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However much he looks out of place, it is nothing compared to how much he feels . The leather of his gloves squeaks against the handles of his bag. That he even brought the damn thing is probably telling more than he wants: Daniil Dankovsky is vulnerable here, uncertain. He needs an item of comfort to hold him steady in the wide, empty Steppe.
He swallows, lip between his teeth. It occurs to him that this entire thing could be someone’s idea of a rather unfunny joke, but he doesn’t want to believe Burakh would be that sort of person.
“I didn’t think you would come, oynon.” Daniil can’t tell which direction the voice is coming from, spinning on his heel and nearly stumbling. His cheeks ache from the flush that colors them, embarrassed despite his only audience being Artemiy. When Artemiy smiles, Daniil feels the fabric of his collar cling to the sweat on his neck, stifling him despite the crispness of the air. Artemiy has plenty of reason to laugh at him, and Daniil should let him. “But I am glad that you did.”
Daniil attempts to clear his throat, just to have some form of balance back. “Yes, well. Here I am.” His heart flutters, and he looks at the vast emptiness around him. He is reminded, intrusively, of lightning.
It must be frightening to watch a storm out here.
It takes Daniil a moment to remember himself. Artemiy should be speaking, he thinks, or making some kind of noise so that Daniil knows he is real and he is there. He startles, and turns suddenly, expecting to be confronted with an empty space.
But he's not. Artemiy is only a few steps away from him, looking with amusement at Daniil's bag. "Do you bring that with you everywhere?" he asks.
He feels silly now. "Yes."
His head tilts. His jaw moves, as if suddenly remembering to unclench it. "I don't think the herbs need your medical attention," he says. "Unless you've brought gardening tools to accompany your sudden interest in botany?"
Daniil can hear the silence ringing in his ears. Somehow his lips feel wet. He must be licking them again, trying not to bite down. "It feels strange not to have something in hand after -"
His chest won't let him finish, but Artemiy nods in understanding. His face goes taught for a minute, teeth grinding. "I still check my letters every day," he says softly. Daniil knows; he does too. It's why they're out here, or part of it, anyway. Artemiy had seen him at the Stillwater, eyes sore and hair unwashed, and told him he needed to get out of the house for his own health. Daniil had not wanted to go alone.
More importantly, Daniil wanted to learn the Steppe. To understand a thing, to demystify it, is to no longer fear it.
Artemiy does not motion for Daniil to follow him, but the doctor does anyway, keeping right behind him as they move through the grass. The golden is a lovely shade, he thinks, to try and calm his mind. But more than once his eyes have started to blur the shade of the grass with the color of Artemiy's clothes, and Daniil has had to look up from the man's legs to his head to make sure he was still there, that Daniil has not just been dreaming.
Though everything with his current companion feels dreamlike and hazy. He knows it's not just the Twyre.
He's not sure he understands why Artemiy is leading them out as far as they are. Unsure, really, if they are so far out of the way, or if it's just the panicked trappings of an anxious mind. But he seems to have picked a place now, and Daniil has to stop short not to fall into him.
(He does, anyway.)
Artemiy sits, and Daniil follows, angling himself so that he can see the man's face in partial view without losing too much of the contact from their knees. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out dried herbs and a knife. Daniil takes a small notebook and pencil from his bag, balancing them on his leg.
For a moment, neither man says anything. Daniil breathes, counting the seconds between inhale and exhale, and loses himself for a minute. He looks up at Artemiy when he feels he's ready, and finds the other's expression unreadable. He's never been good with subtle cues.
The moment passes when Artemiy's eyes soften, his lips pulling into a small smile.
He starts to talk.
Swevery. Blood twyre. Black twyre. Brown twyre. White whip. There are other flowers and grasses out on the Steppe, but they don't seem to be of interest to Artemiy today. Daniil won't remember half of the thing's he's been told, and he doesn't intend to. He will take a thousand mid-mornings like this if he can get them, listening to Artemiy's even tone and the stillness of the Steppe around them. Daniil seeks out knowledge, blankets himself in learning as a method of coping, but it's not the memory he needs. The longer he is out on the Steppe, he figures, the more accustomed to it he becomes.
Except that when he lifts his head, remembers where he is - that it's not just him and Artemiy, but an immeasurable distance of grass and plantlife -
He feels the sun in his cheeks, throat drumming with a barely restrained plea for help. The sweat condenses on his hairline. He forgets Artemiy is there at all.
"Daniil," Artemiy calls. It doesn't fully break him, but his attention swings back. He watches the world swing with it. He doesn't say, You are not paying attention , though that much is obvious. His pointer finger pushes into Daniil's knee to hold his focus, and he seems to be measuring him. "What are you thinking about?"
He finds it surprising that Artemiy does not ask the obvious question, though maybe that shouldn't surprise him anymore. Perhaps it doesn’t matter to him why they’re here, what Daniil hopes to gain from this or why, if this was necessary, they couldn’t have commenced with this lesson in Artemiy’s lab.
Perhaps he already knows all those reasons why. "I'm not sure where I belong anymore," Daniil admits. He shakes with his sigh. He hopes it doesn't show. "I suppose I have to head back at some point - to speak with the Powers That Be, if nothing else. Let my colleagues in the Capital know I'm still alive. But..."
He's aware now, skin arising in bumps, that Artemiy is watching him very closely. It doesn't feel in judgment, but there's an intent behind it Daniil is scared to touch. When he doesn't continue to talk, Artemiy leans in, prompting. "You wouldn't stay?"
Daniil shakes his head. He's starting to feel uncomfortable, examined. Maybe that's part of the point, part of the exercise, the entire experiment: to let himself be open, less guarded. He's lived most of his life inside of a self-contained bubble. Stepping foot in the Town ruptured it, deafening him. But even when he was made to rely on others, to accept things he'd always railed against, he still kept something of it up. An acrid tone. A dismissive air. Anything, anything at all to keep people away.
He feels very small now. It's a different smallness to what he feels in the Capital, where he's surrounded by so many strangers equally as disinterested. This place makes him feel so acutely aware of himself and everything around him. Less caged in. Less secure.
But now that he's had it, he doesn't know what he'd do without it. "I've changed," he says. He's not sure if he's telling Artemiy so much as just stating the words aloud. "I could never be comfortable again. This town has changed me, and no one in the Capital would understand."
He gets the feeling - as if from the ground, where he is connected to it, a thrumming between them - that Artemiy wants to talk next. He looks over, and tries to keep his heart in place.
Artemiy is looking just as he imagined: observant, unreserved, but without judgment. "No. The town has not changed you. But you have changed; you changed yourself to fit a circumstance. It's nothing to be ashamed of if you..." The pause isn't like him. He averts his eyes. Daniil takes the moment of solitude to admire the cut of his jaw more openly, the disordered state of his hair, the natural cast of shadows under his lashes.
He feels something in his chest, and he tries not to touch it. He tries not to smother it.
"Do you like yourself better now?" Artemiy asks. It stabs. Daniil feels like curling in, getting caught this way. His heart rate slows after a few seconds pass without Artemiy noticing.
His eyes flutter shut for a moment, but he can't keep them that way. He feels like he's falling. "I don't know. I don't know." Everything in his chest stutters at once. "I don't know that I've ever been at peace with myself -"
"Do you think you could be, here?" Artemiy sounds closer, but Daniil can't feel him near. His defenses are trying to build themselves up again, and he's frantically trying to smash them down.
"I don't know what I would do with myself alone, Artemiy," he says. "I'm alone in the city, but I didn't know - until now - I'm so alone. Going back might shatter me. But what would I do with that loneliness here ? There's nothing to cover it..."
He feels Artemiy now, feels him as he settles next to him. There's a heat they share between their arms along the lines where they touch. And Daniil has never craved for a touch before, not like this.
"The Steppe might eat me," he continues. There's a horror in his stomach that he can't get his mouth to stop. "I might run and lose my way."
"Then don't go without a guide," Artemiy says flatly. But Daniil can't feel any humor. He feels rapid deterioration. He feels seconds from death. He feels chased with no end in sight, and eventually he will be caught up with and devoured whole. And it feels suddenly like Artemiy is laughing at him, like everyone is. "Oynon? Are you crying?"
At least his voice isn't laughing now. "I don't know where I'll go," Daniil says. The heat in his arm comes and goes. In his head he is pulling his legs to his chest, though his body hasn't moved at all. "I don't belong anywhere anymore. And it is a terrible option, to be both lonely and alone."
And suddenly, he is covered. Sheltered. There's a presence at his back, leaning against him. Artemiy's hands come from behind him, and take Daniil's right hand into their grasp. He removes Daniil's glove, and slides his fingers through the empty spaces. He sets their hands down to the soil and bends his fingers into Daniil's palm.
Daniil digs his into dirt. It's like he's never felt it before.
"You are neither, Daniil,” he says. “I am here with you."
With his back against Artemiy’s chest, Daniil can feel him breathe, and breathes alongside him. His existence starts to work out of synch: his body relaxes into Artemiy’s posture, but his heart stutters at the brush of Artemiy’s thumb across his. He feels held, feels home, feels the Earth under his nails. Yet, he feels electricity under it all, mind buzzing at the touch, the scent of the grass and dried blood on Artemiy’s clothes and the sound of the Steppe humming around them.
He tastes a sweetness he can’t define in the back of his throat. A little escapes with every exhale, but his lungs return with it each breath.
He thinks he’ll stay.