehead back. To wrap his hands around his cheeks, his jaw, possessive. To taste his mouth again, feel him impatiently clench around him. Artemy lavishes his neck in wet kisses, drawing every noise he can.
Out there he’s a cold man. But not here, not when he’s pliant and hungry in his bed. Not when his face is tight to his own and Artemy's mumbling praise into his open mouth.
Daniil, to his credit, is hazily keeping pace on shaking legs. An arm between them to stroke himself. Artemy’s eyes cast down to watch the swipe of his fingers, the pressure he uses, before slicking his own hand up and replacing Daniil's with his own.
Daniil is clawing at his back as he drives hard up into him, he’s dizzy, so close to his own release, so wanting to please. "Harder? Softer?"
"Harder." the Batchelor stutters out, sloppily trying to match pace, legs trembling over his thighs.
Artemy bites down on his shoulder as he pulls him over the edge, working him fast and hard in hand. Daniil moans and chokes into his ear as he comes. Artemy spills over just after, a deep moan into his mouth, face close, fingers gripping through his hair. Daniil is a deadweight on him, head heavy on his shoulder. Artemy kisses at his temple, his ear.
Slowly, Daniil untangles them, slumps back, shimmying himself against the wall and lights a cigarette. Aretmy leans back to sit shoulder to shoulder.
"I didn’t take you for such a romantic, Burakh."
"Was that particularly romantic?"
"Yes, quite." He laughs. "I’m a bit more used to a rough tug between lectures or a particularly lucky night at the bar."
Artemy tenses. "Oh. Is that, unwelcome?"
"No, no no..." he says too fast, like an apology. "Different."
He brings a hand back to his jaw. Turns his head to him. "I feel the play of your lines, Daniil. I’d prefer not to pretend like I don’t."
His smile is tinged with sadness but he smirks, leans into him, kisses him. "I'd be rather cross if you did pretend around me." He sighs, takes a long drag.
"Come here. We’ve no time to fret over such things." He crawls over to nestle between his legs, back against his chest. "I very much enjoy you Artemy Burakh. You are a respite among the terrors." He plays at his cigarette. "We will see where all the pieces fall when, if, this is all over."
"Will you stay?" He hesitantly wraps his arms around him. Hungry for the closeness. Wary of scaring him off. "The night, I mean. I’d like you to stay the night here."
"I doubt if i could make it back if i tried..."
"And still be here in the morning?"
"Mmm. How old fashioned."
He knows his tension is apparent now, but he wants him to say it.
"Daniil."
"Fine. Yes, I will stay." he squirms a bit in his arms. "I don't have the benefit of metaphysical powers. I have to do this the old fashioned way with uncertainty.. and figuring it out..."
He kisses the crown of his head. "Of course, oynon. You'll see it soon enough."