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It isn’t the right kind of emptiness. He misses him, not more than he should, but in a way that isn’t right. It’s some kind of regret, and he doesn’t know where it comes from. It’s a sense that he should have done something more. But what more could he have done? It’s not like he hadn’t spent enough time with Artemy. All that time with him and Stakh and Gravel. All those times they laid out bullets on the train tracks, or snuck a smoke behind old Isidor’s back. Half the time, Grief wondered whether the others would have welcomed him as Artemy had, if they would have stuck by him if Artemy wasn’t there. Artemy had been the glue that held the whole group together. And now? Now it’s been sanded away, and their smooth surfaces are starting to slide right off each other. Sometimes he sits at the station and tries his hand at an old children’s game. He thinks he can feel something pulling him along the tracks, but his feet stay planted, and nothing heeds his call.
He denies it in his mind, of course. Even as the words roll soundlessly off his frozen lips, even as his throat moves without air to carry the noise, he convinces himself he’s not playing. He sits and remembers the bullets they popped, the coins they stretched, the trinkets they laid across the metal just to see what would happen. He tries not to miss him, because he’s not doing it right.
At some point, the ache fades enough that he doesn’t notice it much. He’s stopped going to the station, stopped visiting their old hideout in the warehouses. And so have Gravel and Stakh. New kids take their place, and he graduates from petty thief to kingpin. His warehouse is bigger now, and emptier. It’s full of boxes and masks, most of them his own. He doesn’t have a home, but he’s made himself an enclosure. It’s a room divided from the rest of the place by thin wood. There’s a cheap mattress in the corner and a full-length mirror on the wall, and his sparse belongings are thrown haphazardly into yet more boxes. No one but him goes back there. It’s not like he has guests.
He often forgets what’s in all the boxes. He occupies his spare time by going through them. They never seem to stay consistent. It’s as though they change every night, popping in and out of existence. Or maybe they just get bought and sold. Either way, his warehouse is littered with a hundred Shrodinger’s boxes. Some hold illegal goods, some are filled with mundanities. This box is the latter. Folds and folds of cloth line this box. The fabric is fine, high quality. It would fetch a good price, were he to sell it. The dyes are deep, the hems of the garments lined with complex lace. They would look good on any woman, he thinks, or on him.
That thought is out of left field. He cocks an eyebrow at himself, and his face and brain have an in-depth conversation. It ends with a laugh, and then a considerate frown. He looks around the warehouse he knows is empty, and then down at the box again.
Eh, what the hell.
He’s bored anyway. He could use a laugh. So he picks a few things out of the box and takes them back to his little room. He didn’t look too hard when he took them, so when he puts them on, they’re mismatched and ill-fitting. He looks ridiculous with all the lace and dye. He’s the picture of comedy.
The problem is that he’s not laughing. He leans on another stack of boxes, legs crossed, one hand on his hip, the other sliding across his mouth and chin, and he stares down his reflection. It’s terrible and tacky. The colors belong to an oil portrait of a high-class woman. They clash with his worn face and hands, and the cut of the too-small skirt frames his waist strangely. And that’s what he likes about it.
It probably would have been better if it had been sexual. And that’s saying something. That sort of thing isn’t exactly smiled upon, but it’s something easy to digest. Everyone has their vices, but this is different. This is frightening. This is comfortable. It’s a strange sense of belonging. The clothes don’t fit, but his skin does, for the most part.
But he’s not. Nouns run through his mind, and he thinks of all the things he isn’t. They always talk about knowing. It’s supposed to be innate. He’s just confused, completely dumbfounded at what’s going on. He keeps up his theater-esque finger tapping, but inside he’s moving like a freight train.
It’s for that reason that he nearly tears the lace when he changes back into his usual attire. He isn’t rushed, but his heart is pounding as he sits on his shoddy bed and stares at the clothes beside him. He thinks it over for a long time, runs the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, then he picks out the cheaper-looking pieces and throws them into a corner. The rest he returns to the box.
He doesn’t leave the warehouses much anymore. He’s a criminal, after all. He can’t just walk around town all day with the reputation he has. But when he needs a change of pace, he climbs the impossible stairways and isolates himself with his thoughts. There’s a pile of cigarette butts and ash next to him, undisturbed from the last few times he ventured up there. His legs hang off the edge of the stone platform and smoke flows in smooth curves from his mouth. It tastes nostalgic, like it could draw a forgotten soliloquy from his lungs. He aches for it sometimes, in such a way that he can’t tell if it’s for the cigarette or the memories.
It’s dark, but there are people out. None of them look up. He remains unseen, but there’s not much for him to look at besides the people below. His eyes follow them lazily, but he’s not really paying them any attention. His thoughts wander past them, through the maze-like streets.
Women: now that was a concept. His thoughts on them? The usual. They certainly exist. Some of them are pretty, some of them aren't. Some are tall, some are short, some like sports, theater, sewing, chess. Some have brown hair, others are blonde. They used to be more different than men, or maybe he just grew up. The longer he lives, the less divide there is between genders - and people in general. When you're getting your ass kicked on a side street it doesn't matter who your opponent is, just how hard they can swing.
So he doesn't really get why it's bothering him now. Cloth is cloth, anyone can put it on and it doesn't have to mean anything. But since then there's been a ringing in his body, sharp and disharmonious. It's crescendoed and he feels a pain in his teeth. He's not a woman, he's sure of that, but he's tired of being a man. And that makes his mind blank. What else is there to be? Himself? Like that can happen now. Like he could just change on a whim. His authority had been shaky to start. And sure, criminals partake in some rather homosexually aligned activities, himself included, but you don’t just up and admit to it. It's seen as more of an act of necessity in such a male-dominated occupation Paradoxically, in the place it matters least, dissonance with the norm is met with the most violent resistance. Dissonance means disrespect, disrespect means disloyalty, disloyalty means dismemberment. Metaphorically, anyway. Dismemberment is far more taboo.
Another cigarette butt joins the pile. As he turns his head to watch the embers snuff he loses the thought he was following through the streets. When he looks back, he’s on another route, one leg swinging heavy with the weight of his boots, the faint taste of memory on his tongue.
The changes are subtle. Each one pushes further a miniscule amount, but over time it happens. His gait changes, his gestures move like smoke. When he pauses, he poses as if for a staged candid. His jacket frames his hips like a tight skirt and grows softer around his shoulders, almost like a blouse. The patterns on his vests are flowery, the colors bright. It’s another costume, but this one is closer to the one he wants people to see. It captures the discordant tone in him and bounces it around, amplifying it over and over. It’s louder than ever, but his teeth don’t hurt anymore. The drone is almost comforting, maybe because he’s not the only one who hears it now. It’s loud enough to show, but not quite obvious enough to draw looks.
It goes smoothly until Artemy Burakh stumbles through his door, bleeding and tired on the day his father is murdered. It’s then that the slow ache in his chest turns back into an acute stab.
He doesn’t show it, of course. He throws up his sardonic grin and welcomes his old friend home. Artemy leaves, the chaos dies down, and then the world starts to end. And on the fifth day Grief coughs something black onto the floor.
He’s barely aware that he’s fallen from his box throne when he hears the door squeak open. Heavy footsteps and the rustle of thick fabric reach him through the preemptive shroud he’s wrapped in. Pain deafens him, and even if his face weren’t covered his eyes would be of little use. He hears his name and feels a shift in gravity as he’s rolled onto his back. It’s Artemy, of course. No one else has business here. Not under these circumstances.
Words are hard to formulate, and harder to get out, but he manages. “Pills didn’t work.”
Artemy doesn’t respond right away. He never does. “Yeah… I can see that.”
“Why are you here anyway?”
“Check ups.” He’s not one for verbose statements. He’s blunt. Sarcastic. And it makes it hard to tell if he’s indifferent or terrified. He moves to pull away the shroud over Grief’s face, reaches his hand into his hood.
“Don’t. You’ll catch it-”
“Call it an occupational hazard.” He pulls the dirty fabric aside. His gloved fingertips brush Grief’s skin, and that acute pain in his chest comes back. For a moment, Grief thinks his heart is failing.
His vision is clouded, but he can make out Artemy’s eyes behind his cloak and medical mask. They’re the same grey-green as they always were, dulled and cold in his backlit face. His brow is drawn, and under his heavy clothes there’s an unmistakable tension. So not indifferent after all.
There’s a distinct shift in his posture as he studies Grief’s face, his paled skin, the patchy dark circles around his bloodshot eyes, the black dust that seems to shimmer on his lips. He touches Grief’s cheek as he looks into his abnormally dilated eyes, feels the head of his forehead even through the sanitary gloves. “Grief-”
“I get the picture,” Grief interrupts him. He’s shaking now, or maybe he was always shaking. The pain makes it hard to feel.
“No, I…” Artemy holds the thought like he’s about to tip over a cliff, then he reaches into his pocket and draws out a small box. Grief eyes it.
“Is that… you can’t be serious.” He laughs weakly, and more dust sticks to his lips. It seems the stupidity of desperation extends to even the most level-headed of them.
By the way his eyes shift, Grief can tell that Artemy is frowning under his mask. “It’s the best I have. At least if it doesn’t work we know for sure.”
Grief looks at the ceiling before closing his eyes. Maybe desperation is too hopeful a word. Desperate - and for him? It’s just experimentation. His heart is fluttering with his spasms. He doubts he can handle whatever is in that shmowder.
Artemy lets the powder dissolve in a bottle of water. The mixture is cloudy and grey, and swirls like the black clouds that roam the infected streets. He tilts Grief into a sitting position and holds the bottle to his lips. Grief drinks. It burns as it goes down, spicy and bitter at once. Nothing happens at first, and Artemy doesn’t lay Grief back down. He slips the empty bottle into his pocket and lays his now free arm across Grief’s chest. It's a confusing gesture. Sand Pest is an opportunistic predator. By now it must have latched to his clothes, even through the coarse shroud. Artemy shouldn't be touching him. However, Grief does not protest. Part of it is the very real possibility that this moment will be his last. Part of it is the sharp pin in his chest that holds his throat closed.
And part of it is the burn that seeps out through the walls of his stomach. The shmowder is a purifying blaze of light that tears his insides to shreds. He twists in Artemy’s arms, bends in half and chokes on a disharmonious chord. Artemy grips him tighter in an attempt to keep him from hurting himself in his convulsions. His shroud unravels beneath Artemy’s fingers and dust pours from him, followed by fire. It snakes up Artemy’s arms and licks at the edge of his cloak in the form of blinding white spots in Grief’s vision. The plague dissipates at its touch. His sight sharpens for an instant, then goes black. The burn is distant, and he can feel something drip down his chin. The air has been squeezed from his lungs. He can’t find the strength to relax his diaphragm and breathe. His heartbeat is off-kilter and weak but it pounds though his ears loud enough to almost drown out Artemy’s voice.
The warehouse shifts back into focus painfully slowly. His body is on pins and needles, leaned forward against Artemy’s arm. They’re tangled together on the wood floor. His ears ring, and over it, Artemy is still shouting his name like a broken record.
“Grief? Grief!”
“Artemy.” The flat word drools out of his seared throat. Artemy sighs in relief.
“Oh, good. I thought- that was…”
“Terrible.”
“A more violent reaction than I expected.”
Grief lifts his head and raises an eyebrow at Artemy.
“I did work, right?”
Grief’s head again falls in exhaustion. He laughs quietly and shakes his head. His heart still races, and a cold sweat has broken across his skin. A plethora of drugs is running in his system and he’s woozy off it. The parallel boxes skew, he can’t quite think straight.
Then Artemy’s hand is tilting his face back up. It’s running across his chin and wiping black spit from his face. It holds his face firm as the other once again pulls his skin so Artemy can check his eyes. Color is already returning to his cheeks, the dark circles are fading. A tic of a smile strikes Artemy’s eyes, then fades. “I think you’re clean. We’ll have to wait and see, though. It might have just killed the symptoms.”
It’s only when Artemy draws away that Grief realizes how close they’d been.
Artemy helps Grief to his feet. He’s wobbly, but after a second he can stand on his own. Artemy adjusts his gloves. “I have to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He reaches in his pocket for another cure, and hands Grief a bottle of bubbly orange liquid stopped with a cork. “If you need a painkiller.”
Grief looks at the bottle. It’s strangely warm. “Just like that, huh?”
It gives Artemy pause. He stays quiet just a bit longer than usual, and his hand freezes between them. There it stays, calculating a course, then it slowly falls to Grief’s shoulder. “Just… get some rest, alright? I will be back."
It’s Grief’s turn to pause before responding. “Yeah.”
Artemy nods. He lingers for a moment, like he has something more to do, but then he turns and walks out the door. Grief waits for the warmth of the bottle to seep into his skin and fade away before he sways back to his room and collapses on the cheap mattress.
Artemy does indeed come back, and when he does he asks Grief for dynamite. The skilled surgeon, the man who would fancy himself a savior, wants to blow up a train track to stop an Inquisition. Maybe Grief had been right the first time. Maybe there is desperation in him.
He lies, of course, to ease Artemy's nerves. But when he leaves he's not sure what to do next. In the end he decides to follow through with his offer - without the explosives. Knowing Artmey it wouldn't be impossible he'd walk the tracks forever in his stubbornness. They meet at midnight far from the Town. There's no dynamite. Instead there's a fire, taller than both of them and twice as bright as the stars above. When he realizes he's been duped, Artemy is annoyed. He rolls his eyes and grinds his teeth, a gesture that Grief knows is familiar, but there's no clear picture in his mind of when he's done it before.
But the annoyance doesn't last long. He's too smart - and too tired - to stay mad. It was a stupid idea. He sees that, at least in part, and he begrudgingly stays to watch the fire. Grief sits on a wooden chair, Artemy sits on the ground, his repellant clothes shirked. His face is harsh in the firelight. His eyes are that same cold grey. The only sounds are those of the Steppe, the buzzing and rustling of twyre. Grief swears he can hear a groan in the earth itself, but when he tries to place it, it fades. It runs from his conscious mind deliberately.
There's suddenly something touching his leg. He looks down to see Artemy's mop of sandy hair. He's asleep, slumped against Grief and his chair. His features have softened, but exhaustion still clings to his eyes. Grief feels sleep trying to take him too, but the fire burns his retinas awake. He watches the warm light shimmer up and down Artemy's hair, perfect and golden. His hand hovers above the glowing threads, and he wonders if they'll burn him, close to the color of fire as they are. Even so, he lowers his hand the last millimeter. Strands catch on his fingerprints, held only for a moment before the soft wind sweeps them out from under him.
And to his surprise, they do burn. It's a warning to stop. He's going to take it too far. He's going brush his whole hand through Artemy's hair and he won't be able to take it back. Take what back? He can't place it. He just feels the heat on his fingers and the pain in his chest and he pulls his hand away.
The light can only keep him awake for so long. His eyelids grow heavy, his head begins to bob, and he falls asleep.
They wake up when the fire collapses. The wooden tower caves, spewing ash into the twyre-heavy air. The flames are weak, smothered under themselves. Artemy straightens out. He passes a hand over his eyes and looks between Grief and the fire with a short hum of sleepiness.
It’s over then. The fire is almost out, and they both spent the last hours sleeping. Grief doesn’t know why Artemy stayed. The ground couldn’t have possibly been more comfortable than whatever he had in that lair of his, and his hope for dynamite had been rudely denied. But he’d stayed. And now Grief doesn’t want him to leave. He doesn’t want the fire to die out.
Artemy is put off-balance when Grief pulls the chair to the side. Grief tilts it onto two legs, and brings his heel down on the end of airborne ones. They snap off easily, and he throws them on the flames. The other legs go, then the back, then he’s snapping the seat apart. The wood burns differently. The smoke goes dark with chemical finish, but the flames rise again, even if only for a small while.
Grief goes to sit on the chair he just smashed to pieces, and falls on his ass. This gets a short laugh out of Artemy. Grief lays on his back for a moment before he sits back up. The tall grass hides his earnest smirk. When he rises, he’s put on an annoyed frown. From here, he has to tilt his head quite a bit to look Artemy in the eye. He’s short. It’s not as obvious when he practically lays on his box throne, but now it’s glaring. It hadn’t always been this way. Grief had been embarrassingly tall as a child, but he’d stopped growing early while everyone else rocketed past him. He would never admit it, but he’s still a little miffed.
“Nice one,” Artemy says.
“Thanks,” Grief replies. He slouches forward, resting an elbow on his leg and his chin on his hand. They both have their legs crossed, and their pants brush against each other.
The whole chair is alight now. The smoke blows down the tracks and disappears. “I missed you.”
Grief’s eyebrows raise for a second. His breath catches, then his face goes back to his usual smile. “Really?” He leans into the word, genuine surprise dripping with sarcasm.
Artemy looks down at him. He pauses. “Yeah. I missed all of you. All of this.” His fingers wander up is own sleeves. “It’s strange. A lot of it feels different, even though it’s what I grew up with. But some of it doesn’t.”
Grief tilts his head, moves his hand from his chin to his cheek. “Do I?”
“Would it be rude to say ‘of course’?”
Grief’s smile twitches into something more somber. “Maybe. But I could say the same about you.”
Artemy gives him a questioning look.
“You got taller.”
Artemy narrows his eyes at him in confusion. Grief laughs.
“That was a joke.”
“Right.”
The air is heavy, and their silence sinks in it. It pools out from them, and even the buzzing twyre seems to quiet for their sake. Sparks lift from the fire, indistinguishable from the stars on the horizon.
“I never wanted a wife.”
This time, Grief can’t mask his surprise. His eyes are wide as he once again turns his head in Artemy’s direction. His mouth hangs open for a moment as he falters with his lines. “Uh huh?”
Artemy holds his gaze for a good second before looking back at the fire. “I… was just thinking about it.” His hands are all the way in his sleeves now, joining them in one continuous tube.
Grief says nothing. For once, he’s not sure what dialogue comes next. He closes his mouth and continues to look at Artemy, waiting.
Artemy glances at him from the corner of his eye. “I’ve just never really wanted it. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with a woman. But I also don’t think I know what love is supposed to feel like.” He pulls the ends of his sleeves into each other like a cloth ouroboros. “I also don’t know if it’s disinterest, or preoccupation, or if I want… something else.” He shrugs. “I was just thinking about it. I thought… wanted to get it off my chest, I guess.”
Grief blinks. He straightens his back and shakes his head. “Shit, Cub, that’s my line.”
“...What do you mean?”
Grief continues to shake his head. He takes in the heavy air, breathes out. “I wear women’s underwear.”
Artemy's hands go still. "And… what does that…?"
"I don't know either."
And they both fall silent. It feels cheap. Both of them shared something so deep-rooted and terrifying only to turn around and grace it with a shrug. They're out here because Artemy thought a blown tack could stop an Inquisitor. They stayed because Grief is clinging to him in all the wrong ways. They're both desperate.
Grief sighs, and a smile plays at his face again, this one real. "Maybe we didn't change much after all."
The fire shifts again, but it doesn't go out. Artemy removes his hands from his sleeves and places them on his knees. His fingers are mere millimeters from inadvertently touching Grief's leg. "I missed you."
He says it with a feeling that comes from his very core. Each word feels like it's italicized and bold. Grief looks away from the fire and meets Artemy's cold eyes again. Time ceases. The drone of the earth rises and when the ache in his chest comes this time Grief can finally place it. He understands why it was regret he felt when he last waited for a train.
Wordlessly, he closes the distance between them, and Artemy follows suit, wrapping him in a gentle embrace. The fabric of his clothes is rough. It scratches his face and fingers, makes him itch. But he keeps his arms wrapped around Artemy's broad chest. He can hear phlegm rattle in his lungs, and as he shifts his head from Artemy's chest to his shoulder, he can feel his racing pulse against his cheek. His skin is warm. Grief turns his head. His nose is jammed into Artemy's collar, and then he moves up, slowly. Stubble catches on the tip of his nose, ghosts across his lips. He's so close - too close - close in a way he's never been before. One last bout of ache invades him, spreading through his whole body where he and Artemy touch, setting his face on fire. It's almost too much. His stomach lurches and he thinks he should stop, but he's already there. The infinitesimal space between them vanishes and Grief kisses Artemy's cheek, just below the harsh bone. His heart pounds. His fingers close tighter around the rough fabric. Artemy's hands leave his back, and for a second Grief's blood turns to ice. He pulls back. But Artemy holds him, cradles his face in his palms and shifts his head left. They're face to face now, and there's a second of breathless tension before their lips meet.
Artemy doesn't know how to kiss, and it's obvious. But it's genuine. It's caste and gentle. It's something Grief is blindsided by, and it's as if every other person he's ever kissed is stricken from the record. Artemy doesn't know how to kiss, but Grief doesn't know how to kiss like this .
They break. They linger for a moment with their faces close. So close their noses touch and they can feel each other's breath on their lips. Grief had been kneeling, and he leans back to sit on his heels. His heart is pounding. His hand is shaking. He hasn't been this scared in a long time. Even when he was sick he knew what was coming. This is uncertain. He wants it so bad it hurts, but taking it might hurt worse than its absence.
"There's a plague," he says, barely above a whisper.
"Not for much longer." His reply is immediate, none of the usual thought. "I know how to make a panacea, I just need to figure out how to make enough."
That… he didn't think to mention that? Grief laughs, then buries his face in his hands. "Oh, good! And right after you shoved that shmowder down my throat. You couldn't have made it quicker?"
Artemy frowns. "I'm sorry."
"No, no," Grief sighs. "You didn't do anything wrong… aside from being a bad kisser."
"I can fix that. I learn fast."
Grief lifts his face from his hands and stares at Artemy, incredulous. Artemy's expression is set, but the small shifts of his jaw betray his nerves as he grinds his teeth. His hand lays palm up on his knee. Grief shakes his head, reaches for his upturned hand. "You're killing me here, Cub."
He can't bring himself to look Artemy in the eye. Instead he watches their hands twist in slow motion, fumbling around each other for what seems like forever until their fingers slot between each other. He wishes he wasn't wearing his fingerless gloves. Artemy tightens his grip. "I don't know what this is," he says. "But I really liked kissing you."
He can't believe it. Bad Grief: criminal genius, rendered speechless by a dozen words and a single kiss. He keeps shaking his head, squeezes Artemy's hand back. "Oh, you're killing me."
He wants to come clean, to pour a soliloquy into the heavy air. He wants to spill his guts, but they're not the kind that heal. His tongue is tied, his throat is choked and there's a pin holding down his chest. There's no script for this. So he frees his hand and leans in once more. He wraps his arms around Artemy's chest and pushes him down. The steppe grass rises above them, and the buzz of the twyre seems muffled against the earth. He feels Artemy's fingers press against his spine, between his ribs in a way that makes him feel like he could simply fall apart. His heart still aches, but now it's the burn of stretching an unused muscle.
He can live with that.
They hold each other like that, tangled together in the dirt and grass. The earth below them shudders, but they can’t hear it through the hair and arms and heavy cotton, the pounding heartbeats, the utter stillness of the air. Cloth is rough against his fingers. The fire goes out. They wait for the train to come.