Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Bachelor leaves the steppe, quiet and angry, like a thunderstorm rolling over and past a valley denying it the grace of its downpour just moments away from falling. With few words, jaw locked tight in thought, he boarded the train with the military towards the capital. Everyone expected he would. The job was done, the men he’d come to the Town-on-Gorkhon for were dead, and his future destroyed in the wake of the Plague. There was nothing more to do but pack up and return from where he came, and suffer the consequences of whatever he’d wrought. Everyone understood.

Well, everyone but apparently Artemy Burakh, who upon learning of Dankovsky’s departure only furrowed his brow and mumbled something in confusion. 

Yulia was in the kitchen with him, discussing the events of the past few days that Artemy had managed to all but sleep through. Sticky didn’t quite catch what they were saying, too busy flipping through the decaying pages of a medicine book he’d snuck from Isidor’s office before Artemy had the chance to gut the room. From the tone, they were mostly talking about adult things, nothing he cared for but grasped the concept of. Distribution methods for medicine, dealing with bandits, dealing with the price gouging, what to do about the now plentiful abandoned houses. Beside him, Murky rolls marbles across the old slat floors. She doesn’t seem to care much to listen in on the conversation, either. 

It takes a while for the architect to leave, her conversation with Artemy slow, dying down at random as they forget and remember what needs to be talked about. Forgetting how to hold a conversation that doesn’t have a time limit at the end. Yulia finally says her goodbyes to them and heads out the front door, and when Artemy doesn’t make any moves to stand from the makeshift table in the kitchen, Sticky decides to go to him.

“You wanted him to stay?” He cuts straight to the point. Never had a fondness for dancing around topics the same way the adults did.

Artemy jumps slightly at the sudden intrusion to his thoughts, “Who?”

“The Bachelor. Who else?”

Sticky is beginning to think the man's brow is stuck furrowed the way it is, perpetually thinking too hard about everything he’s been asked or told, searching his child's face for an answer that certainly isn't there. 

Artemy stays silent, he doesn’t push the topic. He just stands there, waiting for the answer to come to the older man. Like they did during the plague, mulling over ingredients to a panacea that almost eluded them. Trying to decide who to save, how to be everywhere, how to save everyone. An impossible task. Ideally, this question had an easier answer.

His response it starts with a deep sigh, “I guess I thought he would if I just asked,” He turns away lightly, finally resigning that there are no answers for this in a 12 year olds eyes. “I don’t know why. I still don’t even think I could look at him without debating if I should wring his neck or not but…”

The answer more or less ends there. Artemy sighs once more and stands, cocking his head with a soft, weary smile, “How about we cook dinner?”

--

It had been a week since the Polyhedron fell. 

Frankly, Sticky understood the Bachelors frustrations. His choices. Ideals. If he hadn’t been sick with plague, barely conscious as a fire brewed behind his eyes and ripped at his bones, he probably would have tried to stop Artemy too. Any of the kids would have.

He’d heard the cannon fire from the Factory, the ripping of metal joints and crashing thunder of pieces falling to the ground ripping the earth apart echoed across the banks of the town. He’d stumbled his way outside to see, and watched as the smoke billowed into the sky just above the rooftops. It didn’t take long to understand what that meant. 

When the Haruspex crested over the train tracks that ran in front of their lair, the rage that bridled him felt almost unnatural in its strength. The children’s Tower was destroyed, at the hands of his friend, teacher and father no less. His ears rang with a violent hiss. He’d wanted to claw and bite at Artemy as he drew closer, shove the man away when he’d knelt down in front of him. But instead, he fell limp, let himself be drawn into his fathers arms and hugged tightly, enshrouded by the smell of sweat, smoke and blood. Any feelings of anger and frustration puttered out as quickly as they had appeared. All he could do was sob.

Since then, there’s been a numbing feeling stuck at the back of his throat. He’d almost thought he was sick, and even had Artemy give him a check just to be sure. But, a thorough check up later, as far as Artemy could tell it was nothing. So he just went on ignoring it and made a point of avoiding the Stone Yard, the changed skyline only causing what was numb to ache. 

He doesn’t remember when it stopped hurting so much. It wasn’t until long after the twyer stopped singing its song in the steppe, after winter had begun to make its rounds, that he finally noticed.

--

Artemy and Rubin made quick work of creating a clinic in town, Sticky an apprentice at their sides. Mostly it consisted of the converted first floor of their new house. This solved two problems in Artemy’s mind. Wanting to always be in arms reach, the Hindquarters being much closer to the center of town than the Factory ever could be, and always having someone on staff. Of course, that also means that Artemy in turn never stops working.

And, oh, how the work does not stop coming to him.

How the town had survived with only Isidor Burakh as a healer was beyond him now, it seemed the clinic was bursting at the seams with new work every day. There were fewer people in town now than there was before, and while Sticky may not be the best in Lara’s math lessons, he knows something doesn’t add up there. 

There's no extra hands to help move the clinic to a real lasting location, all the workers busy resurrecting the town via cleaning or working in the abattoir, and the two actual employees of said clinic were too busy mending wounds and ailments to make any progress themselves. What’s more, all the adults -- Kains and Saburovs to be exact, Vlad was too busy with the Bull Enterprise to care -- only made it harder it seemed, arguing that time and money could be spent better elsewhere. They were managing fine as is with the clinic where it was. Thus, the clinic was forced to remain a shabby little shop on the first floor of their home, and unfortunately nobody made any move to argue.

It’s late in the day, howling winds of the last ends of winter whipping around the old house, and Sticky finds himself holed up in his bedroom. His knees are pressed to his chest, flipping through pages of books, trying to absorb their knowledge as if his raptor-esque position gave him a better understanding of the contents. The heady scent of twyre pierces his sinuses as he turns the page to some dried scraps of the herb pressed between the pages, knocking him from his focus. He groans, sitting back on his heels, pressing on his cheekbones to fight back the sting. There had to be a way to learn better than digging through old books. He wished he understood more from watching in the clinic, but hands on practice only gets you so far when you can't actually touch or even help with the patients.

Downstairs, he hears Rubin and Artemy talking faintly through the floor.

The clinic had been closed for hours now, only open for dire emergencies. Usually Rubin would have taken his leave by now, but tonight it seemed like the two healers found themselves arguing, or at least in a very heated discussion. Sticky stood from his squat, closing the book with his bare foot and padded over to the door to crack it open. The words flooded into the room clearer now, and he recognized the sharp and indignant tones the two older men often used with each other. Some wounds are best left to heal naturally , he thinks, though that didn't stop his lips from pressing into a frustrated frown. He crawls over to the stairs, and takes a seat hoping to get a better look, but is only greeted by a warm glow from the fireplace downstairs, four shadows dancing in the flickering light.

A voice chimes in, softly. Feminine and placating. Lara Ravel, “You argue, but it won’t solve anything.” 

It doesn't do much to stop them. Rubin continues on his ranting, “With supplies running low, we need to pick and choose who we care for--”

“--We aren’t in a plague any more!” Artemy snaps back. An argument they’ve had before, centered purely around Artemy’s inability to say no to anyone, or anything. You can’t help everyone.

“But we’re still dealing with the aftermath, Burakh. You have eyes. You can see that. It’s months down the line and we’re still struggling for food and medicine, anything that does come in from outside gets stashed away immediately. We barely have enough hands to take care of half of the people you take in.”

“Then we get more help.”

“From who?” Rubin's voice is tired, though hasn’t lost its sharp edges.  Their arguments run circles around each other, strange as colleagues and friends, even more so as the faux-brothers they’d come to be. His own arguments with Murky seemed to be a fraction as complex as those between Rubin and his father.

Another voice sneaks in, cool toned, a tad snarky on the tail end. Grief. Sticky had run into him at the warehouses on occasion. He never stopped by their home before, though, “I could round some things up, if you’d let me.” 

“As if it would be worth the price. You’d sell us nothing more than snake oil,” Rubin all but hisses back. 

“So little trust,” The end drips off like a shrug, and the four breathe for a moment. Winds outside whistle loudly in the silence.

“People are hoarding things because they're scared of what might happen if this happens again. The Saburovs know that, and just taking from them will only garner distrust. We already have so little,” Lara sighs, her tone low. 

“Dakovsky would bitch and moan enough to get people to hand over something. It was easy for him, and that was during the plague,” Rubin grumbles seemingly to himself, though everyone in the room can hear it.

Grief continues to kick the sore spot, “Well, the snake's not here, is he?” 

The downstairs crowd sits in silence after that. There's the occasional rustle of clothing, a sniffle, and creak of a chair or wooden floorboard. Eventually they stir up idle chatter, but nothing is audible and mostly sounds of goodnights and farewells. Sticky watches Grief and Rubin pass the stairwell, tucking his knees up against him to stay out of their sight. Laura and Artemy don’t move from in front of the fire for a while. Excitement and adrenaline fading, he finds his eyelids drifting shut as he leans up against the banisters of the staircase. The warm crackle in the fireplace and soft thrum of Artemy tapping on a chair are a distant lullaby urging him to rest. The last bit he hears is a soft murmur from the two downstairs is from Lara, quiet and muffled, “I’m sorry.”

He’s asleep before she leaves.

-- 

The next morning, Sticky finds himself asleep in his bed, tucked in under his covers. Artemy must have found him on the stair landing and moved him. It might have been shameful to be caught snooping like that, but in his years of ...borrowing things, the feeling lost its value. 

The clinic  downstairs is quiet. He finds Murky alone, scrubbing crayons and charcoal on old sheets of paper -- items Artemy had delightfully discovered stashed in a closet while digging around for old sweaters. 

“What are you drawing?” He peers over his sisters shoulder to get a look, choosing to not ask about the lack of their fathers presence -- or anyone's presence for that matter -- afraid it might break the quiet spell.

Murky responds only with a grunt for a moment, finishing some scratches across the page before leaning to the side to show her brother, “A friend.”

Sticky squints. It most certainly does not look like one. The long figure is wrapped in black and speckles of red. It’s hard to critique an 8 year olds fine works of art but it doesn't even look human, “You have weird friends.”

“He’s your friend, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm.” She doesn’t say more than that, and he’s fine leaving it on an awfully cryptic note. Something to come back to later, when he remembers. She only speaks again a few minutes later, while Sticky is fumbling through the cabinets looking for some form of food to snack on, “Aba went with Rubin.”

Of course she went and said that. He looks tentatively at the front door of the clinic, expecting someone to burst through any moment now. When nothing happens after a few seconds, he sighs and resumes his digging, “Where to?” His tone falls a little sour. Couldn’t say it was thrilled to have been left out of the loop. 

“A lady was having a baby.”

The boy nods, finally finding a package of dried meat shoved to the side behind a can of soup. He takes two pieces and begins gnawing on the edge of one. What’s the point of being an assistant if you don’t get to assist?  When the only learning he gets is through books he hides in his room, uncertain if he's supposed to have or not?

Murky stares at him blankly from her spot perched at the table, and he can only assume she picked up on his irritation as he attempts to rip at the tough meat like some rabid animal. Holding the already bitten piece between his teeth, he holds out the other, “Want some?”

She nods.

--

It’s not until past noon when Artemy returns home, alone, creeping in tired through the front door, blood smeared across the front of his smock. A sight Sticky wasn’t unused to. He’d perched himself at their makeshift front desk, though it was little more than a table pushed to the corner of the front room. 

“Busy day, Doc?” His father jests, noting the disarray of the desk as Sticky fiddled with herbs and tinctures to busy his hands.

“The one day you’re not here, and nobody comes,” He doesnt look up from his little project.

Artemy hums lightly, hand tapping absentmindedly and the side of his neck, “Someone must have seen us leave and news passed around that we were out--”

“I was here,” Sticky peers past his brows, furrowing them slightly.

It takes the older man by surprise and whatever he’d planned on saying gets caught in his throat, “Sticky, you’re not a doctor.”

“I know how to put on bandages or do stitches, you showed me.”

“I’ve shown you, but you've never done it. Those are two different things.”

“Then let me do it! I can’t learn unless you let me,” The boy finally gives in to his frustration, slamming his hands down into the table, pestle and mortar clattering with the force, “You let me help with the plague, why not now?”

There’s a sternness to Artemy’s voice now. He’d heard it before, but hardly ever addressed to him, “Things are different now. You’re too young.”

“I’m older now than I was then, you don’t make any sense. You complain that you don't have enough help but don't let me do anything but watch.”

“I… You…” Artemy stumbles and stops, fingers moving to pinch the bridge of his nose, “This is about last night?”

“I want to help.”

“You’re a child, Sticky. I don’t care that you’re almost thirteen. You can’t help, not in the way that you want to. You haven't gone to medical school, and whatever my father taught you is not enough. I’m not going to argue this with you.” 

The two stood silent, staring down one another. Once again searching each other's features for the right answers that didn't exist, like they’d done before and will do again, and again. Sticky tries hard to read what Artemy’s thinking, but the way the midday light that streamed from the window shadowed his face left him with an expression that was indistinguishable, a stroke of fear playing at the back of Stickys mind. They only break when a knock comes to the door. When Artemy goes to answer it, Sticky quickly flees to his room.

--

“He doesn’t hate you.” Murky is standing in his doorway, half an hour later, the way she's done for months when she tries to trap him in conversations he doesn’t want to have.

“I didn’t say he did,” She’d caught him mid-packing, a small bag in his hands full of tradable trinkets that gets tossed into a rucksack. He needed to get out of the clinic. Too much time inside , he thought, it’s getting on my nerves . He missed the twyre, it was an easy excuse to leave, to drag himself out onto the steppe in the night.

She’s blunt as always, “You thought it.”

He did. For the smallest fraction of a second, while he was scanning Artemy’s face for some sort of reassurance and came up short. But, he won't admit that. Especially not to Murky. He plops the thick tome he’d stolen from Isidors old room into the bag, ”Which friend told you that?”

“Nobody… You’re leaving, I know what it feels like,” There's a look in her eyes too dark and deep for her age, sad and lost, thinking about the plague and those two wretched weeks. He knows what she means.

“I’m not running away.”

“Then let me come with you.”

“No.”

“You’re not running away, though.” She says this as a statement of fact, rather than a question.

“I’ll be back.”

He sneaks out of the house, though not exactly sure why. Artemy is in the front room with a patient, trying to convince them they don’t need morphine for a simple headache and that rest and time will make it better. They’re not in a plague anymore. Sticky finds his way out a back window, on to the street facing away from the clinic door. It’s not like Artemy wouldn’t let him go, but he couldn’t face him. Not after making a whole ordeal about wanting to help, then promptly not helping at all. But he can’t look at his father. There’s a bubbling feeling of anger and frustration he’d long forgotten about prickling at the back of his throat. He doesn’t want to be cruel. He knows Artemy is trying. He knows that but it’s really hard to find it in himself to not hate it.

In the midday, the streets are busy. Or, busy as a small town in the middle of nowhere would let it be. Children are bartering needles and buttons for nuts and pieces of string, anyone older watches over and murmurs of casual conversation fill the air. Sticky makes his way to the lair, though there’s nothing there for him. Artemy took everything useful out save for the slab table and alembic, both bolted in place or too heavy to move. There he finds Noukher, grazing peacefully under the dead tree in the abandoned factory yard, and takes him by the lead. A companion for his days alone in the steppe, someone to talk to that he hopes one day might speak to him too.

The two are out in the fields well into the evening. It was quiet in an almost unnerving way, with no twyer or birds singing -- only the occasional moo of a bull in the distance from the abattoir. Sticky wished he knew how to dance barefoot in the grass like the herb brides had, making the steppe herbs blossom in their footprints. He’d tried, but something about being a twelve year old boy, and human at that, didn’t sate the earth. Or that’s what Cappella had told him.

He didn’t do much but watch the wind bristle past the half dead grasses on the steppe, Noukher meandering around behind him. While it was still sunny he sat with the book he’d brought in his hands trying to convince himself to actually look at it and read but never getting very far. Occasionally, something caught his attention and he would point it out out loud. The cow never seemed to listen or care. When the sun began to set he watched a train pass through in the distance, horn blaring loudly as it began pulling into the station to be loaded up for departure in the morning. The sun sitting low and hazy in the sky was a good enough sign as any to finally head back. His fingers went numb in the cold breeze, slowly aching as he bent and unbent them returning blood to the joints. The cold had done little to clear his brain, the idea of home still unsettling and hostile. But it was home, and sleeping out in the fields of the steppe seemed far more unappealing than whatever awkward tension awaited him, so Sticky resigned to his fate. With Noukher’s lead in hand, the pair found their way back to the town.

A light burned dimly on the porch of the Burakh house, lighting the way in preparation for nighttime that had yet to fully fall. Through a front window masked buy curtains a shadow marked the presence of people in the clinic. Sticky thought about sneaking back into the home, acting like he’d never left at all. The idea was both stupid and tempting, but the way he could barely feel his fingertips left him doubting his ability to climb up the back wall of the house into his room without causing a fuss. So, he resolves to just enter like a normal person. There were indeed people in the clinic, it seemed. Rubin, at the desk Sticky preoccupied earlier, raises an eyebrow at the boy when he enters but says nothing. There was another woman waiting who didn’t seem to pay him any mind, and Artemy in the off-shoot room used as an examination room is poking and prodding at the ankle of an older man who hissed and yelped dramatically. He doesn’t stay long, shooting a wary glare at Rubin before marching through the house and into the kitchen.

Murky is in there, perched at the table, the wood-burning oven keeping her and the room from the creeping cold of the evening. His bag lands beside her with a dull thud.

“You came back,” She’s back in the spot he’d found her that morning, working on some new master piece it seemed, his new ‘friend’ nowhere to be seen on the page this time.

“I always do.”

“One day you won't.”

Sticky rolls his eyes, grabbing a pot off the rack they hang from, just barely in his reach. Yeah, they were orphans, or ex-orphans, but Murky’s abandonment issues really were something to behold. He chooses to not comment on that, “Artemy’s busy tonight, so I’m making dinner.” He decided that more on his own accord, having forgotten to eat since his little snack of salty jerky they’d eaten before. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Murky was probably in the same situation, “How’s soup sound?”

As spartan as the kitchen was, it was easy to find things to throw into a soup. Water was easier to come by these days, and things like potatoes kept well so even if they went forgotten for some time, they were still usable. Luckily, Artemy couldn’t go far without a weapon nearby, so they had plenty of kitchen knives to work with as well. He might’ve considered that a bad thing in any other town where knives were a commodity, but if it means he doesn't have to rip chunks of carrots apart with his bare hands, he’ll take the paranoia any day.

It wasn’t much more than watery broth, a few chunks of potatoes and carrots accompanied by a slice of bread, but it was better than any meal he’d grown accustomed to over the years. Murky ate without complaints, though picked out the carrots either sliding them into Sticky’s own bowl or placing them directly on the table, shooting her brother a mean look when he tries to make a comment. 

They wait together for Artemy to finish with the clinic for the night. An hour, then two, occupying themselves with games and debates. When Murky starts to doze in her seat, Sticky sends her to bed by herself, waking her with a tap to the table and pointing her up the stairs. She follows his directions without much question.

With a bowl of now almost lukewarm soup in hand, he makes his way towards the front of the house. Artemy’s sitting at the desk now, resting his chin in his palm, eyes closed lightly. Rubin must have taken his leave tonight at his usual time after their last patient. Sticky sets the bowl down, not intending to interrupt his fathers much needed nap, but Artemy’s eyes flick open with a start as soon as the dinnerware hits the table. 

The Haruspex's breath hitches in his throat for a moment, trying to adjust to the light of the room before he sets his chin back into his hand with a yawn, “...Sticky?”

“I made dinner. You should eat.”

Artemy gives him a lopsided grin, the long day dragging it’s exhaustion down his face, mumbling to himself, grit of sleep still present in his voice, “Such a responsible kid.”

Sticky’s jaw tenses at the comment. Responsible but not trustworthy enough. Pressing his lips into a line he tries to restrain the grimace he so badly wants to pull, watching closely as Artemy slowly returns to the waking world. Trying to gain some understanding of their relationship. 

He often wished the man was easier to read, like a book open with it’s pages splayed before him, letters large and clean. Instead, it felt like looking at an old cracked spine, words faded with time, and having to decipher the contents of the story based on that alone, with half the title and only the wear to determine the meaning. Even when the book was open, the writing was messy and disjointed.

The attempt to suppress his frustration does not go unnoticed, as Artemy cocks an eyebrow at him, hand scratching absentmindedly at the stubble on his chin, “Where did you go today?”

Odd question to start with.

“The steppe.”

“Alone?”

“Why does that matter? You do it all the time.”

“Because it does, and because you're not me, I’m an adult.” In trickles the same stern voice he’d used on Sticky earlier that day.

It doesn’t take much to follow suit, his own tone becoming bitter, “I wasn’t alone, I had Nouhker. Even if I was, I’m fine by myself.”

Artemy laughs through his nose, though not for being amused, and raises from his chair, “Rubin said you’d been irritated still when you came home. Care to tell me what’s up?”

“Now you want to know? I thought you only cared about work,” There’s more venom in that than he wished there was, “I’m pretty sure the only reason I see you is because I’m supposed to be your assistant, but you don't even want that.”

“Sticky, I said I wasn’t going to argue about that with you--”

“It’s not just about that! You’re so busy now, that it seems like you were around more when you were fighting the literal plague.”

“I’m sorry... I can’t do much to fix that, and I’m sorry. Until the Saburovs let us set up a real clinic, until we can find more people to help, it’s just going to get worse before it gets better.”

Something snaps in Sticky, his voice rising as if to avoid the numbness relodged in his throat, “But it was already supposed to be better! It was supposed to get better when you destroyed the Tower! Or did you just have it taken down for nothing?”

Artemy’s brow furrows, having reached a turn in the conversation he’d not expected. His mouth opens to reply but gets cut off, Sticky already knowing what he planned to say.

“Maybe you didn't have to. Maybe there was another way. If you’re so smart you would have figured it out. Maybe if you didn’t the Army would have just left,” The numb feeling turns heavy as stone and sinks in his stomach. An anxiousness arises that only makes his ears buzz and ring, the shadows that cloud Artemy’s face once again leaving him lost and afraid, but he can’t bring himself to stop, “Maybe then the Bachelor would have stayed.”

“Drop the tone, I don’t appreciate it,” Artemys voice burns in his ears.

“Stop talking to me like you're my dad!”

“I am your dad!”

“A really shitty one,” He doesn’t mean it, but it feels good to say. For once in his life, Artemy Burakh has an expression that is easy to understand, as if written in thick black ink on a white board.

Hurt.

There’s a small part of him that says the man deserves it.

 When Artemy finally responds, it’s too soft for a man his size, “...Get out.”

“Huh?” 

“Get out of the clinic. Go to your room, or anywhere else. Go.” 

“Fine,”  He didn't want to be here anyways.

It doesn’t take long to grab his things, still sitting on the table in the kitchen where he’d left them hours before. Grabbing more, a jacket, a blanket, anything, would have been a swell idea, but his brain was screaming to get out like an animal trapped in a cage.

I’ll just go to the lair. He knew where to sleep in there to stay warm, and he’d be alone. It was the safe choice.

When his path takes him past the stairs, hidden in the shadows, peering out at him stands a small scraggly headed figure. Murky must have heard them fighting.

“You’re leaving again.”

Sticky nods with a slight, shameful hesitation, “Yeah.”

She takes his hand and presses a folded wad of paper into it, warm to the touch, the folds pressed heavily from her fingers working the edges. She’d been standing there for a while, and now looks towards the closed doorway, “You’ll come back?”

This time he doesn’t answer.

Chapter Text

But, in the end, Sticky doesn’t go to the lair.

When he hits the train tracks he doesn’t stop there, instead following their thick iron path all the way to the station, standing tall and looming in the distance. The bright orange glow of the station spreading wide and thick in the sicky blue-green light of nightfall. The station bustles with workers. It's not many, but they buzz around like flies on a carcass. He looks on, watching and waiting, jaw clenched so tight it hurts his teeth. He isn’t quite sure what he plans with this, he isn’t even entirely sure he's the one moving his body. The angry ring buzzing in his ears from earlier hasn’t found its end, filling his mind with sludge, stopping him from thinking hard enough to turn around and head back to the lair. Or to the Soul-and-a-Half den, or the Shelter, or back home. 

The wind whips through him, and yet he remains, watching the train station with a vigor he’d never felt before. He can feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and tries to tell himself they’re just watering from the chill. It’s cold. Through muddled thoughts, he pleads with himself.  I should go back. I’m tired. It’s late, but the burning anger and a smaller sense of guilt keeps him locked in place.

It takes an hour, or maybe two, before the station falls silent to the night. When the station was manned by worms, there never seemed to be an end to the work even into the hours just before the sun would break over the horizon. He’d tried to sneak in before, just to see what was in there -- maybe to see what was there that wouldn’t be missed when it was gone -- but it was too hard. Now that most Kin fled the city, the only worm that remained at the station was one that was deaf and mute, who likely didn’t know the Kin was even gone or just didn’t care, and guided cargo engines through the steppe. 

And it’s remarkably easy to sneak past someone who can’t even hear you. 

The odongh stands its watch towards the engine, alone. Sticky crawls his way onto the high station platform, the cold concrete sending static through already numb hands as he pushes himself up. The back half of the station is dark, long blurry shadows cast by the lamplight being the perfect hiding ground as he snuck through stacked boxes and old scrap metal that littered the unused portion of the buildings back walls. 

Quietly, and carefully, he hunts down a train car two its doors still open, just a crack, and slips inside. The rusty frame of the large doors catches on his shirt and leads the metal to creak, he almost yelps in surprise, heart racing as he quickly throws himself fully inside. 

It’s deaf… his thoughts repeat trying to calm the pulse that races in his chest, It can’t hear, you're fine.

The inside of a train car was something he was familiar with after many days and nights over the past few months finding himself with Murky in her old home. With her, it was littered with paper, a nest for sleeping made of old scraps of clothing and blankets. With her it was comfortable, not the creaky and almost creepy metal tin that he found himself in.

Now, alone in the car, he realized what he wanted, why he was here. Murky had spoken of it many times, dreams of a train latching on to her box car and taking her far away from the town. The town hurt. It was full of old memories of his parents years dead now, of the Polyhedron, of his friends who’d died of plague, of those he didn’t know but watched as they suffered and burned at the hands of the Army. Artemy was here, too, and Artemy would find him again. He always managed to do it before. When the morning came, Sticky would have to face one of two realities: his father searches for him and brings him home and he has to face the consequences of his actions, or nobody looks for him and Artemy Burakh does not care whether or not he comes home again. So, instead, he could climb in a train car, go with the train wherever it took him, and avoid knowing all together what option Artemy chose.

He crawled to a corner of the car, finally certain that even if the odongh noticed him it wasn't coming to check. Huddled as far back as he could go against the wooden boxes that smelled of wet fur and freshly chopped wood. Adrenaline from his stunt died off, chill once again wrapping him in its icy fingers. The car was cold and dark, but his breath didn’t form wet clouds like it did outside. He learned that if he curled his arms around his legs, he could probably sleep like that, just warm enough to ignore that his ears were numb. If he got found in the morning and thrown from the station, so be it. If not, then he’d stay here, and go wherever the train was going, as far away from the Gorkhon as it would take him. 

--

Spring came late to the capital this year, snow and ice still found its way to the roads despite how months pass further and further into the year. It was nearly April, and yet somehow Daniil Dankovsky still found himself trudging along the sidewalk, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat, breath forming thick fog as soon as it left his mouth. The early morning lights the streets with a bluish haze, street lights buzzing to beat the sunrise as it attempts to crest the tall buildings of the city. There’s a headache starting beyond his eyes, he's sure of it, a dull thudding with each step he takes. He pulls out the pack of cigarettes tucked into his breast pocket, as well as the lighter that accompanied it. If this was how the day was gonna start: cold, muggy and painful,he might as well take a smoke break before he even gets to work. He makes it to the street corner he usually crosses at, and stands for a moment fiddling with the half broken lighter until it finally catches the flame, then places a cigarette between his lips and burns the end. After one drag, then a second, he resigns himself to cross the street to the shop. It only takes one step for him to stop in his tracks.

Sat on a bench before the store is a young boy, scraggly clothes and blonde hair, recognizable even in the distance. A face the Bachelor had left abandoned in dreams that he’d long wished would stop coming to him. Nightmares and terrors of the plague never stopped even with the plague long gone, thousands of kilometers between him and the small town in the steppe. He’d spent many nights trying to drown out the sound of screams and pyres with booze and morphine, something to dampen the deafening roar of mass destruction wrought on people who he didn’t know, only for the cycle to repeat.

This is Sticky , he reminds himself. Almost none of the urchins had proper names, it felt odd to refer to them with such terms.

So, his delusions finally decided to start walking in daylight. Grand! Just wonderful. One of these days he’ll have himself checked into a psych ward if someone doesn’t do it for him. It took too long to decide that the story of those weeks wasn’t worth telling, that it only would destroy him further if he didn’t just drop it in the past. And yet no matter what he did to leave the Gorkhon behind it always found its nasty little fingers back in the metaphorical pie of his life.

Daniil had almost convinced himself to just ignore the specter of his past and go about his day as usual when he starts getting yelled at. A short, stout lady -- Alma -- leans from the shop just behind the boy on the bench. This startles both of them, “Daniil Dankovsky, if you don’t stop standing around I’ll drag you in here myself!” 

Sticky looks up with both shock and confusion, staring down the Bachelor who stands stupefied across the street. Either this delusion was extremely detailed or Sticky was literally in front of him. And, while his mind playing tricks on him seemed the more reasonable culprit, Alma actually addresses this specter, to his surprise.

Daniil stamps out his cigarette on the ground before trotting across the street, nearly slipping on some hidden ice as he goes. Alma looks at him with a hint of disdain, “It’s a child, boy, are you afraid of children now?” 

“Ah, no it’s--”

“Bachelor! I actually found you,” Sticky doesn’t let him finish, grabbing at the man's sleeve to garner his attention -- something he already had though was a bit too distraught to realize. 

“I’ll be in in a moment,” Daniil waves the woman off, ushering her inside with promises to soon follow suit. Sticky still has a firm grip on his sleeve, not willing to let go until he gets acknowledged. He tries to not mind this, “You’re hardly dressed for the cold, what are you doing out here?” 

“I don’t know... I wanted to find you, I guess it worked out.” 

Well! Simple as that. It always was simple with the steppe people, even when things were the exact opposite. ‘I wanted to find you’ is what he said, but the reality of it was that he did indeed find him. In the middle of Moscow with no starting point or any idea that he would even be there in the first place!

“I don't think I understand, but, really, you’re going to freeze to death looking like that,” Daniil can’t help but feel bad for the boy. Or not bad for, but sad for? Protective of? Endeared to? It really was a pitiful sight. Sticky was wrapped in the typical linen clothes that the people on the Gorkhon wore. Layers upon layers, warm enough for day-to-day but lacking in any scarves, hats, gloves or even a thick winter coat,  “Don’t you have anything warmer than that?”

“... Forgot to bring them.”

Daniil sighs, and opens the door that Alma had gone through earlier, “Get inside.”

--

Sticky gives a glance around the front room of the store, lined with racks of clothing -- blazers and jackets and dresses, the flashy fashion of the capital if any of his understanding based off of the Bachelor’s clothing choices was correct. There’s a few stools scattered around, and a mirror in the back corner. He raises an eyebrow at Daniil, who is removing his overcoat, folding it in his arms.

“What’s this place?” He could very well tell it was a tailor’s shop, so maybe it would be better worded as ‘why are you here’. Asking that, however, could only end with Dankovsky returning the question back to him, something he was trying hard to avoid answering himself. It seemed like the older man got the point, anyways.

“I work here,” Daniil doesn’t move far from the doorway, brows creased in contemplation as he looks over the child before him, convinced that if he looks away for a second he’ll just disappear. The look Sticky gives him doesn’t vote much confidence.

“...Why?”

“Because like most living beings, I need money -- and thus a job -- to survive.” When it’s clear that answer doesn’t satisfy, Daniil goes to continue before being interrupted.

“Dankovsky, you can chat when I’m not paying you to do so,” The short woman looks between the two of them. Her face isn’t necessarily mean, but reminds Sticky of Maria Kaina in its severity. Daniil nods, a soft ‘ah, right’ following, before heading to one of the back rooms of the shop. The two talk for a moment just out of earshot, and Sticky finds himself immersed in the patterns and folds of all the audacious clothing that hangs from the shop's walls. It isn’t until Daniil is calling his name that he realizes he’d gotten so transfixed. He finds his way to the back room that the pair had sequestered themselves to, and stands just at the threshold looking in. 

“I don’t think he’ll be in the way, he’s a good kid,” Daniil says that and Sticky realizes they must have been talking about him, trying to figure out what to do with the random child that appeared before the shop, “He’s the son of a friend of mine, I think.”

“You think?”

“Adoptive son, if I’m remembering correctly. The conditions were a bit… odd,” Not that he could explain that Burakh’s fate was bound to seven children, a duty inherited from his murdered father, in some delusional mission to protect them from a sentient plague. People of the capital weren’t much for the fate or fortune of the steppe, and Daniil felt crazy enough to have believed it himself, even if for just a scant moment.

The woman doesn’t seem to understand, but is willing to leave it be and gives Sticky a once-over. Clearly discontent with the grime and dirt that had caked the young boy over his travels, she gives him a grimace and turns back to Daniil, “Don’t let him touch anything. Finish your work and you can go early.”

He nods and the two watch as the woman wanders her way to the front of the shop.

Eventually, Sticky finds himself sitting atop a high stool -- one probably meant for customers that the shop lacked at the moment --  as he watches the Bachelor go about his work. There’s a small couch he could sit on, but in a way he's desperate to look on and see just what it looks like to watch Daniil sew. Morbid curiosity to see someone he’d seen willing to maim other human beings do such dainty tasks as pin and stitch. 

The room was an immaculate disaster piece, one only capable by one Daniil Dankovsky to be an utterly functional mess. There's a wall of assorted threads, sorted by apparent usage rather than color or type. Two separate dress forms are both half draped with completely different manners of dress that would both make even Anna Angel weep. They sit in silence for a while, the electric hum of an overhead light and the occasional sniffles from himself the only sounds between them. The older man is bent over a long dress that lay heavy across the desk he works at. Pins are running up the sides, and he adds more to the loose edges and gaps marked with white chalk. The fabric of the dress is almost too gaudy even for what Sticky assumes are Dankovsky’s standards -- which is saying something. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, a set of needles and pins are held loosely in his teeth. There's a tired look in his eyes that makes him appear constantly troubled. Sticky would have called the man disheveled, but that wasn’t the proper word for it. He’d seen Daniil disheveled before, during the plague, a look that bordered on crazed and delirious. There was still a clinical feel about him, but it was a very different look than the prim and prickly capital man he’d known before.

Daniil rolls a piece of thread between his fingers to smooth the frayed ends. Plucking the last needle from between his lips to thread it, he finally addresses Sticky again, “If you’re here, where's Burakh?” 

“Back in the town.”

“... And does he know you're here?” When there's a lag in response, it stops Daniil's focus, his head snapping to the side to face Sticky. Once again, he feels his face being searched for answers, Daniil’s eyes scanning him from top to bottom, “How did you get here?”

The examination causes Sticky to shrink back awkwardly, “T-train…”

“ You paid for train tickets?”

“‘Paid’ is a strong word.”

“So you sto—“

“I didn’t steal anything either! I rode a train, is that so bad? Artemy did it too, before.. But it’s crazy only that I did it?”

“I was going to say stowed away. The fact that you assumed I was going to accuse you of stealing worries me that you actually did steal something,” the threaded needle in Daniils hand gets abandoned in a pin filled tomato on the desk, favoring to instead press his thumbs to his eyebrows in disbelief, “Regardless, you’re a child, that’s different. You can’t just go wherever you wish, especially not without telling someone. Even more so not halfway across Russia!” 

“Why is it always that I’m a kid is the problem?! Nobody cared that I was a kid before, as long as they didn’t have to look at me!”

There's that pang of pity again. And, again, he has to remind himself that that's not exactly it. Pity is reserved for those who he does not necessarily know. For the sick and dying. For people who he tried to help, but if when things turned south he could wipe his hands and say he did his best. Forgive himself and try to do better next time. Sticky was not one of those people where failure was an option.

 “You have people who care for you now,” Daniil tries to say this as genuinely as possible. He was fairly certain that was the case, that was the impression the Haruspex had given him, “You ran away from home.”

“So did you.”

“... That city is not my home.”

“Why not? People like you there. What, you left so you could come sew clothes for some old lady?” No offence, old lady, who was nice enough to not kick me out.

“It’s complicated, Sticky.”

“I can talk ‘complicated’, too. Explain it to me, I’ll get it. Probably.”

The Bachelor sighs, running a hand through his hair, flattening down fly away edges. This wasn’t a conversation he willingly had often, if at all. The state of his current reality. Not like there was anyone left to ask about it, “I had my medical license revoked. Couldn’t be a doctor if I tried, not legally anyways.”

“What! Why?”

“Malpractice, in theory. Lunacy the more likely culprit.”

“Loon assy?”

“They called me crazy. Trying to prevent death, raising the dead, talking nonsense about immortal life for so long with so little to show for it. They grew tired of theoreticals, decided destroying my work wasn’t enough, and took me down with it.”

It was strange to think that their famed doctor ‘The Bachelor, Daniil Dankovsky’ was now just ‘Daniil Dankovsy, the tailor’ over such stupid terms. Things in the capital had such different rules, though that seemed obvious enough just by having met Daniil in the first place. 

 “... Artemy doesn’t have a license.”

“And Burakh is a hack medic on the steppe who practices herbal medicine. The Powers That Be or the Government or whoever has no desire to interfere with someone who’s only skills rely on butchering people and shoving leaves into the wounds,” Daniil realizes what he’s saying is unnecessarily cruel, especially to a child that looks up to the man he is currently bad-mouthing. A rather scathing review from someone who only survived because of this person he’s calling hack medic , “...I—ah. I would say it is their words and not mine, but clearly I’m the one who said it.”

If looks could kill, the one Sticky gives him would leave him eviscerated, “After everything, you still don’t think it works?”

“It’s not that. It clearly… does…” More than he could say for his own work, “I simply find it hard to believe it is based in any real science or is even grounded in reality.”

“Says the not-doctor who had his license taken away for his own fake science.”

“You got me there.”

“So now you… sew stuff?”

“Steady hands and an ability to sew are two traits a doctor and a seamstress share.”

“I hope you don’t give stitches like you sew or I’d rather bleed out!” From down the hall, the shop owner makes her eavesdropping known. It was a miracle she’d yet to tell Daniil to get back to work, and he wonders if it’s because she's being nosey or just entertained.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time you drop a plate on your foot and ask me to fix it up!” For the first time Sticky sees Daniil genuinely laugh. It’s a bit awkward and uncertain, but nothing like the forced amusement he’d seen so frequently before. Daniil continues, “You have to admit I’ve gotten a lot better. I’m used to stitching corpses back together, after all. Nobody quite cares what it looks like at that point.”

There’s only a snide grunt in response, but Daniil doesn’t seem too bothered by that. He simply turns back to his work with a slight grin and finds his needle, tying a knot at the end of the thread from before. They sit in silence once again, the conversation dead to the dredge of work. Sticky watches the Bachelor with rapt attention that only lasts a few minutes before the warmth of the room, comforting sound of calm breathing, and quiet hum of the city coming to life outside starts to cause him to start to doze.

It takes a while until Daniil decides to finally voice his thoughts, waking Sticky, “I’m not going to ignore the fact that you ran away from home , by the way. But, we can talk about that later. You should rest. I’ll be here for a while, and you look like you're about to fall out of the chair. Given my apparent reputation, I don’t think anyone wants me to have to sew your head back together using cotton thread.”

Sticky doesn’t argue, feeling himself teetering on the edge of sleep. He crawls down from the stool and over to the couch against the wall. It’s a cramped loveseat, and he has to curl into himself to fully lay down, but it’s more comfortable than the ground of a rusty box car. Smells nicer too. He fidgets around for a bit, eventually closing his eyes and letting sleep take him. The last thing he remembers is the faint feeling of something being draped over his shoulders.

Chapter Text

The room falls into a comfortable silence, or at least the near silence that the Capitol allowed. The soft hum of automobiles passing the street side window, crunching through ice that began to melt in the morning sunlight. The electrical buzz of a sewing machine in the shop's main room as the shop owner went about her own work. Radiators, birds, people talking and walking -- all fed into a remarkably loud silence. Quiet enough for a child to sleep through, and quiet enough for Daniil to be perfectly alone in his thoughts, monotonous enough that his hands went about working while his mind wandered elsewhere.

And silence was a breeding ground for unrest. There was a reason he was an Academic. Overthinking was a natural habit -- empty space needed to be filled with words, with theories or ideas. Something that was easily accomplished in the hands of a Lab. Left to his own devices, things start to go downhill. 

What the Hell was he supposed to do now?

He’d returned from the steppe a year before, degraded and disgraced, his reputation shattered and splintered like the Polyhedron's warped metal frame, burned through like Thanatica. He’d vowed to leave behind whatever memories of that fowl and frigid wasteland of a town had burned into him behind, and might have found himself better for it in time. Suck the venom out and lick his own wounds clean, scab up, scar over and fade away. 

Then it showed up in the form of the Haruspex’s child, presented to him on his doorstep, uninvited. Like a sore old scar, cut open once again by the hands of the Ripper. 

Daniil didn’t expect to make amends. He was more fond of burning bridges, it felt more complete and effective. Why repair something so broken when tossing it out would solve the problem just as well. He didn’t want to forgive, or be forgiven by anyone. He knew full well a mistreated wound would never truly heal. The scar would stay, raised and red, painful to the touch, just like the real ones he’d received from those ravenous townspeople. But, leaving himself to suffer that fate felt like a better penance for his failures than grovelling and admitting his own wrongs.

A clock chime from one of the back rooms is what finally snaps Daniil from his downward turning spiral. He hadn’t noticed how tight he’d gripped the needle between his fingers, releasing it leaving a thin red indentation on his thumb. Nor had he realized how tight he’d clenched his jaw, now certain his teeth could shatter with the amount of force he ground them together if he wasn’t careful. With a sigh, he sat back, cracked his neck rather unsatisfactorily, then surveyed his work. 

The stitches that lined the cuff sleeve he’d poked and prodded  were rather ugly, he’d have to rip them out and start again. 

So much for getting things done quickly today . 

Daniil finally turns to Sticky again, who by now has all but curled up like a cat on the paisley couch at the back of the closet-sized workspace. Daniil had thrown his coat over the boy as a makeshift blanket, to add some semblance of comfort, which had seemingly been accepted rather gratefully given how it was now hugged tightly to the kids chest.

It had been an hour, maybe two, if the heightening sound of hustle and bustle from outside was anything to go by. The kid hadn’t made so much as a peep since they’d stopped talking. He couldn’t remember if the boy had always looked this way -- grimy, in tattered clothes, hair stuck down against his face with sweat and yet sticking up in other places. He probably had, at least back then. An urchin amidst the worst plague Daniil could put to books didn’t really speak well for one's hygiene. But Sticky wasn’t one of those orphans anymore, and certainly Burakh took better care of his own kids than this. Then again, certainly Burakh wouldn’t let his own twelve year old child stow away in a train across the country by himself, so what did Daniil know?

He brushes the bits of hair from Sticky’s face, the boy's skin warm and feverish against the back of his fingers. He’d expected that. It would have been more surprising if that wasn’t the case in fact, it was a miracle of its own Sticky wasn’t currently dying of hypothermia or dehydration. Still, a small twinge of dread and panic makes itself comfortable in his chest. Even the smallest notion of the Pest would do such these days, a cough or groans in pain could elicit a similar reaction from him. When his hands became chapped from the cold early on in the winter, he’d locked himself in his apartment and refused to see anyone for days, scrubbed the skin raw with alcohol -- not the proper solution to the problem, he knows -- convinced himself he’d brought it back, somehow, months after the fact. 

It takes a moment of mental argument to decide that Burakh would rather see himself dead than let Sticky not once but twice catch the plague. Even if the kid was here in his workshop, halfway across the country, sleeping on a couch, and having run away from home of all things. 

Daniil would have to call, or rather send a letter since that was more likely to actually be possible. Phone lines didn’t run out that far, regretfully, the little podunk town barely had working electricity. It barely had gas, for that matter.

Isidor Burakh’s address was stashed away somewhere in the piles of letters Daniil had salvaged from his old belongings from when he’d sent letters back and forth with the man. He was pretty sure that was where the younger Burakh now lived, if not someone would get the letter to him. That town can’t keep out of each others business for the life of them.

But, that could come later. If Burakh hadn’t gone mad with worry yet, it wouldn’t hurt him to wait a bit more. If he had, well, not much Daniil could do to change that now.

--

It’s warm, uncomfortably so under a stream of orange late-afternoon light cascading from a half-curtained window. Sticky hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until a burning pain that nestled behind his cheekbones finally woke him up again. Tentatively, he cracked open his eyes, the bright beams of light made his eyes ache more, and it took a second to see a room that he did not recognize. 

Someone found me was the first thought to come to mind. He sits up, a ball of panic settled well into his stomach, though he quickly regretted the motion that sent his head reeling worse than it already was. It takes a moment to steady his brain as he digs the palms of his hands into his eye sockets, still half asleep and groggy with a headache he apparently only wanted to make worse. With a short sniff that did nothing to help the nose he could hardly breathe through, Sticky finally looks around the room. 

Right. He’d found the Bachelor this morning, which was an odd enough coincidence. Through the haze of his headache and leftover drowsiness, the details from the past few days had gotten a bit vague to say the least. It was too hard to think through just how stacked the odds were against him, but if he could guess the answer was probably not good. He wasn’t that good at math, anyways. 

The room itself was sparsely decorated, though well used much like the space from the Tailor shop Sticky had seen this morning. Somehow the fashion sense that plagued the capital didn’t translate to their interior design. Everything was overtly plain, utilitarian almost, but still held the same organized chaos he’d seen before. Books stacked and bookmarked with other books between them, a selection of button up shirts folded neatly yet somehow still stacked messily on a chair in the corner. The bed he’d woken up in was probably the most entertaining thing of the entire room, the quilt spread before him having more color than he ever would have imagined the Bachelor owned, made from what appeared to be scraps of vivid patterned fabrics and intricate shapes. He had to wonder if it was a gift from the old shop lady, fabrics matching some of the clothing items he’d been so transfixed on.

Beside the bed was a nightstand, adorned with a lamp missing its shade and a note that read:

Take these and go back to sleep if you can.
Out picking up items from the grocery, I’ll
be back soon. Though, I don’t know if you
can read, so hopefully you get the hint.

-- D.D.

Well that’s just rude. Just because he never went to school and was an orphan with nobody to raise him until now, it didn’t mean he didn’t know how to read. Well, actually. Maybe it did. He understood the implication there, at least. Not many of the kids had a great grasp of basics, Murky could still barely read and it proved a task to get her interested in even trying. But, still, it was rude! 

The ‘these’ in the note referred to a set of pills that punctuated the end right below the signature. They were light yellow, easily recognizable as antibiotics if Artemy had taught him anything. Of course, the kind Bachelor had completely forgotten to leave anything to take them with which led Sticky stumbling out of the bedroom and into the main area of the house.

Or rather, apartment, it seemed. The door creaks as he peers into the living space, empty — though he wasn’t sure what to expect. To Sticky’s surprise, the Bachelor did not live in a lavish and sprawling home that he gave off airs of owning, but rather a small one bedroom apartment, the view from the window implying it was up several floors in the building. 

The rest of the apartment mimicked the bedroom in sparsity and blandness, the most used area being a desk. Either the Bachelor hadn’t lived here long, or he made it a point to seem like he was ready to leave at the drop of a pin, anything that held the smallest hint of personality was easily stowed away. A strange contradiction to the Stillwater that Sticky so eagerly associated with the man -- strange and convoluted, an air of hostility seemingly stemming from nowhere. Perhaps it was simply that the house was occupied by Eva Yahn at the time, but none of the entrapping chaos of the home could be found in this apartment. 

The most surprising of these personal effects was a set of pinned beetles in a shadow box, which Sticky gingerly lifts from its place on a desk. It looked like it was once hung on the wall, an obvious nail in the wall over the desk, but got taken down for some reason or another. The bugs' husks were thick and shiny, hints of rainbows across their backs in the afternoon sun, and each was pinned delicately with space between for more to be added in the future. 

An odd collection for such a distinguished man to have, something that would have fascinated Murky or Taya, he thinks. Yet the inky black surfaces, pristine in their little case, were fitting all the same. Meticulous, shiny, and strange. Words fitting of their owner. 

A click from the front entrance, or what he assumes to be the entrance at least, draws Sticky’s attention. The door is edged open with a foot, the fumbling of a set of keys accompanying the Bachelor as he slides himself through the doorway.

“Shit!” There’s an uncharacteristic squawk as he jumps back in surprise, almost dropping his keys and the two paper sacks tucked tightly against his ribs in the process.

Sticky blinks, “Forget I was here?”

“I didn’t expect you to be standing ominously in the living room! I thought you were— neverminded…” Daniil takes a second to catch his breath, one hand braced against the entry wall, “Why are you up?”

“Water.”

Finally resigned to enter his own home, Daniil paced into the kitchen, “Didn’t I… No, it slipped my mind.”

Sticky returns the bugs to their place on the desk and follows him into the room. The kitchen is small, more cramped than the bedroom with the dining table shoved into the center, chairs tucked tight against it. The light that hangs down over the table tinges the room an odd green with it’s glass shade, seemingly the only sense of color built into the building itself. Daniil navigates the area deftly, scrubbing his thumb against the back of a chair as he passes, an accepted habit of acknowledging something that is vaguely in his way. Paper bag abandoned on a counter beside the sink, he finds his way to a cupboard and starts digging through. Discontent with the various tea cups and tumblers he pulls out and inspects with great detail, he places each back only to pull out another and repeat the process.

“How did we get here?” Sticky asks, hanging around the doorway to avoid getting in the way. He didn't remember walking at all, or waking up for that matter. 

“I carried you.” Daniil finally settles on a glass that suits whatever specifications he’s trying to meet, and finally closes the cabinet to look at Sticky. Apparently Sticky’s face gives away his disbelief, because Daniil returns it with a pensive frown, “You’re not that heavy.”

“We’re like the same height!”

Daniil almost tries to retort, but loses his words. With a turn on his heel he faces a pitcher on the counter to fill the glass in his hand, before returning to place the cup on the table with a glare, “I refuse to believe that I, a nearly 30 year old man, am the same height as a 12 year old.”

Sticky simply crosses his arms and sticks out his tongue, “You don’t believe a lot of things that are true, and look where that got you.”

--

It had been a few hours since Sticky woke up in Daniil Dankovsky’s apartment, the evening sun had fallen past the horizon of tall buildings that towered along the streets to the Capitol. Daniil had ushered Sticky off into a bath after he’d taken some antibiotics, and when Sticky finally emerged -- free of the grime and filth that had caked itself to his skin over the past few days -- the Bachelor had apparently busied himself with a plethora of things. The bedsheets on the bed had been changed, a pile of dirty linens sitting piled in the hallway joined by the clothes Sticky had been wearing when he arrived. A shirt sat folded on the bed, either Daniil had gracefully accepted that Sticky had in fact grown in the past year and the two could practically share clothes, or he decided that it was a better option than leaving Sticky to wander his apartment completely naked. Other than the bed, items that had previously been strewn about now seemingly had new homes, clothes put in more proper spaces and books now neatly stacked rather than in piles with dog eared and bookmarked pages. Sticky tried to make sense of the writing on the spines, but just like many of the books the old Burakh kept, a number of them were written in languages he couldn’t even begin to understand.

Daniil eventually found him there, peering into the room in a way that made him appear to be uncomfortable in his own home. “Are you hungry?” He doesn’t enter the room.

“Not really.”

This apartment is Daniil’s, and yet he stands just past the threshold to the bedroom, light from the lamp casting dark shadows across his face. He hums quietly. 

“You should eat something at least. Broth, perhaps?” The question is more directed at himself than Sticky, mumbled into a finger pressed idly to his lips. Daniil leaves the doorway back to the kitchen. There's an odd distance the Bachelor tries to keep between the two of them. If not physically, then with a thick, awkward curtain of avoidant answers, or simple questions that poke no deeper than the skin, Sticky can’t quite figure out why.

It takes a while for Daniil to finally return, Sticky stuck analyzing the cracks that line the edges of the ceiling from when the building settled in it’s foundation. He’s pretty sure at one point he hears Daniil cursing, having burned his hand on something.

When he finally comes back, he offers a bowl though doesn’t really let it go until it’s firmly placed in both of Sticky’s hands. Sticky amuses the idea of eating for about half a minute before quickly giving in to a nausea that slapped him straight across the face, forcing him to lay down.

Eventually he falls asleep, not exactly sure when. Somewhere in the small apartment there's a clock ticking away quietly. It doesn’t chime on the hour as far as Sticky can tell, but the sound of gears, the pendulum swinging, was almost a comfort. It reminded him of the clock from the Lair. Artemy had moved it along with everything else, but for whatever reason it had stopped moving. He’d kept saying he’d fix it, told Sticky not to mess with it in the meantime, and yet the clock remained unmoving. 

Sticky imagines that Artemy might not like the sound of it, that he’d broken or stopped it on purpose. He didn’t particularly mind that, and eventually the unmoving clock just blended into the background of the house with everything else. It was only now that he realized he’d missed the monotonous ticks so much.

--

It was later in the night when Sticky had awoken again. Daniil himself up in the corner of the room, scratching down notes from a book onto paper. When he realizes Sticky is awake again, he manages to pull himself away from his research -- something Sticky is sure was difficult enough for the man to do -- and drags his chair over to the bedside. 

“I should probably examine you. Can you sit up for me,” There's a professional air about him that had been missing from before, an air that Sticky was much more accustomed to. He follows suit to Daniil’s request who begins poking and prodding at him without hesitation. “I am going to ask why you ran away from home, and I would prefer you don’t avoid the question.” 

Daniil presses a thumb into Sticky’s wrist, who remains silent for a moment, debating what to say, “I don’t know.”

“ Sticky. ” The look Daniil gives him is entirely incredulous, glaring between the motion of bending down to dig out a stethoscope from his age old carpet bag. Some things didn’t change at all, it seems.

“I’m not lying! I didn’t really think about it. I just… did .”

“I don’t know if I believe that.” 

Sticky flinches when cold metal touches his skin, but ultimately remains still. He knows what to do. Artemy was nearly neurotic in checking him after the pest was gone, making sure there were no lingering effects after Sticky had caught it. He breathes slowly and just hopes the Bachelor actually believes him.

They sat quietly, Daniil focused on whatever it was he was trying to check here, and Sticky just trying to not make this any more difficult than it needed to be. Eventually, Daniil pulls the stethoscope from his ears and folds it into his lap, fishes out a slightly dingy looking torch, and fiddles with it a bit before shining it directly into Sticky’s eyes, “Look into this light.”

“This is pretty thorough for a cold,” Sticky frowns. He knew why, or at least suspected why Daniil was acting this way, and he wasn’t really a fan.

“You can never be too thorough.”

It takes a while before Daniil is truly convinced that Sticky isn’t patient zero of the next catastrophe to reach the Capitol. Sticky plays along with the charade, with increasing protest as time goes on. Daniil finally gives up and starts packing things away, whatever tension he was holding finally releasing itself from his shoulders.

Sticky adjusts his shirt, finally free from Daniil’s scrutiny, “...We argued.” 

“About what?” Daniil doesn’t look up from organizing his things. Maybe it’s from feigning disinterest, or because he's genuinely not surprised, Sticky can’t tell.

“A lot of different stuff,” He reluctantly continued, “He doesn’t like it when I try to help. I said… mean things to him.”

Daniil hums in understanding, pushing his carpet bag under the bed with his foot, “I’m not a therapist. You came to the wrong place if you thought I would be able to help with this.”

“I didn’t even know where you were.”

“Then why are you here ?” Daniil raises an eyebrow.

Sticky flops backwards onto the bed and covers his eyes with his hands. This conversation was not one he’d wanted to have with the Bachelor, and yet the man seemed to be determined to drag it out of him, “ Mystical magical steppe crap , as you would say.”

“I wouldn’t say that...” 

“I got on a train and went where it went. The fact that it's here is... fate… of some kind.” 

“Fate, huh,” Daniil almost scoffs. 

“I said it was mystical magical steppe crap.”

“Fair enough…” Daniil gets up from his seat and walks out of the room. After a couple of minutes he comes back, and places something onto the nightstand with a clink. He doesn’t speak up again until he’s placed something cold -- damp cloth probably, Sticky thinks -- onto his face, “You know he won’t hold it against you, right?”

Sticky’s hands move to the cloth, and presses it into his face, making a small “Mm,” in response. He’s not exactly tired, but feigning so might get Daniil to drop the subject for a while, or so he hopes. Daniil sighs, once again standing from his seat, this time pulling it back to his desk, “We’ll talk about this more later.”

--

“Can I still call you Bachelor?”

Daniil’s overs over Sticky, brow furrowed slightly in confusion as his hands wring out the damp towel refreshing over a bowl. That came out of nowhere, “I... suppose? It’s a bit outdated, but being called ‘Tailor’ would be worse. I have other names, though.” Last drops of water falling into the bowl, he refolds the towel before laying it across the child's forehead.

“Dankovsky,” Sticky pokes out his tongue and scrunches his nose at the name. 

The older man chuckles lightly, “I do have a first name you know? You could always call me Daniil. Or prickly prick , was it?”

“What about oynon? That’s what Artemy calls you, isn’t it?”

Daniil's words catch in his throat for a second, “That… Well, that’s a bit outdated too, don’t you think? No better than the Bachelor of Medicine who no longer has a Bachelor's degree. I’m not the respected scientist I once was.”

“I respect you.”

“It’s good to know at least someone does.”