Chapter Text
It should be a point of some contentious embarrassment that Daniil Dankovsky passes out in the hospital. He’s not particularly squeamish, but it probably doesn’t look good for him to simply give in to exhaustion like that. Usually he’s at his desk when sleep overcomes him, but the nearest he can guess is that he must have been trying to work out a way for the large but ultimately useless space to be a little more accommodating of their current needs, and that it’s a good thing he wasn’t too close to the railing when he slumped over. That would have been nasty.
What wakes him up isn’t the crick in his neck from how he slept or the lack of circulation in his hands the fact that he fell asleep still fully clothed or even the migraine making his head throb. No; he’s startled to wakefulness by the door swinging open and the sound of Rubin, louder than he’s heard him all weak, practically shouting, “You must be joking.”
“You know, you really don’t have to shout,” Burakh grumbles. Daniil groans to himself as he tries to flex and curl his fingers. It only dawns on him slowly where he is and what must have happened, and he’s happy to be up on the second floor where he can’t be stumbled upon or over by his company. “The whole neighborhood doesn’t need to hear you.”
“Oh, no, everyone is going to hear about it, sooner or later,” Rubin replies. There’s a horrible scraping as one of the two of them pulls out the old chair by the desk, and Daniil takes the moment of too-loud sound to cover the wince as he tries to push himself upright using limbs he can’t feel. Hell, even back in university, this was a bad idea - “You know how people around here gossip,” he continues. “And you’ve never been one to lie, you’re far too…oppositional.”
“Look who’s talking.” His fingers are slowly gaining feeling, now only if he can work that feeling down into his boots… “Want to accuse me again of patricide? You’re the only one who believes it.” Rubin snorts, but if he’s about to say something, Burakh cuts him off. “And don’t say Saburov backed you up on this. We all know his reasons why, and it’s not because it’s the truth. Even the outsiders -”
“Forgive me if I don’t take that fop’s beliefs too seriously, or the girl’s. Even I have my limits.” Daniil frowns at his feet as he wiggles them back and forth, trying to work feeling back into them. He’d thought he and Rubin had been getting along. He guesses he can confront him about it, whenever he manages to work his way downstairs. And he hopes it won’t take him too long, he does love to see the looks on peoples’ faces when they get caught like this. “I’m not one of your lot -”
“There you go again with that, the ‘us’ versus ‘them’. You really don’t see us as human, do you?” There’s another thing he could have a chat with Rubin about, maybe even a bit of guilt-tripping. Perhaps it would work better on him than it had on Burakh, and for much better reasons. “You and Gravel, even Grief. The Bachelor I could understand -”
“Yeah, only because you’re in love with him!”
Daniil does a quick intake of breath. Not quite a gasp, not noisy enough - and good thing, too, though it would have been covered by the sound of a smack, a hand on leather, he thinks. “Shut up. Shut up!” he hears Burakh hiss, and a sound that he thinks is poorly-suppressed laughter follows. “Knock it off!”
He’d been about ready to stand up and head downstairs, but now he doesn’t think he can. Whatever he’s just walked into is a hell of a lot more than he came in prepared to handle. “Tough luck, Cub,” Rubin says. “This is what you sign up for with him. Seriously, you have the strangest taste in romantic partners. I almost feel sorry for you.”
“Why did I even tell you?” This is the closest he’s ever heard Burakh’s voice to a whine, so he guesses this conversation isn’t meant entirely sarcastically.
“I don’t know, Cub, why did you tell me?”
“I guess I missed being able to confide in my friends,” he says dryly. “I missed having people I can count on, but now I see that was a mistake. I should have just told somebody trustworthy, like Sticky.”
“Where is your husband, anyway?” Rubin just goes on as if he hasn’t heard. “Shouldn’t he be here by now, telling us what to do and quoting some proverb in Latin?” He does something silly with his voice when he adds, “Making you swoon?”
“I am going to kill you,” Burakh says. There’s a pause before he says, “You’re right, he should be here by now. I’m going to look for him - but tonight, when all our daily tasks are over -” Daniil can hear his footsteps getting closer to the door, Burakh finishing with, “You’re dead” before they open and close again as he goes out to look for Daniil.
Upstairs in the theatre, Daniil exhales, finally pushing himself up. “Right,” he mumbles to himself, leaning against the wall. His neck still aches, rolling his head to try and work out the pain. It helps that he’s got something to keep him going today, even when the new aches and disappointments start to set in. He turns and heads back to the staircase. As he’s going down it, Rubin’s coming up, forcing them both to stop and look at each other for a moment.
Daniil smirks as Rubin’s mind catches up. “Shit,” he says. So he does care about Artemy after all, Daniil thinks.
But what he says is, “Rubin. I think you remember our arrangement on the first day?”