Work Text:
Fira sits on the windowsill, her dishevelled head like a dandelion crown silhouetted against the delicate lilac sky. It doesn’t get dark this time of the year in Dorpat. The sun dips its toes in the sea and jumps right out, reluctant to leave the city’s wild summer beaches.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” she says. “Why must I sleep if it’s not dark?”
“Dark or not, you’ll still be tired in the morning,” says Steinberg. “Come, Fayerl.”
“You didn’t used to make me sleep when we were in Kronstadt.”
He didn’t. He supposes he figured it wouldn’t make a difference, making her go to bed when she might be woken up at any time.
“We have Rhoden looking after us now,” he says, tightly. His fingers fidget with a glittery New Year’s bauble hanging off the top of her bedroom’s door. Esther saw it in a market on their last trip to Reval and Rhoden bought it for her, ridiculously out of season. “It’s not like it used to be. Come. I have to make sure he sleeps, too.”
Her eyes widen at that - half delight, half incredulity. “You’re going to make Arno go to bed? Is he also staying up?”
Steinberg approaches her and carefully picks her up from the windowsill. He meets with no resistance; she puts her arms around his neck and continues mumbling to herself, clearly processing the idea of Rhoden being made to stick to a bedtime.
He puts her down on the soft fern-patterned woollen throw and begins undoing her braids.
“But he’s an adult,” she says, wonderingly. “Isn’t he allowed to do as he likes?”
“That’s the thing,” Steinberg sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t do as he likes.”
This silences her - perhaps too cryptic for her to understand. Or perhaps only too clear. She remembers Parlevo as well as he does, after all.
“Say gute nakht to him from me,” she murmurs, as he presses a kiss to her brow.
Steinberg steps out of her room and slowly closes the door, careful not to crush the bauble. It’s dark in the rest of the flat; the only source of light is the kitchen, which is where he heads next.
True to form, his friend and benefactor is perched on a three-legged stool, his elbows propped on the table and his nose in some paper or other. The air smells faintly of fresh pencil shavings.
“What are you reading?” Steinberg asks, in Estlish.
Rhoden startles, his shoulder-blades flinching. But it’s not true alarm; he merely failed to register Steinberg’s presence. A moment later, he turns his head a trifle, a yellow glint from the lamp in one kindly grey eye.
“Not reading,” he says equanimously. “Budgeting.”
“What?” The Ministry’s wages aren’t much to write home about, but Rhoden’s never shown any particular worry on that front. “You remember I have money too, right? If you need anything-”
“Tsk, you have other things to spend your earnings on,” Rhoden responds, waving him off with a clang of the metal hand. “I just wanted to see if I need to haggle with my handlers a little. Fira’s going to school in a couple of months, and I - want her to have a good time, is all.”
Steinberg leans over his shoulder to survey what, he now realises, is not an anatomy paper at all. Brown skirt x2, Rhoden’s list reads. (length? - E says needs to be short enough to climb a fence)White black socks, x10 pairs.
Arro’s Math III edition. Better explanations than ed II
Estlish language workbooks (find with Yiddish translations?? - NB! rabbi B may help)
White hair bows? - ask S
Sour pear caramels
“Considering how much she likes to hang out in Supilinn, white socks would probably be a misstep,” Rhoden says. Then he asks, a little anxiously, “what do you think about the hair-bows? I know she’s particular about her hair. Would she like anything other than your ribbons, or am I better off leaving this out?”
The whole ridiculous enterprise catches Steinberg so unawares that he has no defence prepared against the onslaught of emotion so strong it makes his jaw and the corners of his eyes ache.
“I-” he begins, haltingly. I think she would appreciate the gesture, he wills himself to say. “I love you,” he blurts out instead.
The tip of Rhoden’s pencil breaks, leaving large graphite crumbs on the paper. His ears flush an instant furious scarlet. The sheer flustered intensity of that reaction is enough to make Steinberg laugh.
“This cannot honestly be a surprise,” he says.
“I suppose - not a surprise, as such-” Rhoden gets out, his head bent low. Finally, he adds feebly, “But what I’m doing is what she should’ve had all along. What you should’ve had. You don’t owe me - you don’t owe me for that, you know?”
“It’s not about the money,” Steinberg says, quickly. “Leman hashem, it’s not about the money, Rhoden.”
Fira’s school uniform and textbooks he could buy himself. Probably he’d have to economise, and she could do without the hair-bows, and ten pairs of socks is five pairs too many - but he’d manage.
But the kind of care and attention that went into that list is irreplaceable. The sight of Rhoden, sitting there engaging in such a trivial domestic task any other family wouldn’t think twice about, is irreplaceable.
“It’s because of who you are,” Steinberg tells him. “Not because of hair-bows or pear caramels.”
If anything, that seems to fluster Rhoden worse. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice barely audible. “Thank you for saying that. And I also - I -”
Steinberg hardly needs to hear a confirmation. He may have wondered, at times, why he’s loved, but these days he never doubts that he is.