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“I think I could have loved you in that town.”
The sentence, simple as it was, felt like a hoof to the chest. Artemy stopped, shifting his weight on the railway holding them back from tumbling onto the cold sand below. “Hm.”
They were in their summer home, a small place overlooking an endless ocean. Artemy flicked his cigarette, the ash tumbling to the beach below. It was sunset. Objectively, it was beautiful. The subject of a thousand cheap landscape paintings by those who could afford things like canvas and acrylics. He was one of those people, now. Wasn’t that nice?
In the end, nothing had come of the Panacea. There was just no way to get to the blood, really. Oyun stood in his way to the end, like the choked gasps of agony didn’t fill the air around him. He’d gotten desperate, borrowed a gun from Dankovsky. Put a bullet in the man’s chest.
On he’d charged. Artemy had always been a lousy shot.
Artemy lifted the cigarette to his lips and inhaled. The smoke filled his lungs with a slight, familiar burn, the edge long worn off. Sometimes, in the evening, him and Dankovsky would discuss the new studies coming out about the links to cancer, to all sorts of nasty things. But the next morning, they’d be back on the patio, twin trails of smoke flowing out with the wind.
Foreman Oyun. How was Foreman Oyun? He’d have to write a letter. They were business partners, now. With the town gone...
Oh, did he mention that? On the twelfth day, Daniil had pulled him aside. Told him to grab his children, to grab what he could carry, to wait by the train station. Artemy had convinced him to pull some strings, throw the Abattoir doors open, tell the Kin huddled inside to run.
As for the rest of the town... it didn’t matter, not really.
The town was dead now, anyways. It had been for a long time.
The Kin had reclaimed their land, scarred and ragged though it was. As the train pulled away, he’d watched a Bride dance, watched a single sprig of white whip blooming among the wreckage. Back in the Capital, they’d needed something to bring in the money. He’d remembered the Stamatin’s blood-shot eyes and thought, Hell, it was never sacred in the first place, really. When you’re freezing, even idols start to look like kindling.
He couldn’t blame them, not really. Hungry mouths had to eat. The Kin had always been adept at survival.
“I suppose I can’t expect an answer to that,” Daniil said, tapping his own ash into the tray. “Received any word from Sticky? I only ever hear from him when he’s asking for more money. He takes after me, I suppose. I was the same way when I was in school.”
“Do you mean that?” Artemy asked, eyes still locked on that skyline. He felt like he could see the wavering hand of an amateur artist, shaking, unsteady, capturing perfection imperfectly. “About the town.”
It was Dankovsky’s turn to fall silent. Artemy heard the gentle tap of the cigarette on the ashtray. The cigarette hadn’t burned down enough to warrant that, he knew. He knew how long it took the Bachelor to smoke a cigarette. He knew so many things like that, so many small things about Daniil.
Daniil . He turned the name over in his mind, considered how it would feel on his tongue. He hadn’t said it in a while. It felt wrong. Dirty, even, selfish, rude, like fucking someone on the couch of their all-too-generous host. Daniil could have been his name, yes. If he’d found a way to save them. If they’d found a way to stay.
“It was a stupid thought,” The Bachelor finally said, stubbing out his cigarette. “How’s the harvest this year? I’ve been meaning to ask.”
Artemy didn’t respond. Mostly because he didn’t know. The papers were sitting on his desk, waiting for him to review. Bread went in, twyre came out. Simple business.
Business. Who’d have thought he’d ever be a businessman? Certainly none of his partners, who saw him walk into the room looking like a bear in a suit, stuffed uncomfortably into silk and satin. When he was getting dressed, Dankovsky always had to adjust his tie, a gentle tut-tut as his long fingers laced him up tight, touched gently on his chest for just a beat too long. Sometimes he’d reach up and ruffle his hair a bit. “Roguish suits you,” he’d explain, his smile a little too managed, the sharp spark in his eyes a little too hot. “Don’t get into bed with anyone over a deal, though. Not without telling me first.”
“You’re quiet tonight,” Dankovsky said. He shot for disaffected and missed by a mile.
He didn’t need to look to know that Daniil was fidgeting. There was that name again, Daniil.
What had there been left to save? Lara was dead, Rubin was dead, Grief was dead. His father had been dead before he arrived. The children…
“Burakh, please. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I don’t know what I was thinking, saying such nonsense…”
He swallowed. He didn’t want to think about the children. Didn’t want to remember what happened to the myriad boys and girls, grubby hands scrounging in the dirt for a few coins to see if they could afford a loaf of bread to split between ten hungry, hungry mouths. Was that life? In a town like that, could anyone even be considered alive at all?
“ Artemy, ” the Bachelor snapped. “Talk to me. Please. ”
He finally turned to face the other man.
Daniil – yes, he decided, yes, he was going to call him Daniil – was older now. The worry lines had always been there, Artemy had seen them in the family portrait above General Dankovsky’s fireplace. But now, grey peppered his black hair, and the sharp, authoritative slant of his shoulders had softened. Not in any way that the average man on the street would notice, no. But Artemy saw it all.
“I’m not much for words,” he said, finally. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just…” Daniil sighed, pushing back his fringe. “I needed to know you were listening, I suppose. Though I don’t know why. I wish you hadn’t heard me at all.”
Artemy hummed, deep in his chest, turning back to the ocean. “Tell me why you think that.”
Daniil paused. Artemy could hear him shuffling through his pockets for the box of cigarettes. “You have the lighter?”
Artemy flicked it open and the flame sparked to life. He watched from the corner of his eye as a leather-gloved hand held the paper end up to the light, then retreated, followed by a long puff of smoke.
“We should probably quit these things.”
“Don’t dance around the question, Daniil.”
He didn’t need to look to know the other man was startled by the use of his first name.
He turned, raising an eyebrow, the filter of his cigarette crushed slightly between his teeth. “We’ve been living together, raising children, for twenty years,” he said, answering the unasked question. “I think we can be on a first name basis. Besides, you said mine a moment ago.”
“...Suppose I did.” Daniil took another pull, eyes darting away from Artemy’s, unable to hold his steely glare. “You never responded to dear, or love. I just assumed you… well, I don’t know what I assumed. Though, since I’m saying stupid things tonight, I have to say. I didn’t want the first time I heard my name on your lips in five years to be a power play.”
“You’ve been keeping count.”
“It’s just an estimate.”
“Daniil,” Artemy repeated, firm. “Explain.”
“You idiot,” Daniil growled, ashing his cigarette. “I won’t explain because I can’t. I don’t know why. I’m old, I’m sentimental, sometimes I read those stupid pulp-fiction novels you get from the drugstore, sometimes they’re set in small towns where everyone knows each other and starry-eyed, one-dimensional idiots fall in love with each other at the farmer’s market. No good reason. Call it a mid-life crisis.”
Artemy snorted. “That town wasn’t like anything in those books, Danya.”
“Christ, Artemy. You call me Dankovsky for twenty years, and suddenly you’re using pet names? Spare me.”
“It wasn’t,” Artemy repeated, firm. “Get that notion out of your head. That town left their children to starve.”
“You know, there’s a reason I didn’t tell the Kains what was coming,” Daniil snapped.
Artemy fell silent.
“Jesus Christ, Artemy,” Daniil sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Jesus Christ. I’ve been having dreams, okay? Dreams, where I can see them again. Hundreds of children, curled up on their side, crying in agony. They all have Murky’s face. I know she doesn’t love me, but I’ve grown attached.”
“Murky loves you,” he lied.
“Spare me the bullshit.” Daniil took another pull, turning to look out over the wide blue sea. “The children don’t love me. You don’t love me. I’m getting old, Artemy. I’m seeing things clearly now. There was something rotten in the Town-on-Gorkhon. It needed to be removed, cut away with the deft edge of a scalpel.” He chuckled. “Though, for a doctor, I’ve always been a little too good with a gun. Maybe my father was right. Maybe I am a military man at heart.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Artemy decided, stubbing out his cigarette. “It’s over. It’s passed. No need to dwell on it now.”
They fell silent. Daniil finished his cigarette, snuffing it out on the bottom of the ashtray. “I think, if I know how to love anyone, it’s you.”
Artemy let the words hang in the air.
“I remember the last time you called me Daniil for a reason,” he continued, unprompted. “We were drunk. We’d just moved Murky into her first apartment. You came home, said, ‘well, we don’t have to worry about embarrassing the poor girl anymore,’ and pulled the stopper out of a bottle of good, bitter twyrine. I remember that night well. I asked you if you loved me.” He pulled off his glove, watching the simple gold band catch in the dying evening light. “You said you didn’t know if you could love anyone. It always frustrated me, you know that? How good you are at things you claim to know nothing about. ‘Not a businessman,’ he says from the porch of his summer home, which he bought off the profits of a business he built from nothing...” he trailed off. “But to my point.”
“You say that a lot for a man that never gets to it.”
“To my point,” he repeated, supposedly unphased. “I didn’t love you in the Stillwater. I barely liked you on the train here. But a man who watches a master carpenter work for years will pick up a few tricks. You know how to love, Artemy,” he said, slipping the glove back on. “I believe I do too, now, all these years down the line. Or at least, that I can learn how to.”
They stared out over the beach for a long moment. The sun slipped below the horizon, throwing off its last shades of pink and orange in favor of deep blues that bled into a quiet black.
Artemy picked up the ashtray and tapped it off into the garbage. He moved to the doorframe, glancing back at the man holding him with rapt, undivided attention.
“Goodnight, Dankovsky,” he said. “Don’t stay out too late. We have a meeting tomorrow at nine.”
And so the door clicked quietly shut, and once again, Artemy was alone.