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Every morning that Artemiy wakes up after Daniil has returned to the Capital, it’s with an ache in his chest that he takes too long to swallow down. He hears his father’s voice in his head, sometimes, asking him if he’s started to savor the feeling of melancholy. Someone else in his head, more taunting, tells him that this is what it is to belong to other people. Daniil left, and took a piece of Artemiy with him.
When Artemiy dies, he will take pieces of the children with him.
He lets a sigh escape, fingers resting on his stomach curling into the palm. He remembers the feeling of a smaller, colder hand beneath his, digging into the soil together until their nails came up brown.
His chest aches differently this time, like he’s taken too big a breath and ruptured something. His heart flutters with it, the way leaves in the wind do. His cheeks grow hot. He thinks to himself that he might have missed a greater opportunity, a chance to hold the other man’s hand more often, in contexts not scientific or therapeutic in nature. Not that he’s sure how he would have invented it, or how he would have asked if he’d tried to be straightforward. That last evening was perfect, had felt natural.
And now, Artemiy wonders if Daniil left any piece of himself with Artemiy.
Artemiy had seen Daniil off at the station two days ago, and something had felt uneven in their parting, as if they both had things they wanted to say but were refraining. Of all the kids, Sticky seemed the most upset at his leaving. Capella looked like she was seeing something she wouldn’t describe, and held her tone just out of reach.
They shook hands. Artemiy didn’t hold the grasp for longer than a moment, and tried not to focus on the way it felt to have Daniil’s fingers wrapped around the back of his hand. It would have felt too much like sticking his hand in a fire. A month was more than enough time to tend the wounds, yet Artemiy let it develop a scab.
It is two days later, and he receives a letter from Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine.
Artemiy,
You had asked for me to send letter and let you know that I had arrived safely. Well, I have; though, there is no place for me to go from here. I suppose I am writing this letter as procrastination; I still have not determined what I’m to tell the Powers That Be, or the colleagues I’ve left behind, when I find them.
In the meantime...I thought I might get something for the children, and send it to them. Do you think that would be okay? I have vague ideas for Sticky, Notkin, and Grace, but haven’t the faintest clue what Murky, Capella, or Khan might like. Any ideas would be welcome.
Affectionately,
Daniil Dankovsky
The word ‘affectionately’ sticks in his chest, at the top near his throat. Habit clings to the desire to clear it, but he worries about the palpitations. He doesn’t realize he’s carrying it so clearly until Khan pokes at his side in the midst of a card game. “You’re not paying attention,” he says. Notkin looks away with a smirk.
Well. He’s ideas for Murky and Capella, but the third is right here. “What do you want from the Capital?” he asks.
And Khan blinks at him, confusion coming over his face. “Why, are you going? To visit the doctor, maybe?” Artemiy hears someone giggling softly. He wishes he could hide his face. “I can’t think of anything in particular I’d want from there. I don’t know about it. What do people do in the Capital, for fun?”
“I was there for school, so I think it’s different,” Artemiy says. “And I’m not going. I don’t have any reason to. I was just curious.”
They don’t buy the excuse. None of them do, and it spreads through the town like spilled water, children following at Artemiy’s heels. “Tell Uncle Bachelor to bring us back candy,” most of them say, while the teenagers shake their heads. The boys, he knows, would ask for razors and knives, anything sharp and illegal in this town. He doesn’t explain that Daniil can’t possibly send everything, but it’s a head start on a letter that’s taken him too long to write out.
Artemiy,
So Khan is interested in visiting the Capital? I’m sure that can be arranged. Even with things being...well, the way they turned out - I’m sure his father can work something out. Perhaps if they go together, it’ll bring them closer together. I know it must seem strange that I still care for them, and I know that you have made it your duty to adopt half the children in Town, but I do believe Victor loves his son, and I hope they can reconcile. In the meantime, I’ll try and figure out what it is children do here for fun. Or maybe I’ll just bring back bags of nuts from around here. I still don’t understand it, but whatever keeps them happy, I suppose!
I go to speak to the Powers That Be today. I can’t put it off any longer. I was hoping that Aglaya had been lying about the state of my laboratory, just pushing my buttons to see what I would do or something, but no. It is gone. There are nasty marks on the ground where it used to be. They could have paved over it or something in the time I’ve been gone, but I rather think they left it there for me to find. I’ve found a few of my colleagues from Thanatica - ah, but I won’t tell you who, in case this letter is monitored. Hopefully you won’t come to know them. But I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?
This letter will find you too late for all the wishing in the world to do me any good, but still… Wish me luck?
Apprehensively,
Daniil Dankovsky
He hates it when Daniil sends him letters like this. He’s always hated it. It’s better than not receiving a note from him at all, but Dankovsky has a tendency to run a little melodramatic, leaving Artemiy filled with crackling anxiety. There’s nothing he can do from here to save the man, least of all from himself - and it seems that most times, Daniil’s biggest enemy is Daniil.
Not that the Powers That Be don’t worry him. He knows that the threat was real, to Daniil and Aglaya and Block, and he’d assumed at first that Daniil had stayed in Town as long as he did to avoid execution. He would have been happy to let him stay and avoid it forever, but…
Artemiy’s fingers move along the cutting board absentmindedly, sweeping the vegetables into the bowl. This is what he’s been thinking about all day, and it’s been obvious. The children have all pointed and giggled. Sicky was bold enough to ask what exactly Daniil said in his letter, but Artemiy only shook his head and pretended the contents were more affectionate than they were. Better that they think there’s more between the two of them, than know the doctor is in trouble. Sticky especially wouldn’t handle it well; Artemiy’s ward or not, it was clear he cared about Daniil well.
Capella had stared at him, frowning, just to let him know she had seen and understood his distress. He was tempted to ask her just how far her sight could reach, if she’d seen or even felt something about Daniil’s fate. He’s not sure what held him back more from stopping her before she left for the evening: his shame at asking something so selfish, or his fear that the answer was something he wouldn’t want to know.
He hopes tomorrow will bring another letter telling him everything is fine, but he paces that evening for two hours before he finally decides, regardless, that he’ll kick himself if he doesn’t send something . He’s always been better about doing things - how had Daniil said it? Acta non verba? But that was no excuse for not trying. Daniil, after all, had tried for him .
There are two long, agonizing days before he hears from Daniil again. When the first day comes, and then starts to go, Artemiy is struck with a panic he can’t shake, staring at the setting sun. He thinks about the last evening he spent with Dankovsky, watching night sweep over the steppe. He was angry, then, that Daniil hadn’t told him sooner he was leaving. Angry at himself, mostly, because he should have known the man wouldn’t stay forever. He said so many weeks ago that he’d have to return to the Capital and at least see if it all was true, learn what his fate was to be. Artemiy doubts there’s anything he could have said that would have definitively changed his mind, but he should have at least tried. Had he learned nothing during those days when the Sand Pest knocked down their doors? There was every chance now that Dankovsky was gone, and Artemiy would never get to tell him how much their time together had meant to him.
Notkin had found him, standing on the train tracks, staring at nothing, and shaken him out of it. He couldn’t remember where he was headed to when he got so overwhelmed, but Notkin led him back to the house and put a finger up to his mouth to keep Sticky from talking.
The second day, he kept biting at his nerves to get Capella to check for him. It just wasn’t in the cards. Wherever she was, she was busy, and he tried not to take it as some sort of omen. He went through the day quietly, and avoided looking at the sun at all, closing his eyes all through its set.
When the messenger receives the letter from Dankovsky, they run so fast at him that for a moment Artemiy thinks the child is going to launch himself into Artemiy’s arms. And it’s a good thing he doesn’t, for how much his arms are shaking as he opens the letter.
Artemiy,
My dearest friend, you have startled me! Your last letter was quite a bit longer than your usual - though I shall say, this is no complaint, I find myself flattered - but I confess I was distraught, at first, by your wording. ‘You had better not make me meet anyone else from the Capital’ - I wasn’t sure what I had done to offend you so, and had to wrack my brain to remember what it is I last wrote you about. And then, I had to find the time to respond properly. I am, as you can probably surmise, not dead. Though it’s not for lack of trying! The Powers That Be were...well, hot and cold. Very cross at my avoidance, but they haven’t revealed any future plans for me. My execution has been stayed, I hope indefinitely, though it won’t surprise me if my punishment is all determined by how well I do their busywork.
Oh, it is hell here! Last evening I watch the sun set from my apartment window and was overcome with such a sense of longing. I used to miss the sound of the city under my window, and if I am exiled I suppose I shall miss it once more, but all those colors...they aren’t as beautiful from a window as they are with you on the steppe. They feel so much farther away, as if the sun is forever out of reach. I felt so lonesome I nearly wept.
I say, ‘Nearly’... Well, when I got your letter the other day, I was comforted. Somewhat, at least. It’s not as if your letter permits me leave, or cures my aching heart, but it does me some good to know that my presence will be missed somewhere, someday, when I am truly no longer around. We can hope for my colleagues’ sakes as well as yours that the day doesn’t come too soon.
Forgive me if this all a little too melancholy. There are things I must explain, but I have yet to find the words - or find the time to write them down. You needn’t respond to this letter, if you find it is too much. Just know that I am thinking of you, always.
Fondly,
Daniil Dankovsky
Artemiy’s sigh comes out as a shudder when he finally lets go of the breath he had been holding in. His mind has determined to respond, and his hands feel the energy, but his brain echoes a ringing silence that fades into the word always before it dissipates.
He wakes up thinking it, too. Always . He’s never been somebody’s always, yet that’s exactly what the last few months have given him: a family. Always . Not just whatever Dankovsky had in mind, but this town, his Bound, his children. Always .
“So I take it the Bachelor is doing well?” It’s Sticky that teases him, and he hears the rest giggle, but all he does is ruffle his hair. “He’s doing fine,” Artemiy replies. “Wants you to eat your vegetables and go to bed on time.”
“I don’t think he said that,” Sticky argues. He makes a short and unserious attempt to get out from under Artemiy’s hand before pouting. “He probably does think that, though.” Artemiy gets a half-second of rest before he asks, “Are you going to go and visit him? In the Capital, I mean?”
For a minute, Artemiy completely forgets what he is doing. Washing dishes, he thinks to himself. If he thinks the words enough, perhaps his hands will just carry one with what they were doing. But his heart is hammering, and he looks to Sticky, thinking of what to say. It occurs to him, very briefly, that he could tell the boy off for invasion of privacy. But what good would that do? This here is his family. This is what he sacrificed for, what he spilled rivers of blood for. “Do you think that I should?”
Capella, at the table drawing pictures with Murky, speaks up. “I think you’ll know what to do soon enough.”
Daniil sends a couple of postcards that come all on the same day. They’re all images of the city he once again inhabits, with run-on facts and details in cramped script on the back. They’re delightfully him, but not very personal. And not for the first time, Artemiy wonders if he messed something up.
It’s only a day later that he receives a normal letter in the mail, though the handwriting has gone sideways to some degree.
Artemiy,
Teaching. That’s what it is they expect from me. Teaching! Small lectures I can do, in specialized areas, but an introductory biology course? Clearly they are attempting to drive me mad. And they may very well succeed.
I brought up the idea of an exile to them. They laughed at me. They asked me where I would go, and I… I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what to tell them. We never talked about that, you and I, and I never thought about it myself past what little we discussed. I doubt they would permit me to leave with any colleagues, so restarting my work elsewhere seems - well, the chances are dismal, let’s leave it at that. And we all know how well I fared in your little town…
I’m at a loss. Truly, I do not know what to do with myself. I suppose I could ask for advice from you, but, ah… That would be selfish. At least tell me how the children are faring?
Despairingly,
Daniil Dankovsky
Artemiy isn’t about to let such an obvious opportunity go to waste. His heart beats in his throat when he scrawls across a paper, Here. Come here. Stay here .
And then it feels, like for all the days when time has moved agonizingly, impossibly slow, that Daniil’s letter arrives the second Artemiy’s has been sent.
Time moves differently here. It always has.
His heart is in his throat. He thinks for a moment about running to his room to read the letter, like an adolescent guarding a secret, but he’s too excited. His impulses get the better of him, nearly shredding the letter as he opens it.
Artemiy,
The thought had, of course, occurred to me. Return to Town-on-Gorkhon. How could it not? I spent enough time there to learn the streets, to start to understand its inner workings, its people. When the Powers That Be asked where I might exile myself, I just about said the name immediately; but I didn’t. Some fear gripped me, and though not anything as drastic as my blood running cold in my veins occurred it still felt a significant enough angst to pause the thought on its way from my mind to my lips.
I realize that I have put so many words to paper over the past several days, many of which have held no particular meaning. And I continue to do so now, instead of getting straight to my point. How wimpish of me! I hope that you will, my dearest friend, forgive my cowardice, and permit me still to call you my dearest friend. I can’t put this off any longer. There is something I must confess.
I am utterly besotted with you. I have been fighting with myself for the past month over this - that last night, in the steppe, what I had wanted to ask was your permission to court you, only the words wouldn’t leave my mouth. Perhaps it is for the best that I didn’t, as every time I’ve set down to make some serious attempt for your heart I realize I’ve no idea what I’m doing! I’ve never attempted to court someone like you, dearest Artemiy, for I have never met anyone like you.
I don’t know what you may think of me now that I have told you. Not poorly, I hope. But I rather think this explains my conundrum. Returning to Town… yes, that would make me happy, but it’s a tangled feeling. Better to tell you now, get it out in the open, then wait and ruin everything if I return. And this is why I failed to elaborate my meaning to you earlier; in the event your answer is not what I had hoped, I wanted one memory to remain untarnished.
...I have used an awful lot of ‘I’s in this letter. I must be thankful this is a letter, and not a conversation. I suppose I am still frightened of your answer, though I have need of it. I hope you will say yes, allow me to at least try and win you over. Or if our desires are not the same, that at least you will permit us to still have parted as friends.
I remain, as ever, yours,
Daniil Dankovsky
Affectionately . Artemiy remembers his word choice. All of it. Always . And he reads these words with great affection, and something like humor building up in his chest. ‘ I’ve never attempted to court someone like you ’, ‘ all me to at least try and win you over ’ - as if their time together had been anything less than love letters. As if Artemiy hadn’t kept each of his post cards and every letter folded neatly in a box by his bed. He’s hardly going to say no; he doesn’t even think that he could. But Capella was right, and he has his answer now.
Artemiy is man who prefers actions to words. And he has a better idea for a response than sending a letter.