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They rarely have time for things like this anymore, small moments of peace and quiet where the world shrinks itself into the two of them: a little bubble just for the pair, this space where Nikolai is a boy again, blind to the sins of the world and clinging to Fyodor like a lifeline.
So Nikolai makes sure to cherish it all the more when they can meet in the middle again, lying in bed together in a dimly lit room. When they were younger - when Nikolai’s clothes were little more than dirtied scraps, when Fyodor’s dreams were abstract and riddled with uncertainty - they slept like this often, the comfort of human touch and the bare warmth of skin against skin keeping their hearts beating.
Is it dusk? Is it midnight? Has the sun already risen, a shining beacon and a reminder of their inevitable separation? Not alone, not individually, but together - together they are timeless, fingers curled around one another until the universe itself dies out.
( My salvation, he thinks, almost feverish. My haven, my judgement, my Fedya. )
More than once - both internally and aloud - he has likened Fyodor to a cat, as adverse to the idea of touch as he is drawn to it. To the people outside their bubble, he flinches away at the slightest brush, but with Nikolai… oh, never with Nikolai. Before and after the development of his ability, he has always lingered close, ever-curious hands always roaming. They both have the hands of killers, but Nikolai has always envied Fyodor’s soft, unscarred skin: the touch of death requires little physical strain, excepting bitten nails and fingertips.
(Knowing the man beside him could kill him in a heartbeat is thrilling. Every stroke of the thumbpad against his lower lip tastes like a dance with the grim reaper, and Nikolai shivers knowing how much control Fyodor could have over him.)
Nikolai’s gloves hide calluses and broken fingernails; scratches and marks that have yet to fade with time. Still Fyodor tugs them off, tracing over skin with his own bony fingers like each imperfection is a stroke of paint on some canvas - a map, a path of their history and everything he has done to build Fyodor’s utopia.
For a man whose silver tongue could convince Death itself to turn tail, Fyodor speaks scarcely in these moments. It is the mutual understanding between an angel and his god, the shedding of the masks they hide behind until their nakedly human selves are exposed to one another. The silence is filled with the rustling of fabric and shared breaths.
In the recent weeks filled with single-minded focus, it’s a miracle they’ve found this time to meet safely and do nothing at all. Nikolai sighs contentedly, his own hands idly toying with strands of hair dark as night. Fyodor is terrifying as he is elegantly beautiful, and Nikolai marvels at how effortlessly he manages to balance both qualities.
Yet again he thinks amusedly of felines, predators of the night: charming, cunning, sleek, much like someone else he could name. He has mentioned this comparison to Fyodor before and received an ever-light chuckle in return.
(
‘Ironic, given that cats are hunters of rats.’
)
His lips quirk up at the memory, and - despite the darkness of the room - Fyodor picks up on it, slowly and deliberately moving his finger down from long eyelashes: curving around his nose, pressing into his cheek until he reaches his mouth.
(It’s so painfully human that Nikolai wants to cry.)
Their chests rise and fall in tandem, and in a moment of boldness Nikolai shifts until his face is buried in Fyodor’s chest. He doesn’t have to look to know that Fyodor is watching him curiously - after all, what purpose does he serve if he cannot entertain? It is something to be proud of, being someone whose every action cannot be predicted.
His arms wrap around a thin waist: though his complexion has grown better over the years, a part of Nikolai will always worry that Fyodor’s bad health will be the death of him.
( His death will mean nothing if Nikolai is not the one to kill him, not the one to prove his freedom by combatting his god, by ridding himself of his truest friend, the only person he trusts– )
Memories of being younger come back to him, when it was the two of them against the world. Lacking money, resources, and influence, they had had far too many close brushes with death whenever Fyodor fell ill. Harsh winters and cruel biting winds: Nikolai had yet to master the art of theft, nabbing little more than cheap medicine and stale bread. Those dark nights of scurrying back to their home were some of the most terrifying of his life, never knowing whether Fyodor would cave in to his fever or not.
That was how this arrangement had started, then - a half-conscious Fyodor and a panicked Nikolai curled up into each other, huddling for heat. He would fall asleep to the sound of a beating heart, the steady reminder that his saviour remains alive.
Now they reflect the same position, years of growth and experience molding them into their current identities. In and out, in and out - his breaths and the pace of Fyodor’s heart match together. Without looking, he extends a hand slightly upwards; not a moment of hesitation passes before he feels Fyodor’s cool hand press against his own. Their fingers lace together because, without speaking, without seeing, they maintain an intrinsic understanding of one another.
When they are forced back into the filthy outside world, maybe Nikolai will remember that he is supposed to hate that, hate the way that Fyodor knows him inside and out and ruthlessly uses that information to manipulate him. Maybe he will remember how he despises being used , not even worth more than a pawn in this world of black and white.
But right here, right now, thoughts of killing and hatred feel so far away because Fyodor is terrible, sinister and all too chilling when he has to be–
but he is also the boy who mumbled that they would be together forever at the peak of his fever
the man who calls him his angel and cleanses him of sin
the one who looks at him, smiles wryly, and tells him more about himself in one sentence than he’s ever been able to express through his entire life.
And Nikolai is naïve and a dreamer and an idealist who only really cares for his freedom but in this little room it doesn’t really matter because they both are, they’re both frighteningly insane and terribly sane, both desperately holding onto one another, both weak and scared and vulnerable with no one and everyone to believe in at the same time because Fyodor is his world.
“Kolya,” Fyodor murmurs into his hair, “when the world is ours, you will stay by my side?”
Not even a heartbeat passes before the answer:
“Of course.”
“Then that is all I need to hear.”
It’s no ‘I-love-you’, but then that is to be expected. They have both known both the question and the answer since the beginning of time, a promise that birthed itself the moment Nikolai found someone who he could be understood by. Forget vows, forget proposals and everything that the innocent thrive in:
this
is what binds them together, lost broken killers who have tied their red strings of fate together.
After all, why follow a preexisting destiny when you can make your own?
By your side till death do us part, Fedya.