Chapter Text
Snow blanketed the small, ill-maintained courtyard between the ramshack buildings Artemy called home. He’d stepped out onto the porch with his coffee and breathed in the cold air, willing the tension in his chest to release. Alright. First day of Daniil in the lab. And, not to mention, his first day off in a long, long time.
He turned as the door squeaked behind him. Daniil emerged, still tugging on his coat, toast haphazardly clutched in his teeth.
“Can’t stay for breakfast?” Artemy asked, letting an amused smile pull his lips.
Daniil hardly responded past a grunt through clenched teeth. “Nine,” he said, nearly unintelligible.
He watched him hustle down the stairs. About halfway down, Daniil checked his watch and cursed before starting to take them two at a time. Artemy’s eyebrow quirked as he checked his own. It was 8:30. The labs opened at nine. It was a ten minute drive.
Goddamn. When they were in high school, Grief had always called him ‘bull.’ He’d put his head down, do his job, and sleep in study hall if he was lucky. It was one of the nicer nicknames his dear friend had given him.
Well, If he was a bull, Daniil was a rat. Perhaps one someone was testing stimulants on. Hopefully not one on a wheel.
He watched the black car pull away and put him out of his mind. Today wasn’t about viruses, or twyre, or any of the complicated feelings he had about any Bachelors of Medicine. He sipped his coffee and let his eyes drift back to the courtyard.
Today was about the snow, and the kids, and a well-earned break.
–
“Up,” Murky demanded.
“Magic word?”
“Up now.”
Artemy gave her a look.
“...Up now, please.”
“Thank you, kiddo,” he chuckled, lifting her to eye level with the snowman they’d spent the last hour creating.
She plugged one of the carrots Daniil had bought for them in for the nose. The snowman stared out with a vacant smile, two rock eyes silently watching the sidewalk. Murky smiled, content with her handiwork.
“Um, Mr. Burakh,” Sticky said, arms pulled tight around himself. “I think I’m done being outside.”
“You’re lame,” Murky teases, squirming out of Artemy’s arms.
“S’not my fault you have the warmer coat,” he shoots back, pulling his own slightly-fraying one tighter around his shoulders.
“Come on,” Artemy says, gently herding the children towards the stairs. “It’s probably too dark out to be playing, anyways.”
He settled them in on the stools at the counter after their sparse winter wear had been shucked at the door. Pulling down his biggest pot, he turned the burner on with a click, eyeballed the amount of milk, and added a generous portion of chocolate syrup.
“When’s dinner?” Sticky asked.
Artemy grimaced. “Uh. Well, it depends on what you want to eat, bud.”
“I want a Daniil dinner,” Murky said, simply.
[The rest of the chapter would have been next three days from artemys perspective. Hes getting to spend more time with the kids and do around the house stuff with them. Daniil comes home from the lab tired but makes a small effort to hang out with the children. He keeps in contact with Lara and tries to track down more brown twyre but can’t find it anywhere. Daniil off-hand mentions that he can’t get ahold of the stamatins to save his life. Goads daniil into teaching him how to cook? Aspity facetime scene, discuss his fraught relationship with his father on the porch. Artemy is told to come home and is still very much not interested in doing that. However, from Lara and Eva’s documentation of what’s going on in the dorms, he realizes that he really should just go home where the brown twyre is common instead of hiding here.]
[Next three days, Daniil is making absolutely no progress on the synthesization and getting very frustrated. He’s caught by Kain and claims that he’s the source of the twyre, explaining that it works to soothe the nausea when nothing else does. Kain asks for proof and daniil is able to provide it through Eva and Yulia’s careful documentation. Kain is cautious, but thinks it’s worth testing because a casualty has been reported from the dorms. Kain tells him to get more brown twyre. Daniil goes back to the apartment and watches the documentary late at night. Artemy walks out and catches him, they watch it together. Artemy points out the shitty noble savage framing of his people and is able to reminisce fondly about the Khatanger and his experience growing up there. He even has a cameo, Isidor proudly showing off Ershem as the next in the Menkhu line while Artemy asks to be picked up. Daniil explains the Twyre situation but Artemy is still cautious. Final nail in the coffin is getting a call from Eva. Peter is dead, they were discovered after the smell alerted another person on the floor. Andrey had apparently just been living in the room with the corpse for about five days without alerting anyone. Once Daniil hangs up the phone, clearly too shocked to respond, Artemy simply states that they are going to tog asap.]
[Artemy persp. arrangements are made, the children will stay with Lara after they gather what they can from the field. Road trippin up to tog. Artemy is shocked at how much his hometown has changed and disheartened by the fact that his childhood friends (except Lara) seem to have little to no interest in talking to him. He keeps trying to show Daniil the wonderful little things in his town and finds them replaced with gentrification because its MY vehicle for personal trauma and i get to make the oblique metaphors!!! Daniil doesnt understand why artemy is so frustrated with what he sees as renovations. They arrive at laras, who they will be staying with for the night, and settle in. the kids get along very well with Lara, which upsets Artemy, and he leaves to go on a walk and clear his head. Daniil catches up with him and wont have any of his stoic bullshit, they have a nice talk and artemy seems to be feeling better. They return to learn that isidor has died, Artemy having left his phone behind to go on his walk.]
[Daniil persp. Daniil tries to keep everything on track while now dealing with an Artemy who is walking around in a haze and struggling to keep up. On top of that, Kain won’t respond to his emails. Daniil joins Artemy on the front porch around one in the morning and they have stilted conversation about Peter’s death. Artemy feels he failed him. Daniil can only reminisce about what a wonderful person he was. Exhausted by the events of the week, he leans on Artemy’s shoulder. Artemy snaps at him to leave, this being a painful reminder of why he couldn’t talk to his now late father for the last few years of his life. Daniil, not connecting the dots, is genuinely scared that Artemy is going to hurt him for a moment and quickly moves inside. Artemy is left on the front porch alone.]
[Daniil persp. It’s the next morning, he’s at a funeral for a man he doesn’t know but has heard a lot about. He struggles with the nature of death, and his mind keeps slipping back to Peter. He thinks about all of the incredible things, inventions, structures, that will never exist, because the man died too soon. Peter used to talk about creation being a way of immortality, that a structure standing for centuries after one’s death is the only real way to live forever, which Daniil had brushed off as drunken ramblings, which they were. But now, he can’t help but think about it. All of the theory in the world doesn’t matter if the person isn’t there anymore to enact it. He has the horrifying realization that there are now about 1000 people choking on their own vomit in stuffy dorms. Daniil is no longer looking death in the eye as an adversary, he is dwarfed by it. Something, suddenly, makes him tune back in to the service. He asks Artemy to translate, and he quietly explains that the body is returned to the earth so the cycle can begin anew. Daniil doesn’t understand. But when Aspity speaks a refrain, Artemy takes his hand, and Daniil finds himself mouthing along as best he can. He doesn’t understand. He suddenly very badly wishes he did.]
[Artemy persp. Aspity and Artemy have a long talk later in the evening. Artemy must accept his birthright. He finally explains that he could never give them an heir, and that he wants to complete his degree, and that people back home are sick. She shrugs and is like “oh okay cool.” cue speech about adaptation, conversation about how the town didn’t change, he just looked away too long, you are not the center of the web, you are just one knot, and while the net is stronger with you it will still hold. They go out to gather twyre, short dancing scene. Aspity says that if he truly wants twyre he will have to sleep out in the steppe, and he does, cue spiritual experience with ghost of his father. Artemy desperately explains everything, explains how he’s terrified he will never be Ershem, will never be what his father wanted, will never be what his struggling people need. There’s silence as Isidor only listens. Artemy grows more desperate, begging to be allowed to save the people in his university. Isidor wraps his son in a hug. He can’t feel it. When he goes to hug him back, his father disappears, and he falls into a deep sleep. The next morning, Artemy wakes up surrounded by brown twyre. He returns to the house to find daniil, lara, and the kids on the front porch. Daniil brushes the dirt off of him and scolds him for not telling him he was sleeping out in the steppe. The kids ask him where he got all the twyre. Lara just smiles and beckons them all in for breakfast. He turns back to the Steppe, the grasses swishing in the wind, and wonders if he will ever understand who his father was. Daniil is the one to snap him out of his haze, setting a cautious hand on his shoulder. “You did good,” he says, offering a smile. Artemy may not believe him, but he does take the hand that’s offered.]
[The kids stay with Lara while Artemy and Daniil head back to the university with the twyre. The car ride is awkward, because i mean fuck, what do you say? Artemy finally breaks the silence by talking about his father. The two manage to discuss their feelings without stepping on each other's toes for once. Daniil and Artemy slowly begin to agree with each other, listen to each other, the conversation reaching a fever pitch before Daniil finally just tells Artemy to pull over before grabbing him and pulling him into a kiss. They stare at each other for a long moment, like both of them are just now fully realizing what’s been happening over the last few months. Artemy points out that there’s a campsite one exit down that they can park at which will be relatively secluded. Daniil denies this and refuses anything short of a motel before googling coupons for local motels. Artemy shakes his head, accusing Daniil of making him soft. Daniil scowls, retorting that Artemy has made him trashy. Artemy asks if he’s at least made him happy in the meantime. Daniil struggles for words before telling him to shut up and get off on the second exit down. The answer is, of course, yes. But neither of them will ever say that, no matter how much they both know it.]
[returning home, they find that things have disintegrated. The disease has spread out from the university. Kain is dead, and so are many others. I’ll be honest, I don’t like the way I wanted the story to end. It was going to be very bleak. After all of that, Kain had actually died while they were away, and they were prevented from going to the lab or entering the quarantine zone. Their efforts are limited to finding a few people willing to smuggle small amounts over the line. Trapped in Artemy’s apartment complex, Artemy’s mailbox key breaks when Daniil and him go to get the mail one day. Daniil goes to the office and finds it’s closed despite the fact that it’s listed as open. He grabs the handles and shakes the door violently, screaming for someone to let them in so they can just fix this stupid fucking problem until he cracks and breaks down in tears. Artemy manages to pull him away as Daniil rails in fury at the fact that he can’t just fix the stupid fucking problem that he knows how to fix. Artemy does what he can to comfort him, but it’s impossible to ignore the bleakness of it all. At the end of the day, the outbreak is contained, but only after a massive loss of life. Artemy and Daniil are left in awe that they could fight so hard, go through so much, all to barely make a difference in the grand scheme of things. When I was writing this, covid fatigue was just starting to creep into my mind. I think I’d just give it a happy ending if I wrote it now, where they’re able to distribute the tea and save a lot of lives. Which is dumb and sacharine, but yknow, fuck it, it’s a pathologic fanfiction i wrote to process the feeling of utter hopelessness I felt every time I went to work or logged into an online class or saw that big light up sign listing the number of sick and dying students there were. I think it can just have a happyish ending.]
[The epilogue would have put them both in ToG. Daniil and Artemy would probably be working at the local hospital. Nobody is outwardly hostile, and they’re slowly integrating into a regular life despite everything. Daniil was unable to earn his doctorate, Artemy managed to get his degree, and it’s over, and they’re okay. They share a cigarette on Lara’s porch. Daniil leans on his shoulder as they look out over the Steppe. Daniil muses that his father has probably written him out of the will and declared him a massive disappointment. Artemy assures him that, even if that’s the case, he’s at least in good company. Daniil agrees.
Murky expresses disgust at her dads being gross, then pulls them in for dinner. A wind rustles the tall grasses of the Steppe, and for now, at least, it’s over.]