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they say lavender softens anxiety / and I wonder whether I can plant a garden / so dense in your mind / that the knots in your chest unravel / and never tighten again.
— Jasmine Kaur
“Don’t you try to die on me, you bastard.”
Fedyor ducked down, avoiding another bullet, and then another. “This fucking fje-“ A whistle in his ear was quicker and he yelled, yelping down on the heartrender right under him, both now laying on the ground. The metal lodged in the tree behind them, and Fedyor breathed hard.
“Fedyor, get up, you are-“
“Oh thank you very much Vanya, I’m trying to save your life if you didn’t no-“ a tugging made him fall and roll to the ground where Ivan had been, the air kicked out of his lungs. “Asshole,” he murmured as Ivan rolled to the side, trying to get up.
“Ivan, you are-“
“Shh.”
He got up but fell on one knee after a step.
“Told you.”
“ Shh .” Ivan whispered loudly, finally turning in his direction, scolding. His ushanka had fallen off, somewhere between the snow and the hidden bushes and roots, and a deep cut made blood fall and dry on his brow in the too cold weather, eyes bloodshot. “They'll hear us.”
“ They already heard us,” Fedyor whisper-yelled in answer. He felt blood in his mouth.
Something detonated in the distance, or it felt like it, the ground shaking for a moment, enough for Ivan to fall from his still standing knee too.
“The rifles,” Ivan gritted his teeth looking back and forth, hands joined together to hear the surrounding beats. Fedyor had his hands already joined, feeling three hearts near, fellow grisha, Ivan’s warm inviting heart - despite what the man might say in this regard - and…way too much in the distance. Way too much druskelle. Even one druskelle was too much, but one druskelle he could do. Maybe even five. This he could not even count right, his side hurting like a bitch. And one alive druskelle was one too much anyway.
When Fedyor turned, alarm raised in his chest again. Ivan was moving with just his arms, dragging himself to the ground, closer to the chaos. Fedyor wished he would crawl in the other direction, as any sane person would, but there was nothing sane about being a heartrender.
“Vanya!”
He saw the shot before hearing it. And the next thing he knew, Ivan was bleeding from his mouth. And his neck, painted red. Fedyor ran in his direction, Ivan had not managed to get far. He got hit back by sharp pain in his hip and chest but no bullet caught his head, just his kefta, and only halted him.
They could shoot all they liked, he would move till he was bulletproof, and he would have run to Ivan in a battlefield even with just a robe. Then he had to crawl, and finally he was there, snow red, taking up Ivan’s head and breathing in hard, emptying his husband’s mind, as Ivan sobbed blood in pain and Fedyor whispered.
“Please, please, please,”
“I am not a child.”
Ivan was laying on bed, white bandages sparkled in tiny dots of red on his side, with many pillows propped under him and his head. Fedyor had been doodling away on his sketchbook, laying down on his chest next to him, and he looked up, some of the heavy blanket that had been covering him falling back, a wayward yawn on his lips.
“No.” He replied, shining a smile to his husband. Ivan was scolding, shuffling in place. Feeling his body Fedyor knew he wasn’t uncomfortable, maybe in a little pain though, but restless. “You are on mandatory nap duty. Doctor’s orders.”
“ Fedyor .”
“Yes, that’s my name.” He smiled widely again.
Ivan scoffed, scolding some more and letting himself fall down on the cascade of pillows Fedyor had settled there.
Fedyor was feeling warm from head to toe, minus maybe the ears. Neither of them were wearing their keftas, the new ones neatly in the closet for the next use, as they always were after missions. Heartrenders were the quickest to shed their keftas in battle and Fedyor suspected the fabrikators had a secret stash of a few new kefta per heartrender, for cases like this one. For sure for Ivan.
Covers were piled up in a heap on the big bed, intertwining in each other creating even more warmth, and Fedyor had been playing with the soft cloth of one with his bare feet for the last hour as he tried to sketch first a bird, than the landscape outside their window and then Ivan. The latter had maybe gotten the best results so far since he knew the subject the better, even if the landscape would be indignant to hear. At least he had nailed the snow, since the page was white as the outside.
He could feel the cold in his bones just by gaze, the windows sealed shut safely, no whims of wind getting in with air or ghastly sounds. In this case Fedyor wasn’t sure if it was good architecture or the treasured fabrikators again. It had only snowed more since they had gotten back to the Palace and Fedyor had never been more glad of being back in its walls. (He said this every time. Ivan pestered him on his choice of words but truly, every new one meant one more time of survival, something worth celebrating for he found, especially at this time of the year).
As he was sketching away with his soft pajamas on, Ivan looked somehow more miserable than he did in the infirmary. His face was pale and he was grimacing at the vastness of nothing in front of him - namely the lighted fire - his jaw so set it might snap.
Fedyor reached to touch it without a second thought, poking at the cheek.
Ivan blinked, turning, in his version of a brow raised. If they didn’t have healers that brow and side of the face would have needed way more time and way more scars. Instead he had got back his lovely face. So this meant he needed to kiss it. And so he did, giving a peak at the skin, which was warm under his lips.
Ivan didn’t protest, closing his eyes and breathing in, even if not untensening.
Fedyor could still see some little lines here and there on his face. The light sign of scratches from a scuffle when he was a kid and they were left with no healer as a punishment. The little moons of hands like claws on the other side where he didn’t need to see to know they had been there. A little drier place where he was burned and had scarred before the healers arrived, as good as invisible if you didn’t know where to look. The tiny line under his eye, that Fedyor was always so fond of. Propping himself on his elbows better he went to kiss it too, peppering some more kisses, maybe to drive a point across.
Fedyor kissed all of them, many times, while one hand rubbed Ivan’s shoulders, feeling the rock that were his tense muscles.
“It’s ok, Vanya,” he whispered, “it’s ok. We are home.”
Ivan gave a sharp breath and Fedyor slowed looking at his husband’s face, some of his powers flowing to check if he had stepped on a literal sour spot.
“I’m fine, Fedyor.”
“Hm hm,”
Fedyor didn’t stop his ministrations, enjoying it maybe as much as Ivan was hiding to. Starting to feel a little tense from propping up he moved the sketchbook to the side and between the layers of covers he moved up, laying to Ivan’s side. Or rather right next to him, one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest, humming.
“How is the side?” He asked after a while, ended up mostly hugged to Ivan, softly breathing with a hand laid on the chest.
“Normal.”
Fedyor crooked a brow, nuzzling his head up to gaze at the other.
“…passable.” Added Ivan.
“I thought we were past the point of hiding each other when we are in pain.”
“We are.” Ivan replied immediately, “you were injured too.”
“I wasn’t pierced by a bullet to the neck, Vanya,”
“It didn’t sink in.”
“For luck.”
“There is no such thing as luck.”
Fedyor snorted lightly again, resting his head back again on Ivan’s shoulder with a relaxed sigh.
“We are both alive. That’s what matters,” he nuzzled in the warm spot of skin and shirt again. “And if that’s not luck it means we both earned to be here. So enjoy it.”
Ivan sighed but untensed lightly.
They spent minutes like this, Fedyor closing his eyes and laying on the side of his husband, not too much on him to not damage the bandages or pain him more.
He felt a nice warmth on his head and he smiled widely, eyes still resting, when he clocked that was Ivan’s hand and his fingertips lightly scrubbing his scalp, alternated rhythmically by touches at the strands. Fedyor was close to falling asleep, curling up further.
He must have, because when he yawned next his head felt light, shoulders wrapped by an arm. He opened his eyes again, blinking, the fire that had been in front of them was mostly extinguished.
Fedyor yawned, raising his head lightly and got greeted by a warm hand still in his hair. Everything was perfectly soft and just the right amount of hot, blankets resting till half his hair.
Crooking his head it cracked lightly and Fedyor groaned a little, turning his neck to make it pop, together with his back, doing another satisfied sound at the end of it before looking up in Ivan’s still surprisingly awake eyes.
“You were sleeping peacefully.” Ivan replied as some sort of explanation.
Fedyor smiled back warmly, feeling nicely limbless.
“Feeling better?” Fedyor crooked up, coughing a little.
“Still passable.”
Fedyor snorted and adjusted himself sitting, touching Ivan’s forehead, even if his own hands were still warm from the nap.
“We can’t get sick Fedyor,”
“Just checking,” he mumbled, lazily moving a hand on Ivan’s face again, who stood still under Fedyor clumsy examinations.
“So?”
“All good.”
“Good to know I have such a skilled healer at my side.”
Fedyor smushed his hand on Ivan’s side in protest, which gained a chuckle by the latter.
“You are just jealous I would have made a pretty healer,”
“You make a pretty heartrender too,”
Fedyor made an awwing sound which earned another chuckle from Ivan.
“Smooth talker as ever, Vanuchka.” Fedyor sat up better, now next to Ivan with the pillows holding his back too. He took Ivan’s hand, the one with the ring, and he played with it a bit, intertwining it in his, letting the amplified one be. He had a feeling that was paining Ivan more than usual too. “Still brooding?” He kissed the hand a little, holding it and lining the long fingers with his bulkier ones.
“I wasn’t brooding.”
“ Vanya .”
“That’s my name.”
“Oh you were waiting to get that back to me weren’t you.” Fedyor shook his head with a smile, letting his head rest on Ivan’s. “It’s ok for you to worry, it’s natural.”
Ivan paused, moving his gaze away for a few moments.
“I should have protected you better.”
“Ivan, you were the one injured. If anyone had to protect someone better it would have been me.”
“It’s not- you were injured too-“
“Yes. Too . Do you see my point?”
Ivan watched him for a few seconds and then nodded begrudgingly.
“You scared me Vanya, I thought you were-“ it was Fedyor’s turn to inhale sharply, thinning his lips.
“I’m sorry, Fedya.” His hand, which had been relaxed and left to Fedyor’s doings till that moment, moved, and held Fedyor’s better, squeezing it. “As you said, we are both alive.”
“Ah, so my point now is fair?”
“Shush.” He gave a chaste kiss at the hand and Fedyor appreciated the warmth, as if they were not under half the Little Palace’s blankets already, even if the lips were a little chipped.
“Hmm, this is quite nice.”
“Menace.”
“So, when are we opening the gifts?”
Ivan stopped, raising his mouth from the hand, the lips faintly twitching up. “It’s not Sankt Nikolai yet.”
“I’m bored. We finished tea and we have no more sweets in the room.”
“Yes, because you ate all of them,”
Fedyor faked a pout but laughed at Ivan’s face at half of it. “Come on, I want to see your reaction. Please? ”
“And not to see your own gift, surely.”
Fedyor fixed his sit next to Ivan and gave a quick look down at the bandages that seemed the same as before, gently caressing his side with some of his powers working in.
“Hmm,” He commented as he worked, “that’s just a nice side of it, and awww you got me a gift,”
Ivan gave a look at what Fedyor was doing but didn’t comment on it or stop him. The pain must have been worse than what Fedyor thought if Ivan was putting his pride away so.
“I have been doing so for years. Did I strike you as inattentive?”
“Uff, stop frowning,” Fedyor quite literally stopped the frowning, letting one hand rest on the chest over the bandages and the heart and moving the other on Ivan’s face, passing the fingers on the forehead. Ivan huffed, making Fedyor squish his fingers more to unravel the wrinkles on the face, some not quite going away even then. Fedyor loved them so, a proof of how powerful Ivan was, of how long he had lived compared to many others in their order, or any grisha.
“Then don’t complain when you won’t get one on the actual day.”
Fedyor laughed, close to Ivan’s face, doing a satisfied tongue snap as he finished his smoothing work on his husband’s face.
“I’ll have you on that day,” he added with a smile, leaning down just quite enough to touch Ivan’s lips with his.
Fedyor gasped in surprise as the kiss deepened, Ivan resting a hand on Fedyor’s back, a thumb moving quietly. When they both forgot they could longen their breaths with heartrendering Fedyor emerged giggling, cheeks flushed and giving another touch with his lips on Ivan, moving their noses together a few times.
When Ivan tried to kiss him again Fedyor tutted at him. “Don’t try to distract me.”
“Too bad.”
That made both of them snort again, Fedyor letting his forehead rest on the other’s.
“You are even more saccharine when injured,” Ivan mumbled, his lips a few breaths away from Fedyor’s, both of them closing their eyes a moment, only their breaths making sound.
“You like that.”
Ivan opened his eyes just to roll them. “I’m sure all your friends will have got you a gift each, if not more.”
“But I want to see yours.”
“…Fine. It’s in the first drawer.”
Fedyor opened his eyes too, beaming and immediately moving to go to Ivan’s side of the bed, which ended up with him sitting half on the bed half on Ivan’s legs, stretching to get to the bedside.
After a few moments of swinging his hand into nothing he clutched at the small knob of the drawer and opened it. Inside there were a few things anybody could expect from a bedside, added with two small vials of lube, which made Fedyor smile as he flashed out what he had been looking for.
The gift was in a neat brown envelope, rough to the touch but wrapped around the rectangular shape without a wrinkle.
Fedyor sat back under Ivan’s gaze, Fedyor looking up as he held the present.
“So?”
“Haven’t changed your mind about me opening my gift early?”
“I will if you keep waiting.”
Fedyor chuckled and tried to open it without damaging the paper too much. It revealed to be harder than he thought and in the end a side ended up being torn, Fedyor whispering a small “uops”, but despite it the gift was revealed.
“ Epics from the south: Shu Han poetry, Ravkan edition ,”
Fedyor hardly finished reading the title as he beamed up at Ivan.
“We were on the border and it made me think of you. I was told there are many young lovers and saccharine lines and great epics of love lost and found.”
Fedyor made to talk with a big smile hardly contained by his cheeks, a surge of warmth in his chest, near the heart.
“ Now don’t start-“
Forbidden from verbally expressing his happiness, Fedyor was quicker than his husband’s complaints, grinning and getting closer, book still somehow in hand. “Come here, come here,”
It quickly turned into Fedyor giving kisses all over his husband's face, making Ivan do what was maybe his favorite sound: laughs, which were growing more intense by the second. Finding out Ivan was ticklish had maybe been one of the greatest discoveries of Fedyor to date.
“I love it, thank you Vanya,”
That stole a smile from the man. “I’m glad.”
“My turn!”
Ivan had little time to scoff about the kissing attack he had just lived that Fedyor had sat back on bed again, book safely in his lap with the envelope under it, and produced a package from his side. Ivan raised a brow but didn’t question from where it appeared further.
He got his gift shoved in hands, at which Ivan blinked looking down at it, adjusting his reclined position. With much more calm than Fedyor’s he started to take it out of the cloth purse it was into, looking up at his husband who in answer nodded with propouse to make him go on.
When he finished unwrapping it Fedyor had just thought he was going to have to haul on Ivan and get them out for him. Ivan was holding a pair of shining new gloves. Or well, maybe they weren’t that new, Fedyor had no way to know for sure, but he had bought them and the man from the shop had tied him in a long conversation about their quality and had shined them. He could have asked a fabrikator do them, true, but Fedyor felt that lacked the heart.
“I know you say they make heartrendering clumsy,” he said with a small smile, trying to read Ivan’s face and reactions since how steady his heart was, “but your clumsy heartrendering is better than anyone’s anyway. And your hands are always cold, so you can wear them on camp. You spend way too much time on the Fjerdan border anyway.”
Fedyor thought he spotted a small proud smile at the heartrendering comment but he wasn’t sure and Ivan had not quite looked up yet.
“Can I try them on?”
“Of course,” it was Fedyor’s turn to not be able to hide a smile, intertwining his own hands as he sat crossed legged. He had never been quite so anxious about gifts ever, and he had a few of them stored in his own bed side for others, and everybody loved his attention and gifts. It had always been different with Ivan.
He watched as the man slipped his fingers inside and moved the hands to test the material, flexing them, closing the small button on the wrist of each one. He maybe stared less than politely at Ivan’s hands, but he had seen the man naked many times so he found it legit.
“Maybe next year i'll buy that kerch red lacy undergarments you liked so much.”
Ivan raised his gaze from the hands he was inspecting and flexing, frowning. He wasn’t quick enough to hide a sudden spike in his heart, hidden as readily as ever.
“That would be a gift for yourself. And I didn't -”
“Like them. Yes. You just “found them alluring for my psychique.” I got you Vanya.”
Ivan groaned, shaking his head and laying It down on the pillows again for a few seconds.
“You're adorable when flustered.”
“I'm no-” he looked up and was met with Fedyor grinning. Ivan rolled his eyes, a fond smile taking the place of faked annoyance. Still laying down he stretched his hands again. “I really like them. Thank you.”
“Really? Do they fit right? I was afraid that-“
Ivan’s lip twitched in a smile again, giving him an eloquent look. “They are perfect, Fedya.”
“Don’t tease!”
“You have been doing that all day.”
“True, but-“
“Want to remove them from me?” Ivan interrupted in the few seconds Fedyor hesitated, stopping him from worrying more, propping his hands in front of him. Fedyor smiled widely and got to work.
When Fedyor looked up from his new book, his eyes were aching and he yawned. Ivan had been doing the exact same thing as when he was drawing, or for the last few hours: laying there. Maybe he had his eyes closed sometimes but Fedyor was too wrapped in reading to notice.
It seemed he had been more wrapped than even he thought because when he turned, the window to his side, the trees were covered in more snow and flakes were falling from the sky.
“Vanya?”
“Hm?”
“It’s snowing,”
“I know.”
Fedyor turned to raspberry at him but in the end he just smiled watching his husband’s profile.
“Aren’t you bored? I’m sorry I got taken away with the book,”
“No. I’m perfectly good.” There was no hint of a lie in his voice and beat. “I’m glad you like the book.”
“I do! The last poem I read is my favourite, for now, I thought that of the last two too. (“What a surprise.” “Vanya!”) Want to hear?”
“A saccharine love poem?”
“Not quite. And I am saccharine,”
“Acceptably so.”
Fedyor snorted, holding the page he had stopped. “So?”
“Read.”
“The title isn’t known because-“
“Fedya.”
“Ok! Ok!”
Fedyor cleared his voice, which was hardly needed, making Ivan roll his eyes, and he started.
In the garden, shaped like a heart, the lake stills
Roots like trees, expand above
In the garden's grace the love, wayward, chills
A lover stands, alone
Feet planted firm in the earth, they don't weave
The figure stands, drops wet fall, lonely and tall
On the roots as nieve
Their eyes go far, after the wall
They dance through the season cold
An embrace new guides through the petals that grow
In the garden a seed unfolds
Hearts as twins in the dark glow
(Promises are whispered, sometimes lost,
they grieve, endure, pass on
A love new is born
A love old is held close
Will they survive to see the dawn?)
Stars watch them go
Fortresses see them return
Engraved red crumbles under the heaven's watchful — “that’s quite the translation. Did you know poets in Shu Han used all kinds of synonyms to call the Taban dynasty? To avoid censorship, and for pamphlets. We studied that in advanced shu. I’m pretty sure all my favorite Shu poets didn’t die of natural causes. The shu word is less ambiguous, not that there is anything left to fantasy for a shu that reads “heaven”. I guess the Taban’s watchful didn’t sound as goo- oh yeah, anyway-“ — show
Eyes meet, over the lake a lantern slow
It weathers the frost, the bitter cold
For every winter the heart froze
In the arms of the lover, a warmth untold
No stones now in the melted water the hand throws
In the shadows, a haven is found
(A sea in tempest without ships
The only way out, they swim, seeking home.)
Love keeps them spring.
“-Vanya?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t-“
Fedyor had slid the package in the book as a placeholder and moved near his husband. As soon as Ivan saw him move he closed his eyes, shaking his head, but Fedyor could see the corners wrinkled and some tears nestled there.
“Vanya…”
The gulp the other heartrender did was audible. “It’s stupid, Fedya,…keep reading.”
“The poem was over…are you-“
“I’m fine .”
His voice sounded wet and slightly broken, cracking at the edges. Fedyor’s brows furrowed in further confusion, going to take Ivan’s hand closer to him and this time he wasn’t stopped, his husband breathing hard and closing his eyes.
They stayed in silence for a while and Fedyor didn’t push him, holding his hand, even if he couldn’t help how his gaze had worry mixed with curiosity.
He heard his husband breath hard before he spoke. “I almost lost you.”
“You didn’t, Vanya-“
Ivan shook his hand and Fedyor nodded in understanding. Silence fell again and Fedyor just stayed on the side of the bed, feeling tense for those few moments despite the comfort of the clothes, the mattress, the covers, the dying fire. They suffered way too much to get a moment of this, fleeting and in preparation for the next battle into the cold.
“Can I?”
Ivan’s eyes were shiny as he turned to him and he just nodded as Fedyor moved. He put himself near Ivan and he got his shoulders in a hug. Waiting to feel Ivan start to relax in it, he moved his husband to turn and lay on his chest, his head on Fedyor’s. Again he waited. He gave a small smile down to Ivan, who now had his eyes closed and was breathing regularly, too regularly to not be something the man was controlling, concentrated just on that, knowing him.
After a few minutes Ivan shifted, and his cheek ended resting where Fedyor’s shirt was the thinnest, near his heart. Fedyor didn’t doubt Ivan was resting just on top of it, listening. He knew many otkazat’sya found its rhythm calming, but for them it was something else. Something stronger, something encompassing. It took only a few more breaths for the two of them to attune their beats, and a couple others for Ivan’s breath to get fainter.
The thrumming of Fedyor’s heart seemed to calm him, now breathing but not moving, almost like he did after a nightmare.
“I love you, Vanya.”
Time paused.
“I love you too.”