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“When we finally pulled away from that long kiss, he said-”
“It’s clear you’ve completely abandoned any effort at an accurate retelling at this point.” Daniil lolled his head against Artemy’s shoulder, settling deeper into the couch and smoky twyrine haze.
“Oh, really?” Artemy jostled him more than might have been strictly necessary while placing an arm around him. “You think you remember what happened that day better than I do?”
“Apparently.” Each syllable of the word came out carefully cut. Daniil’s eyes were bright with liquor and the unsorrowful tears it birthed, his voice managed breath by breath in an attempt to keep some semblance of his sober eloquence above the tide. “I wished you luck with the inquisitor. I explained why I expected my meeting with her to be so mm-”
He had no room, nor any desire, it seemed, to lean away from the kiss by which Artemy swallowed his words. His hand crept to the menkhu’s thigh, and remained there even when Artemy leaned away.
“Maybe I’m telling it the way it should have been,” Artemy said.
“Oh?” Daniil’s grip on the syllable slipped. His brows climbed, to something more like comic shock than the scholarly curiosity he might have intended. “Do you wish you had kissed me that day, then?”
“Yes.” The answer came quick and unvarnished, and soft in Artemy’s eyes. “I wish I’d kissed you every day since I met you.”
A flush climbed after Daniil’s brows. He pressed his lips together, trying to regain his grip.
“Well,” he said. “In hindsight, I wish I had kissed you that day, as well.”
Artemy pulled the two of them together again, less by surprise. Seated opposite the kiss, Andrey and Yulia took the opportunity to roll their eyes, and a smile, towards one another.
“If the two of you are too overcome by twyrine or each other to make it home,” Andrey suggested, “I have a room you could retire to.”
Daniil leaned far enough from his business with Artemy to flash the bar’s owner a sardonic look. “Really? Is this a room you would also be occupying at the time?”
The smirk Andrey had been wearing split to a sharp grin. “Consider it your rent for the night.”
“We appreciate the offer,” Artemy said. “If you give me a minute, though, I’m sure I could manage carrying him home.”
“If you give me ten minutes,” Daniil leaned deeply into him again, “You won’t have to.”
“One minute it is, then.”
“I’d still like to hear the rest of the story, though,” Yulia said. “It seems to me it was just getting interesting.”
“Right.” Artemy settled forward, elbows to thighs, almost rolling an unprepared Daniil from the couch. “I haven’t even told you how I saved him from the army yet.”
“You bastard,” Daniil managed, muffled, clinging his way back to something like balance by way of Artemy’s arm. “If you try to take the credit for that, I’ll-”
“So anyways. This would have been a few days later...”
#
“So you wish you’d saved me from the soldiers as well?”
Artemy glanced back as best he could at the man draped over his shoulders. Daniil’s hands swung drowsily against his chest, keeping time with the frangible fresh-snow crunch of his steps.
“Of course I do,” he confirmed. “I wish I’d been there every time you struggled during those twelve days.”
“Hmm.” Daniil’s breath blew warm and steppe-scented against his cheek. “You know, I managed well enough on my own.”
“Of course you did. But you shouldn’t have had to.”
The snow still fell in rare sparks across the dark. The town lay in silence except for the muffled trail he was laying towards home.
“I think I ought to tell the story next time,” Daniil announced, after a minute of only that soft, homeward sound. “I may add a dramatic incident in which I rescue you from Saburov’s patrolmen.”
“Oh, really? You’re already thinking of ways to revenge yourself on me? You know, I could make you walk.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have a dramatic speech as well.”
“Oh, well,” Artemy grinned at the street and dark. “In that case, then...”
Daniil’s hands settled on their next swing against his chest. A finger curled around the lapel of his coat, holding them close.
The breath against his cheek lazed towards sleep. He hitched Daniil a careful inch higher on his shoulders, and continued on through the silence towards a place where they could both be warm.