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Iron. A mouthful of it. There’s a tooth in there. Each of his limbs is slow and unwieldy, he needs to move, to wake up, to fight, how did the fight start? Everything stings, vision and memories blur. He has to remember what started the fight. Was it cures? Solutions, or maybe world views. This is a new low for them. They’re supposed to be reasonable adults, not animals, throwing snarls and punches at each other. He smirks. He has options and ambitions, so he reaches, well, they both reach, for his gun. Of course, Artemy is faster than him. Whatever smugness Dankovsky had is swallowed by the other’s stubbornness. He’s trying to prove something tonight, to make a point. He’s arguing with renewed brio too, arguments lending with the precision of a well-timed blow. The gun is scattered away, traded for a body on top of him. Unshakeable, unmovable, unyielding.
“Get off” it sounds like an order. It’s a plea.
“No.” It sounds like nothing at all.
“You’ve won, get off;” A fairer deal. Pride for health, a trade-off he’s resigned himself to these days.
“No, this is the end of your life oynon”. It’s not a threat, he says it like it’s a fact. It’s a fact, it’s a fact, iron and pain are everywhere. Parts of him are tensing and relaxing, unable to strengthen themselves into action. His eyes sting, his body feels diluted, as if his soul had somewhat slipped out while he was hurled to the ground. Everything hurts and hurts and hurts. His natural abundance of words is escaping him and slowly morphing, disappearing into a pool of ineffable instincts.
“GET OFF!” It’s a scream. The little awareness he has left informs him that he’s panicking, but he’s too far gone to stop, unable to move. He feels moments away from the end of his life. He’s trashing, blinking furiously through blood and tears as he tries to discern the figure atop of him. His throat is aching from the screams. He can only hear this thumping sound, he’s going to die, he needs to go, he just needs-
The crack of bones stops the screams. It stops his thoughts. For a second he gets clarity. Something, is free. Broken. He can move. He coils into himself. A second passes, he sees an opportunity to strike. Like any trapped animal, he bites. Hard. He goes for the jugular, and with widened eyes, the weight on him moves. It doesn’t remove itself completely. He’s going to die. There’s not enough blood to guarantee a win, and he knows it, so he hits. The punch goes in, as a knife would. Bones meet flesh, where bones shouldn’t be. It seems to be that he’s broken and winning for once, what’s left of his right arm spasms widely as payback. Only the left hand grasps at the floor to get away, the left hand flails frantically to find the gun, the left hand shoots.
The wall breaks.
Through the bullet-shaped hole, finally, the panic evacuates. Eyes regain their focus, iron becomes blood, fear twists into regret. The curtain is raised, the lighting is harsh, illuminating all his flaws with unnatural brightness. Reason slams back into his body, steals his breath as a consequence. He regroups his limbs shakily under him, achieving a dubious stand as tries to assess the damages. A missing tooth, a wasted bullet, a right hand held by skin only, with a bone bloodied twice over unsightly jutting out. He shifts his grip on the gun, fumbling to parallel the gestures he’s so used to doing. A miracle he even fired, a miracle he missed. He doesn’t drop the gun, not yet. The price of his irrationality makes him dizzy as he considers the man on the floor. The stabbed foe, ally, with his hands pressed in two places. Life is seeping out of him at a steady rhythm. He adds bandages and painkillers to the total of losses, and then adds water too. Sewing needles, thread, alcohol, and he quietly mourns his next few meals. No matter, it’s a problem he can’t address now. He needs to fix the bonesetter, and then worry about the bones that need setting. He approaches slowly the body on the floor as it speaks:
“It seems you live up to your reputation, oynon”. A hand on his neck hides the gash.
The doctor is a man of many words, and they all bump against his clenched teeth and puncture his esophagus. He kneels next to the patient, teeth and unsteady hand going through the motions. His solo dance becomes a duo, the hand no longer forced to keep a steady pressure now free to aid, to push and pull as Daniil sutures, two hands more apt than one. It feels almost natural, like a rehearsed performance. They let muscle memory guide their gesture, needle going in and out, in and out. It’s superficial, unlikely to heal badly in normal circumstances. The hand next to his grows weak, as the warm and wet spot growing on the floor contradicts his illogical triage. He’s a sad excuse of a doctor-patient, trying to recover and heal at the same time. He’s both ignoring and acknowledging the causes of his actions, just like the cut open-surgeon on the floor. They know that they do what they can, try what they can’t, and think poorly of themselves because of it. Of the proud Bachelor’s mistake: treating a graze before a stab wound, they don’t breathe a word.
The hands trail down, soothing and assessing, caressing and mending, they leave tiny gasps in their wake. When they reach their destination, the fingers dig in to expose the truth. Blood that needs to stop flowing, fast. An additional fee, he muses, while he burns the last of his light heating a knife to work against itself. The act is free of words, enough has been broken for the silence to survive a few more seconds. For the first time in its life, the cutting knife stitches. Flesh sears and closes at the small expense of turning the air into poison, the calm into a frenzy, the quiet into strident wails. At last, there is no more emergency. The hands break apart. Daniil drags his good arm towards the gun and lazily rests the muzzle against the saved man’s forehead. He blinks serenly and doesn’t move.
The sounds nearly don’t make it out, distorted and rough:
“Why ?”
“I wanted to show you. The words they’re…” Artemy pauses, chest lifting in a half sigh, breath stopped by the pain. “They don’t say enough. There’s no way to explain what I wanted you to understand. I had to show you.”
The gun doesn’t move, “I already knew I was like you”. A sterile revelation, not even worth half the cost of the fight. Maybe there was nothing to hope for.
“Not like me. You are like the town. You understand now. You’ll belong now. If you want to”.
He takes a minute to examine it. He scrutinizes the new thought, twisting it, absorbing its shape, letting it fit in the complex structure of his own head. “That I’m no better than the rest of you? An animal, blindly swinging his rage around?”, he can hear himself injecting venom in each word.
Of course, the bait fails completely. “Yes. Desperate, hurt. We’re no more than this. The need to fight, to eat, to love, to sleep. To be warm. You’re fighting a battle against something like you. It’ll take you down before you can win”.
Of course, the ripper would do something like this. Snatching the victory away from him before he even tasted it. Daniil has always been partial to the truth, he can avoid it, embellish it for others, but his beliefs have always bowed under the pressure of veracity. The beautiful structure, his hopes, his dreams, his future, are just that. Parts of him. It reflects him partially, devoid of complexity, of flaws, of need, of greed. Once he sees it, he can’t ignore it. It lodges right under his heart. For a second, he fears he’ll deflate completely.
“I suppose you are not entirely misled at least, but you have not answered the question.”
“Speak clearly then. And drop the gun, murder never suited you.” His tone almost disinterested, too composed for a man whose life is hanging by a thread.
“You aren’t scared”, the left index quietly moves to the trigger.
“You won’t kill me”. The muzzle of the gun finally lets off, unlike the finger, stuck to the trigger. The gun lifts until Daniil holds it under his chin, the hand steadying itself at last. There are no blinks this time, as a muted panic nearly breaks the surface of the skin. “I won’t kill myself”, he says, miming an entirely different scene.
“Stop this”, the words shake at their end, close to shattering. He tries to prop himself up, to enforce that his command is carried out, but the blood loss robs him of his agency.
“You were right before, I won’t kill anyone tonight, so why?”
“Byy alysh Daniil, this is not a toy.” The name is too much, Artemy knows it.
“It wasn’t before either”.
“So you would play with your life to prove a point? Maybe I misjudged you.” The Haruspex makes the first bid, the Bachelor is quick to raise.
“A safe bet when I am the only player, unlike the gamble you took”.
“You claim this and yet evidence contradicts you. I’m still breathing no?” he huffs, he easily wins this point, but shows his hand in the process.
“By chance. I missed. Luck was on your side; the odds were not. The bet you took was a losing one”.
The gun feels heavy in his hand, its shape distorted. He drops it; it has served its purpose.
“I know you believe in fate, but recently I’ve been wondering what else keeps you alive”.
“I’m not…” he trails off, makes a half gesture with his hands. “I’ve never held a gun to my face, oynon.” The words are too private to go far beyond the air they share.
“You’re not being careful”, the sentence is heavy, almost cracks under its own weight. The last word laced with some emotion, almost like, well, it doesn’t matter. There’re so many ways to end the phrase, so many things he could say. Once he chooses, he can’t go back. He can’t afford to lose anything, so he risks nothing. He folds before saying another word. The sound of the half-sentence doesn’t stop when he closes his mouth. It drags and echoes across the room.
Finally, it lands, in an odd and twisted way. “You say this as if there was another way. As if you listen to something beyond the sound of your own voice.” It’s accusatory, the unease has subsided, replaced by a pleasant and too well-known warmth. When he has nothing else, the surgeon calls upon the anger at the core of his bones. It never fails to make its way to his lips.
The Bachelor flinches but dismisses the sentence. His objective is too important to let much get in the way.
“Ab irato. Is there no other way Burakh? No other path than to break my wrist? Than to kill a child? Than to risk your life? Again and again? You kill and harm others with a recklessness for your life that is as responsible for your surname as your body count. Would you bet your life on the fact that you made the right choice, each and every time?”
A sharp inhale, Dankovsky sees the word beginning to form in Burakh’s mouth. He stops it before a sound can escape the other’s throat “Would you bet mine?”
The teeth clack, the answer swallowed. The Burakhs know their lines, yet he stumbles over his, convictions suddenly questioned. When has his life become so expendable? How many lives did he take because of it? Normal people weight the cost of their life before starting a fight. He’s unsure when he last thought of it. If he did, how high did he value it? How much has he hurt by being careless, by rushing into fights, by not clearly wanting for it to end but hoping, by-
“Your wrist!”
The tension breaks, as both parties suddenly rediscover the wound. The surgeon rises slowly this time, settles on his knees. He’s close enough to the ground that it wouldn't hurt if he were to pass out. Now at eye level with the Bachelor, he carefully cradles the wounded arm on his lap. By chance, the offending bone has broken the skin, tearing it apart, but hasn’t clipped anything in its diverging path. This, he knows. Still, the gesture had its meaning changed. It’s now another mistake he has to fix. Connecting the lines makes for a poor consolation when he’s no longer sure they had to be cut. The gesture is smooth, sharp. Years of knowledge compressed in a single precise movement. The pain makes Daniil double over on his side, mouth open in a silent scream. His free elbow catches his body, and what was left in his stomach spills from his lips. Bile and blood. It stanches the already rancid air. At least they don’t have to add food to the ever-growing list of wasted goods.
Daniil’s shudders ease off after a few minutes. He wipes his mouth with a clean cloth, aware of the scrutinizing look he is receiving. He’s paler than usual. The dark blue under his eyes coordinating with the new bruises that start to appear. His prominent cheekbones making him look almost inhuman, skin wrapped tight around his features, dehydration and hunger taking their toll. The menkhu starts dressing the wound, slowly, carefully, fingers tracing an apology on tender skin.
Daniil’s left hand is jittery at his side, overcompensating for his still one. His eyes are vacant, losing track of the repetitive motions as he tries to come to terms with what has happened. He doesn’t get far before Artemy speaks again:
“Can you win this? It seems unlikely that I will.” He shrugs, unsuccessfully tries to get his hair out of his eyes. “You have infected me with a worse ill than the plague. Did you do this as a vengeance?”
Daniil carefully sidesteps the question, “Is there such a thing?” It’s almost a joke, the smile never makes it to his eyes.
“I’m a menkhu, emshen. You have planted the seed of doubt. Doubts lead to unsteady hands, which leads to more casualties. I cannot cut if I’m unsure.”
The Bachelor considers. He can no longer order for this town to be destroyed; he can no longer want to. One of them, as Burakh puts it. Bloodied, he belongs. Even if he somehow manages to do what he had planned, he’ll lose. His shoulder sag, gravity has doubled over him. There is no victory, ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. He shuts his eyes and lets himself despair for a moment.
The bandage should end at the beginning of his palm, Artemy knows. He takes a new strip and carefully threads it between the Bachelor’s fingers. If the price of holding a forbidden hand is an extra stripe of bandage, then he has made worse trades. The moment feels like the black-market chocolate that was smuggled in the capitol. It’s egoistical. It’s comforting.
“She was right, wasn’t she? I did doom us all” And yet, in much the same way that discouragement enveloped him, it leaves him. His spine straightens. He regains an inch as he leans forward, looking grimly at his hand. He knew of this. Here’s a question: what does a man do after defeating death? Daniil never expected of himself to win. The battle was always the true goal. He had his fate foretold since he arrived here, he will die. Sedet, aeternumque sedebit. He has not stopped struggling since he arrived, he will not do so now.
His arm is neatly bandaged, but he doesn’t retract his hand. He wonders if he can have this. He doesn’t need more than this, just two hands around his. Linked together, heads bowed, they share a prayer, await a miracle. His left hand comes to clamp at Artemy’s shoulder, bringing him closer, until their foreheads are touching, until Artemy can feel his words as he breathes them.
“I aim to defeat death; I can’t have you seeking it. Until this is over, I’ll care for you. Until you can or-” he bites his tongue. It’s too much, too soon, he’s a fool. “I mean, if you let me, I don’t want to…” It’s not something he can afford, it’s a gamble, but they have both already lost.
His hands move from shoulder to cheek, thumb brushing a swollen under eye. Artemy slowly tilts his head, as if trying not to scare a frightened animal. His lips tickle against the exposed space between his glove and his coat. The next words are almost kissed, delicately placed on Daniil’s skin. “I’ll care for you if you let me. I’ll care for you, and for everyone else, until I can care for myself again”.