Work Text:
Taking the children into his house wasn’t as complicated as most people anticipated him would be. Sticky and Murky naturally slid into his life, fitting themselves in the childhood home that now felt so alien to him, grounding him when all he was left with was his regrets and his failures.
There was also to consider the fact that truly, giving them a roof over their head didn’t change the way they went on with their life, not right away at least. Murky didn’t like the amount of noise that came from living in the middle of the city instead of the outskirts of it, and so she occasionally spent her days by her old makeshift home by the train station, with the song of the twyre and the Earth filling her ears. More often than not, she disappeared without even bothering to let Artemy know where or when she went out – which did give him a heart attack the first time he came back home to find her missing, a too familiar sight that made memories flash in front of his eyes. Sticky, on the other hand, still liked to hang out with his old crew of ragtag orphans, especially with Notkin and his Soul-and-a-Halves, to get up to no good whenever he wasn’t tailing Artemy and trying to help him out during his job.
You could take the kids out of the streets, but you couldn’t take the street out of them, as someone would say. Probably in a different, long dead language, and in a much more convoluted way than it was necessary, but the meaning would still be there.
Lara often scolded him for not acting more like a proper father to them, but Artemy couldn’t see anything wrong with how they were behaving. Fathers or not, their own childhood had been just as messy, though with less guns and knives lying around, and until the Saburov started actually putting any work in that project for a school Lara was set on forcing upon them, all kids in town were destined to have the same, lawless existence. Plus, it didn’t sit right with him for them to shift into completely different people just because Artemy became a fixed factor in their young lives.
In a way, it was a calming thought to realize not everything changed so fast that it was like water slipping from his fingers: he had lost his father, lived through an epidemic, created a cure for a plague and saved all his people while condemning them at the same time, all in the span of twelve days. It was reassuring to see that other things followed the normal flow of time, it gave a sense of normalcy to this newfound life.
This being said, he noticed at least one major surprise to discover after they moved in all together: Murky didn’t like sleeping alone. She wasn’t always the biggest fan of being touched, sometimes not even from himself or Sticky, and she had been very insistent on having a room for herself, but when the lights went out and the house turned quiet, she often ended up slipping into his bed without a word.
The first night in which he was startled away at an ungodly hour of the morning from one of his routine night terrors, only to find her tucked against his back, so unbelievably small, the sole thought that he could have turned in his sleep and crushed her at any point during the night was so terrifying that he couldn't fall back asleep. He spent the rest of the night frozen in place, afraid to even breathe too loud, until the first lights of the morning woke Murky up. It got a little time getting used to it, but now waking up to her tiny feet lodged into his ribs was routine, the same way carrying her down to the kitchen in his arms while she was still too groggy to be considered properly awake and making breakfast for both of his kids was.
Artemy had his own theory on the reason why. He heard whispers throughout the house when he walked its corridors, fleeting noises that were easy to attribute to a draft or to the creaks of old furniture. He knew better, however, because he recognized the voices and knew the language they spoke. He couldn’t help but wonder if they spoke to Murky the same way: she was so incredibly perceptive, in a way that reminded him of the Mistresses, and considering her past experience with hearing disembodied voices, it was natural that it would freak her out. It was just a hunch though, one he would keep to himself until the kid gathered the courage to come forward with her fears on her own. He didn’t want to risk pushing a little too much and having her completely shut him off. He could be better, he could become the father she deserved.
When he wasn’t home, for either work or personal reasons – he still couldn’t establish a normal sleep routine, not even after months from the fated twelve day– Sticky was the second best option. Coming back from a visit to Shekhen only to find them both sound asleep and curled around each other made him feel… something. Something so new he couldn’t put a name to yet.
The last thing he would have ever expected was for Daniil Dankovsky to become a part of the picture.
He had been so sure that despite his request, Dankovsky would have caught the first train back to his precious Capital as soon as the opportunity rose. It would have been harsh, but truthful, to say that the Bachelor had very few left in Town who cared for him – Artemy himself was included among those few, though he refused to acknowledge it.
Instead, he stayed. As a broken man at first, with no more home to return to or lifelong goal to achieve, often seen at the Broken Heart drowning his sorrows in Twyrine. It took a lot of insistence, occasional screams and then forceful dragging to get him out of the bottom of the bottle, a task at which Clara was all too happy to help – he wasn’t sure whether because she wanted to be of help, or to have an excuse to kick the Bachelor while he was down.
After that, he threw himself into work alongside the other healers: the end of an epidemic didn’t mean immediate respite. There were possible sick townsfolk left to check, people who survived but were still on the brink of death, and a vaccine to develop properly to make sure to avoid the repeating of another outbreak. The work of a doctor was never over, not even when their life’s work was in pieces at their feet and there seemed to be no future for them. Not even when their father was dead, and the future of their people ruined due to their actions. Not even when they had no one left in the world who needed them.
There was still the problem of the Stillwater. Though Eva was a wonderful host and a dear friend, it wasn’t proper of him to overstay his welcome and burden the girl with the task of taking care of him, especially if he intended to remain in Town for the foreseeable future. Working together brought Dankovsky to spend more and more time at the Haruspex’s place, but whenever Artemy brought up the matter of his housing, he promptly changed the topic.
It took Eva inevitably leaving the town to accompany Yulia back to the Capital and Dankovsky finding himself without a roof over his head anymore for Artemy to make the decision in his place. Which he accomplished by shoving all of the Bachelor’s belongings into a bag without any care for too fragile microscopes, all while ignoring the man’s many protests and his insistence that he had no need for such pity.
Artemy had always been the type to act first and think later, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Isidor’s old place was big enough to host four people, and he saw little point in preserving his colleague’s pride when he was about to turn homeless because of it.
He would’ve expected the kids to protest, or at least make some sort of comment about the situation, but instead, they accepted him easily into their lives. Sticky was enthusiastic at the idea, and the admiration he nurtured for the man produced a sort of twinge into his chest, which was promptly sated when he noticed how unburdened, even happy Dankovsky was at having the occasion to teach the boy. Murky, though a little harder to decipher than her brother, spoke easily to him and occasionally, she even allowed him the honour of being dragged by the hand into her room to play with her doll.
It was all so easy, and that was what scared him the most. Shared living was easy. Sharing the workload was easy. After so many conflicts, so many contrasting ideals, everything seemed too easy and he couldn’t understand why .
The first night they shared the same bed was by chance. Dankovsky– Daniil passed out from sheer exhaustion at Artemy’s desk while they were in the middle of a discussion, and so the Haruspex mentioned that if he had such dire need for a bed, there was one right there that he could make sure of, if. It seemed like a good plan: he knew Daniil shared his same issues with nightmares and frequent bouts of insomnia, and this way he could make sure that he got enough sleep to keep him upright for the rest of the following day.
(It didn’t matter than Daniil’s usual bed was set downstairs, and it would have been a matter of a few steps to return to it. They didn’t mention it, afraid that the moment they spoke of it the bubble would burst)
Artemy, though, had forgotten a small detail.
“That’s my spot.” Murky exclaimed too loudly in the middle of the night, startling them both awake. She was looking pointedly at Daniil, glowering at himas if he wronged her personally – which he most likely did, from her point of view.
So much for a good night’s rest, he thought, deflating. He was ready to apologize – he didn't yet know to which of them, whether to Murky for forgetting about her nightly issues, or to Daniil for having him so rudely awoken when he already had so many troubles sleeping without adding a kid to the picture – when the Bachelor raised to a sitting position, and said: “There’s space for all three, you know, if you don’t having me around.”
It took Murky a handful of seconds to mull over it. Then she nodded, weirdly solemn, and crawled over the Bachelor’s body, uncaring of the way she kneeled into his stomach or stepped on his limbs in that way all small kids do, settling herself between the two of them. The bed wasn’t big enough for three, not really, but Murky occupied so little space it was like she wasn’t even there. Artemy and Daniil shared a look , but neither of them dared speak in fear of having the girl wake up again, and ultimately, they settled back to sleep easily even with a kid kicking them toward the sides of the bed.
He woke up first the following morning, and he was greeted by the sight of his little Murky, who shied away from strangers and had a hard time around most other adults, happily tucked into Dankovsky’s arms, while the Bachelor slept on, peacefully.
Oh , he thought to himself, his chest so full he couldn’t fathom how his too-soft heart could stand it. That was the reason why.