Work Text:
Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me.
— Psalm 38:21
Nikolai takes off his cloak, puts it on the floor, sits in front of it.
His movements are automatized, like he's working on autopilot. Empty eyes, empty heart.
He rests the severed arm on top of it.
There are a lot of things Nikolai could do now, he guesses. He should feel relieved. This is exactly what he wanted, after all—to be free from the feelings that had taken his heart hostage, to let the earth swallow everything that called itself divine so he could fly away, be one with the sky.
He saw the only person he ever believed in go up in flames, and so he is alone, and so he is free.
Laughter bubbles inside him. It hurts in his chest, scratches at his throat. He opens his mouth, but to him the sound is heard as if it came from far away.
The severed arm is still bleeding. It stains his white cloak red.
✞
Nikolai falls gracefully from the ceiling right in the middle of the kitchen.
The kitchen is small, so when Mushitarou jumps in place and turns around to see what the hell was that sound, they find each other face to face. Nikolai grants him a wide smile as he takes a step back, letting out a surprised yelp. Ah, how he loves this! Sometimes, he needs a reminder of this—there are people out there that can give him an expectable reaction. It’s a good thing, really. Nikolai needs to be able to calculate how his public is going to react if he wants to put on a good show, after all! He is, before anything else, a performer.
Mushitarou is predictable. The expression in his face is the exact one he was hoping to get. How good, how good!
“For goodness— Gogol!” he cries out, pressing a hand to his chest and taking in a deep breath. “Are you trying to kill me?!”
“Wrong!” Nikolai croons, leaning in to be closer to him again. Mushitarou takes half of a step back, frowning at him. “Mushi-kun, if I was trying to kill you, you’d know!”
Before Mushitarou can find an answer, his eyes go towards the kitchen’s door and his frown deepens. “Didn’t know you were here, priest.”
Nikolai looks over his shoulder with a dramatic turn, tilting his head curiously. A pair of blue eyes go from Mushitarou to him and then back to Mushitarou. The man bows his head slightly, his expression a white canvas. There’s dried blood and open wounds in his hands, blood on his face. His robe looks like it’s stained, too. It’s such an interesting sight.
“I apologize. It was not my intention to interrupt,” he says. He looks at Nikolai like he’s waiting for something from him, so he, always the star of the show, turns fully with a whirl of his cape.
He gives a deep, dramatic bow. “Oh, my! You must be the guy Dostoy has been talking about! The knight in shining armor!” he says cheerfully. “It’s my pleasure. Name’s Nikolai Gogol. My friends call me—”
“Nathaniel Hawthorne,” the man interrupts. When Nikolai looks up, he’s walking past him and poking into the refrigerator. He lets out a tired sigh, closes the refrigerator’s door and turns again. “Mushitarou.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Mushitarou says, holding up both hands as he shakes his head. “You look disgusting, by the way. Go take a shower. Did you want something?”
He asks the question looking back at Nikolai. Yes, he did want something. It was pretty important, too. Messages, business. Not that it matters anymore, when there is something far more interesting happening. Mushitarou is going to be there later, anyway; he doesn’t do anything that requires much effort from him, so he is always around when needed.
“Nathan! Where were you just now?”
Nikolai crosses the kitchen in two quick steps, stopping right beside Nathaniel. He leans in, looking at the blood of his face from up close, and then he sniffs. He carries the smell of blood, dirt and something wooden that Nikolai guesses is his perfume. Nathaniel frowns and tries to take a step back only to find himself trapped between the refrigerator and Nikolai’s body.
“If you don’t know already, then I’m inclined to assume my job is none of your business,” Nathaniel says sharply. “Now, I’d like to have my personal space back. And do not call me Nathan.”
Nikolai hums thoughtfully. He brings a hand to Nathaniel’s face and relishes as he tries to back away, eyes narrowed, something akin to disgust dancing on his gaze. He presses a gloved hand against his jaw, his fingers rubbing at the blood in his skin. It doesn’t clean that away.
“I can’t deal with the likes of you two,” Mushitarou says. Nikolai hears his steps as he walks out of the kitchen. He ignores him, his full attention focused on the plaything he just found for himself.
“Can’t a man be intrigued?” he asks.
Nathaniel, as if waking up from a haze, swats Nikolai’s hand away with a scowl.
“I still have matters to attend to.” Nathaniel tries to push him away, and Nikolai, as much as he’d enjoy being difficult, lets him. “If you’d excuse me.”
“Consider yourself excused,” Nikolai says, gesturing towards the door with big movements.
As Nathaniel starts walking away, he adds, “We’ll see each other soon, Nathan!”
✞
Mykola was playing close to the riverside when he saw it.
It was a small eurasian collared-dove. Barely more than a baby! How pretty, he thought as he crawled close to it, a big smile on his face. He has always loved birds, after all—all of them! Mama had brought him a book, so he could start calling them by name. Mama taught him, every piece in God's creation is important, even the smallest of creatures, but that wasn’t the reason why Mykola liked them. He was very thankful towards God for having created birds, though! They were beautiful!
He slowed down as he approached the dove, but he knew something was wrong when he got closer and closer and the little thing didn’t fly away.
He realized, then, that it wasn't singing—it was crying. He took it up between his hands dearly, ever so dearly, and felt something uncomfortable on his chest. His lips formed a small pout.
Oh, you poor thing, he said to the bird, caressing its feathers. It was so soft. His index finger followed the black line in the dove's neck. I will make it better, he cooed, and then he broke the dove's neck.
He took the small thing home, wondering if maybe Mama would let him bury it in the yard, between the flowers. It was a light weight between his hands, the dove. Warm and soft. He had to hold back from squeezing it too hard, turn it into dust.
It was a dead thing, but Mykola loved it regardless.
He showed Mama the bird. I helped it, he said with a smile, looking up at her as if to ask are you proud, mama? Are you happy?
But Mama wasn’t happy. She asked him what had he done, why, why. I helped it, Mykola said, but he was unsure now. Was he wrong? What else should’ve he done? If the dove was going to die regardless, wasn’t it fair that it died in loving hands?
Mykola loved the bird, and so he had to kill it.
Mama believed him a demon for this, so she prayed and she cried and she kept Mykola close, close, close.
✞
It was appropriate to let the flames swallow Fyodor, consume him until there was nothing recognizable left. Nikolai thinks of martyrs, of people that followed Jesus’ steps and then died, too, because they had something worth dying for.
He always expected Fyodor to go out proudly, but Nikolai… ah, was he naive, to wish he could be the one to steal Fyodor's last breath? Was it foolish of him, to let himself dream of the day he would dig his hands in Fyodor's ribcage, tear him apart, kiss him tenderly as his soul left his body to go to whichever better place he’s imagined?
If Fyodor was always going to die for this mission of his, was it childish of him to want Fyodor to die by his hand? Nikolai knows how he would’ve done it, had he had the chance; he would’ve broke him, like he did with all pretty things he’s ever held. He would’ve dug his hands on his torso, ripped his lungs and his heart out, he would’ve fed from his insides so Fyodor would always be close to him, so Fyodor would be his to keep. Maybe if he ripped his skin apart and hid underneath he would’ve been able to free himself from all that kept him chained to the ground; maybe then, with him gone but still close, Nikolai would’ve been able to call himself a free man.
But now Fyodor was dead, and it wasn’t his doing, and it didn’t matter anymore.
…
(A demon says, I need your assistance.
But it was always a creature of broken wings, yearning for the sky but forced to stay on the ground, waiting…
I can’t even assist myself, it replies with a chirp.
The demon tilts his head. His intelligent eyes stare at it like he’s looking right through it.
Your God is alive, the demon says. I have no God, it shoots back.
Then, the man whose arm you believe to be holding—who is he?
It considers its answer. A friend, it could say. The only one I’ve had.
Instead, it replies, You know that better than I do. He was you.)
…
He goes back to Yokohama and watches the man he thought dead stand up tall in the middle of the end.
Nikolai wants to laugh.
…
(It understands, now. What it was waiting for.
Maybe the only way to free itself would’ve been if it died by loving hands,
but it had a habit of loving things that didn’t love it back.
That’s okay, too. It has enough love to make up for it, and it had never feared of staining itself with blood.)
…
Didn’t Jesus come back to life, too? Didn’t John the Apostle come out unscathed after they tried to kill him with boiling oil?
✞
“A little bird has told me Dostoy has big plans for you,” Nikolai says, leaning against the wall, arms crossed at the top of his chest.
Nathaniel looks at him through the mirror. He doesn’t look surprised to find Nikolai there; if anything, he looks at him in quiet resignation, as if Nikolai is a particularly annoying bug he cannot seem to get rid of.
It’s quite impressive that Nathaniel has found himself accustomed to his presence this soon. They haven’t even seen each other that much; Nikolai is a busy man, after all. They don’t even share a mission.
No, Nikolai’s role in all this is completely different from Nathaniel’s. If what he’s heard it’s true, then Nathaniel’s destiny is not a kind one. Not from Nikolai’s perspective, at least; it’s miserable, he thinks, to be put in that position.
Not that he cares, truly, if the priest wants to turn himself into a literal puppet on Fyodor's hands. Isn’t he already malleable, just a weapon for God’s to use as He wills, as He deems best? That is what devotion means, after all—to forget yourself, to find your path in what others carve for you.
It’s miserable, indeed, but that is not Nikolai’s problem.
“Gogol,” Nathaniel greets him. There’s something in the way his name rolls on his tongue that has Nikolai smirking. He’s not sure what. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t even bother hiding his contempt. Ah, isn’t he charming? “I thought you were long gone.”
“Did you think I'd go without saying goodbye? Nathan, how offensive!”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Did you?” He tilts his head, shrugging, and then he starts walking in his direction. “Is it true?”
Nathaniel opens the faucet, pointedly ignoring his question as he puts both hands under the water. It washes the red off his skin, paints itself pink before running down. Nathaniel rubs his skin aggressively, a deep frown on his face. There’s a still open wound in the palm of his right hand.
Nikolai has not seen Nathaniel much, and he doesn’t remember ever seeing him clean. There’s always new scars over old scars and crimson staining his skin. His ability calls for blood, and blood is what he gives.
(And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
Did Nathaniel’s blood wash away his own sins? Could've it washed Nikolai’s, too, if he were to turn himself back into a believer?)
“That’s a yes~” Nikolai chides softly, his voice a low mumble in Nathaniel’s ear. His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t try to pull away. He stays very, very still, his attention put in his hands, his wrists. The cuffs of his robe are a bright red, too. A deep sigh escapes Nikolai’s lips, his breath hot against Nathaniel’s neck as he lets his head rest against his shoulder. A small shiver runs down the priest's spine, and that makes Nikolai grin proudly. “That’s too bad.”
Nathaniel looks at him through the mirror for a second, just a second, as curiosity wins against his common sense. He averts his gaze immediately, but what’s done is done.
“How would your dearest feel, if she knew this?” he asks quietly.
“Don’t mention her.”
Nikolai scoffs. Then, he takes off a glove with his teeth. Nathaniel’s movements come to a stop, the man’s breath catching for a moment, and Nikolai watches him as he fights the urge to glance back.
“I’m kindly asking you to back away,” he says, voice strained, but he makes no movement to actually make him comply.
Nathaniel is a smart man. He knows, after all previous attempts, that trying to shove Nikolai away would do him no good. Nikolai loves a difficult crowd, he enjoys it when they fight back.
What Nathaniel has failed to take into account is that Nikolai enjoys this too.
His fingers take Nathaniel’s right wrist, pulling his hand away from the faucet. That makes Nathaniel attempt to break out of his hold, but the second Nikolai’s nail presses into the open wound, he lets out a strangled sound.
It’s airy and pained and small, and his expression changes in slight pain, but there’s something else entirely in his eyes, something dark and deep and—
Nikolai presses on the wound until it starts bleeding again, and when it does, he brings Nathaniel’s hand to his mouth and licks it clean.
His hand shakes on Nikolai’s hold and he tries to break free, but Nikolai presses his teeth on the skin and he lets out a sound that falls short of a gasp.
His eyes flutter closed. Nathaniel’s blood tastes like iron. It tastes like sacrifice. Would he agree to it, if Nikolai offered to lie him down on the altar? Would God accept the sacrifice, as long as Nathaniel kept bleeding?
Nikolai hums as he lets his hand go, looking up into Nathaniel’s wide, unreadable eyes.
“Disgusting,” Nathaniel stutters out. “You’re a foul, vile creature, get away from me—”
And so Nikolai does, licking his own lips clean. He watches as Nathaniel holds onto the sink with both hands, head falling down, hair hiding his expression.
“What does it matter?” Nikolai asks, then. “You won’t remember this, either way.”
Nathaniel seems like he’s trying to catch his breath. Nikolai wants to bite his neck until he bleeds and then some more, until he tears it apart like a hungry animal. He’s always been prone to desire everything he shouldn’t dare to touch, so he presses a hand to the back of Nathaniel’s neck hard enough to hold him, nails digging at the skin. Blood turns into holy letters and then into a weapon pointed directly at him, but Nikolai has never been afraid of getting hurt.
“From the moment Dostoy gets in your head, you’d be nothing,” Nikolai says matter-of-factly, pulling at his neck to make him raise his head. His blue eyes are darkened, breath hitching ever so slightly. “We could make the most out of tonight, though. If you’d let me.”
Nathaniel looks at him as if he’s gone insane, but then Nikolai pulls at his hair lightly and he hisses through his teeth, expression hardening. Even then, he doesn’t do anything except for holding on to one of Nikolai’s arms tightly.
They both lean in at the same time wordlessly. There’s no need to say anything—stopping enough to talk would make Nathaniel start second guessing himself, so Nikolai sucks on his tongue to keep him occupied, lest he'd run away.
When Nathaniel bites on his lip until he almost tears it off, Nikolai thinks this is just how things were always going to end.
✞
If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
— Leviticus 20:13
Nikolai pretends he doesn’t hear as Nathaniel throws up in the bathroom.
Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Nikolai is good at going away silently, so he’s gone before Nathaniel even starts considering coming back to the bedroom. He doubts he will, though, except maybe to set it on fire. If consumed by the flames, every proof of what he’s done would be gone and long forgotten except for the marks on his skin and the memory of his name.
By this time tomorrow, Nathaniel won’t remember. In the end, this is just a senseless game.
✞
Mykola held his head down, white hair cascading around his face. He didn’t close his eyes, didn’t want to, never felt comfortable enough to do so. Would it make any difference to God, if he spoke with his eyes open? Would God refuse to listen if things were done differently, if the person doing it wasn’t like everyone else?
Mykola was starting to notice he wasn’t like everyone else. He watched the world around him as if from a distorted window. He could notice the shapes and make assumptions, but he always got it wrong, always made people look at him with narrowed eyes or raised eyebrows or slight shame.
Mama thought there was a demon inside him, so the Father had taken it upon him to free Mykola from the devil.
Mykola didn’t close his eyes, staring at his hands instead.
Mama didn’t let him go play outside anymore. She didn’t let him do anything if it wasn’t by her side, where she could watch him. Mykola wanted to tell her that there was no need to worry about him killing another dove, that he had learned his lesson, but it felt like a pointless promise. He didn’t do anything wrong! He’d do it again, if necessary!
God doesn’t like lies, so Mykola decided not to lie for his mother’s sake. She wouldn’t listen, either way. She didn’t listen to anything he had to say lately, convinced the devil was speaking through him.
Mykola wondered if that was true. If he had to be honest, he’d admit he had always felt this way. Maybe the devil had always been inside him, maybe there was no difference between the devil and himself.
The priest prayed. Mykola wanted to bite his own fingers off just to feel something.
(I love you, Mama had told him. I love you, but I am so scared of you.
Maybe she had good reasons to be. Sometimes, when she was sleeping, Mykola had to resist the urge to cut her open in the middle, crawl back inside her, sleep there. He loved his Mama a lot, too.)
Амінь, the priest said. Mykola echoed it out of habit.
May God be with you, the priest said. Mykola’s knees hurt when he stood up. He didn’t know how long he had been there, kneeling on the hardwood floor, listening to the blurred words from the prayer. Holy water over him, a plea for God to free him from harm, to take the devil’s claws away from his pure soul. There was no way any of that could be his doing; he was nothing but a child, a beautiful child raised by a very loving mother that had done her best to teach him the right path, to raise him to follow God’s commandments, Jesus’ steps. No, this could only be Satan’s fault, nothing else.
Mykola went back home and tried to take his own eye off, cutting at the skin. As his mom cried and screamed at him, trying to stop the bleeding while she asked the devil what was he doing to her son, Mykola thought that maybe the devil truly was inside him.
But this felt like his own doing. Like a choice. He wanted to, so he did. Why aren’t you crying? Mama asked him, and she sounded so scared that Mykola almost started crying to make her feel better.
He didn’t. That was a choice, too. He savored the light taste of freedom on his tongue and wondered if this was how Eve felt.
✞
When he was already older and moved to Petersburg in search of something for himself, Mykola started using the Russian variation of his name. Nikolai Gogol. In doing so, he wanted to leave his past behind.
Mykola was a character, the mask he used to keep his poor mother at peace. With her gone, he was free.
(He didn’t cry at the funeral. He didn’t stand too close to the casket and didn’t stay for the whole sermon. People wouldn’t judge him, now. He was a nice guy. A normal guy. God had taken him away from the devil’s hands and now he was on the right path; he was a walking miracle, a living proof of God’s power and mercy. He was only heartbroken, the poor thing, because his only family was gone. Everyone deals with grief differently.
The truth is, he was relieved. With his mother gone, he could finally, finally, stop pretending to be someone he was not.
He kissed his dead mother’s forehead before even making the call. До побачення, мамо. He wished he could carve her heart out, take it with him everywhere he went, but that would’ve caught people’s eyes. He wanted to go out of there quietly, and then—
Then, life would begin.)
He made a name for himself and he found a quiet life, and he was at peace, but there was something missing. He needed to make things different for himself, to stop trying to fit in when it was always so clear that there’s not a place for him out there, not really.
So he started playing around. Not only at shows in the theater, but everywhere else. He used his ability to move through the shadows, to check how much he could do, how far he could go.
Then, Dostoy found him. Dostoy saw him in a way no one else had before, and he accepted him as he was, and Nikolai—
Nikolai took up his cross and followed.
✞
Dazai stands in front of Fyodor’s dead body, a knife in its right hand. Its eyes are hidden behind its hair. Blood rolls off the blade of the knife and falls into the ground.
Nikolai thinks Fyodor said something. If he read his lips, maybe he could assume he said, Спасибо. He was smiling when he fell, a hole dug right through his heart.
Nikolai had always wished to be the one to do that, but he guesses it doesn’t matter anymore.
He saw Fyodor die, saw him rise, saw him go. He laughs, loud and hysterical, because hadn’t Fyodor said he would kill him? Hadn’t he said that knowing he was about to destroy another man from the inside out?
Nikolai has never fantasized with death, has never thought about it as something he wants to accomplish, but if he ever died—
(it wants to die in loving hands, have delicate fingers break its neck and then tend to its decaying corpse)
It doesn’t matter anymore.
A man with glasses rushes towards Dazai, takes it by the arm. It blinks, eyes empty and distant. Nikolai can’t hear what they talk about, but he recognizes the look in their eyes.
In another circumstance, this would’ve been a fun show to attend. Now, this is nothing.
✞
“I don’t understand.”
Nikolai tilts his head, smiling wide at Sigma, who is staring at him with a frown. She’s holding a box in her arms with a ridiculously big ribbon on top.
“Pop quiz!” he says, excitedly, jumping to sit at the top of Sigma's desk. He throws a few sheets of paper at the floor by doing so and pretends not to notice the panic in Sigma's face. “What’s on the box?”
Sigma takes a deep breath. Nikolai’s been here for only a few minutes and she already looks so tired. It’s fascinating. He deeply adores being around her; she’s really simple. Normal. Nikolai likes it when people are easy to impress, and Sigma is always falling for the trap, the little dove.
(He was six when he held a injured dove between his hands, and he loved it so much he had to—)
“Knowing you,” Sigma starts, hesitating, “I would expect a bomb.”
Nikolai gasps. “How distasteful! No, I would never do nothing of the sort, Sigma dear. I'd only send you a bomb if I knew you wouldn’t be expecting it!”
Sigma blinks at him. “That makes me feel better.”
Nikolai snickers behind a hand, putting an arm inside his coat to send a hand through the space between them only so he can pull at Sigma's hair lightly.
“Hey!”
“Just open the box, dove.”
Sigma looks at the box like she seriously is expecting a bomb to explode inside of her office.
“If you do something to the casino in even the smallest of ways…”
“Have a little faith in me!”
Sigma huffs, leaves the box at top of the desk and opens it.
“Take this as a welcome gift,” Nikolai says, leaning back and swinging his legs.
Sigma takes out a coat from the box. It’s long and white, the inside dark and full of stars. She holds it with the utmost care, as if it would turn into dust between her hands.
“Why?” she asks, voice soft and doubtful. She doesn’t trust Nikolai’s intentions; it’s okay, Nikolai has made a name for himself, he wouldn’t hold it against her.
He could say, a dove should always be surrounded by the sky. He doesn’t think Sigma would appreciate the idea, if anything, because she doesn’t seek freedom; she seeks permanence. It’s ironic, really, for her to make a home out of the sky.
Truth is, Nikolai is not sure why he’s done this, either.
“You got yourself a fancy position,” he says, grinning. “You got to look fancy, Sigma-chan!”
He was expecting Sigma’s usual reaction: defensiveness, distance. But then, Sigma looks up at him.
“Thank you,” she says, and the appreciation in her eyes is genuine, and Nikolai wants to claw at her chest.
✞
The truth is, Nikolai only knows to love in the way the wolf loves the lamb.
✞
There’s a church falling to pieces in the middle of the woods. Nikolai would lie and say that he found it by pure coincidence, but the truth is that destiny has never been that kind to him.
Nikolai has been there right before everything properly started, right before the world fell to pieces. It was the previous moment before the inevitable downfall. He wasn’t supposed to be there, at that moment. There was something happening that Nikolai wasn’t supposed to be the spectator of.
(He saw Nathaniel kneeling on the hardwood floor and Fyodor in front of him, tall and divine, dressed fully on white. Fyodor’s voice echoed in the empty church as he prayed for Nathaniel’s soul, and he held his head down, his eyes closed.
Nikolai remained hidden, watching them in silence. There was something between them that felt too much like intimacy. It felt wrong to sit back and watch. Nikolai couldn’t look away.
He wondered if part of having faith was finding God in one another.)
The world was big and there were a lot of places where Nikolai could run away to, but he wasn’t sure about what to do now that everything was over. He had no big plans for himself, and the only thing he knew was that he couldn’t stay in Japan for long. Not that anyone could ever hold him back in place for a lot of time, but having people following him around and trying to catch him was a hassle. He’d prefer if he could avoid that. There was just so much game of cat-and-mouse that he could play before getting bored.
He hates being bored.
That must be his problem now, at least partially. He’s bored. Now that the big show was over, now that the curtain fell, the only thing he had left was minor acts of entertainment. No more end-of-the-world, no more playing around. He could try, but it’d feel like a children's game, now that Fyodor is gone.
Fyodor is gone. It still feels like a bad joke.
He crawls his way into the abandoned church with scratches on his back and bruises on his neck. There’s dirt on his clothes and dried blood under his nails.
He didn’t sleep at all last night. He’s not sleeping a lot lately.
(He sees Fyodor when he closes his eyes. He feels Fyodor’s hands on his neck and sees Fyodor’s brains splattered all over the floor and he sees the smile he wore when he died. He hears his voice calling Kolya, Kolya, and feels the hot brush of his breath on his ear.
He can’t bear it. He can’t.)
There’s only one reason he finds his way into the church. It greets him when he gets there, bright blue eyes boring into him when the door opens with a loud creak.
“Amen,” Nathaniel says out loud, his voice strong and rough in the silence of the place.
There’s something different about him. His hair is longer, the strands brushing his shoulders messily. His clergy robe is shattered, completely ruined. There’s nothing left of the clean and elegant man Nikolai one day knew except for the solemnity of his expression and his posture.
There’s a moment of heavy silence. To be completely honest, Nikolai didn’t have a plan before coming here. He’s just wandering around, looking for a place to fall into until he figures out what comes next. Fyodor is gone, Sigma has been taken into the Detective's Agency care, he’s not sure about Mushitarou’s whereabouts— he knew, however, that he would find Nathaniel here.
“I assumed you had died,” Nathaniel says sharply.
“I could say the same about you, Nathan,” Nikolai replies, smiling, but his voice is too empty. “It wasn’t me who got brainwashed, after all.”
He starts walking through the middle hallway, seats to his right and to his left. The colors of the stained glass dance around the figure of the man in front of him; Nikolai wonders, inevitably, how difficult would it be to make him kneel.
“No,” Nathaniel admits. “No, you submitted to Fyodor’s will out of your own volition.”
“Didn’t you?” Nikolai says, tilting his head. He stops walking when they’re only two steps away. It feels too far. It feels too close. Something threatens to break free from Nikolai’s chest; he’s not sure what it is. It’s hot and sharp and dangerous.
“I was looking to get something from him,” he shoots.
“I was, too.”
“Oh, yes?” Nathaniel scoffs. “What was even there for you?”
“His death!” Nikolai exclaims, opening his arms as wide as possible. He laughs. “I wanted him dead! Which is exactly what I got!”
He makes a pause, and then, with a soft and quiet voice he asks, “How is your princess? Margaret, was it?”
Nathaniel digs his nails on his own palms, jaw clenched, his expression hardening. It’s so easy. It’s so easy. This feels like déjà vu, like repeating the story again and again.
“That’s none of your concern,” Nathaniel says, turning around, facing the altar.
He looks up at the cross. Nikolai remembers the cross in the church back at the village; that one depicted Jesus being crucified, instead of the empty cross. A heavy reminder: this is the man that bled for you so you could live.
Does Nathaniel believe that’s his mission, too? To bleed?
“I doubt you’re here to repent, so I’d rather if you left my church.”
“I’m not here to pray,” Nikolai admits, walking the two steps that separates them. “I’m here for you.”
Nathaniel doesn’t look at him, but he frowns. “And that means?”
“I need somewhere to hide, just for a teeny-weeny while,” he says, gesturing with his thumb and his index finger, smiling.
“I hold no intentions of hiding you.”
Nikolai hums, pouting. “That’s too bad,” he says. He looks at the cross, then at the design of the stained glass. “I saw your girl.”
That catches Nathaniel’s attention. His gaze burns on Nikolai’s face, but Nikolai doesn’t turn to look at him. He smirks.
“Long brown hair, blue eyes, right? She’s pretty, but she looked rather weak. I bet it’s a complete miracle that she survived.”
The implications weigh between them. Nathaniel doesn’t know him much, but he knows him well enough, he knows what Nikolai can do.
When Nathaniel cuts his palm open over old scars and the blood turns into a knife pressing its point into Nikolai’s neck, Nikolai grins widely. Oh, this was the right choice; it’s so easy, it feels so familiar, like everything would fall right back into place if only he tried to force the world’s hand.
“I don’t want you going close to her ever again,” Nathaniel says. The knife breaks skin; Nikolai feels his own blood running down his neck.
“It’d be too bad,” he agrees, raising his chin, exposing more of it. It’s an invitation. Not because he doesn’t think Nathaniel is capable; maybe he wants him to. “If everything was in vain.”
Nikolai raises the cloak and relishes as panic paints Nathaniel’s eyes.
“Wait,” he says. It sounds too much like a plea, and Nathaniel cringes to himself. “You win. Don’t go.”
Resignation. It looks good on him, Nikolai thinks. He smiles as Nathaniel moves the knife back and lets the blood fall over his open hand. He probably doesn’t want to dirty the church's floor. Ironic, how that didn’t seem to bother him just a second ago.
Nikolai brings a hand to his own neck to clean the blood. He licks it off the pad of his fingers.
“I pinky promise I'd be a good roommate!” he croons, jumping to hug Nathaniel by the shoulders.
When Nathaniel pushes him back, he purposefully backs away, feigning offense.
✞
When Mykola was four, Mama tried to give him a bird. It was a small, white one; he didn’t know which kind, back then.
When Mykola saw the bird in the cage, he cried so much Mama had to promise that she would let the bird free.
✞
The night is cold and unforgiving as Nikolai walks his way through the graveyard, wearing nothing to protect himself from the cold. He barely feels the air biting at his skin, his hair moving behind his back.
He approaches Fyodor’s grave only to find that it doesn’t have Fyodor’s name. Bram Stoker, it reads. He guesses it’s appropriate; Fyodor’s original body probably was long lost in time. He’s been nothing but a stealer, a possessor, a punisher. He’s no one anyone would like to remember, either way, and the few who do would know where to find him.
Nikolai takes a small blade he keeps in him all the time and cuts a line on his own arm. He dips his fingers on his own blood and kneels in the grave, bringing them to the gravestone.
Using his blood as ink, Nikolai writes: Фёдор Достое́вский.
He wishes he could carve it on the stone, making it something permanent, but he fails to see the real point behind that. This feels irrelevant, now, as most things do lately.
He takes a handkerchief and uses it to cover the self-inflicted wound, but it barely does the work. He watches as the blood falls over the grave, over the dirt. He digs his fingers there.
Could he take Fyodor’s body—Bram’s body out of the cold earth, keep it with him, keep him close? He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers deeper until half of his hands are hidden beneath. He breathes in. Fyodor, Bram. Two people, one body. Something cold and uncomfortable runs through Nikolai’s bloodstream at the idea of having every ounce of free will stolen away from you.
(But hadn’t Fyodor promised he would kill him? Shouldn’t he have torn Nikolai apart first?)
Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting. Just the thought gives him nausea.
He feels a presence at his back and turns to see. He recognizes his companion, though barely; Ranpo Edogawa. The so-called Greatest Detective of the World.
Seeing him makes Nikolai smirk. He doesn’t take his hands out of the dirt. Ranpo looks at him, uninterested until he realizes the bleeding wound on Nikolai’s arm, the blood on the gravestone.
“You know,” he says. “People usually bring flowers.”
Nikolai laughs. “Oh, but that's so unoriginal! As an artist, I need to try to be innovative, you know.”
His voice sounds like a poor imitation of himself. Nikolai wants to tear his own skin off, rearrange himself from the inside out until everything is right again. He bites at his own tongue so hard it draws blood. The sensation seems to center him.
He blinks up at Ranpo. He doesn’t have the card he uses to cover his eye, didn’t see the point of bringing it here, and now he feels naked under his gaze.
Then again, he probably would’ve felt the same way regardless. Being under Ranpo’s scrutiny feels a little like it felt to be seen by Fyodor, but Ranpo is different. He can’t tell exactly what the difference is, doesn’t care enough right now.
“Are you here to jail me?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. Ranpo scoffs.
“Nah,” he says. He goes closer to the gravestone, brushes the top of it with delicate fingers. “It wouldn’t make any sense, and I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t mess with us.”
Ah, fellowship. The concept is unfamiliar, foreigner to him. How must it feel, to be willing to die and to kill and to go to the end of the world and back for someone else? To know they’d do the exact same thing for you, for no other reason except because they appreciate your presence in their lives?
“And why are you here, then?” Nikolai asks, burying his questions deep inside of him. “Saying goodbye to Dostoy?”
“I guessed I’d find you here. Wanted to prove myself right.”
Nikolai huffs a laugh, looking at his piercing green eyes. “You’re an interesting one, detective.”
Ranpo hums in agreement, crouching down in front of him. He takes the red stained handkerchief away from the wound to take a look at it.
“Looks deep,” he says.
“Because it is!” Nikolai replies cheerfully.
Ranpo presses a finger to it, eyes boring into his skin. Nikolai hisses softly, though it doesn’t really hurt.
“I'd take care of it, if I was you.”
What does it matter?
“But you aren’t.”
“Nope. And I don’t care enough to force you to.”
Ranpo brings his finger, stained with Nikolai’s blood, to his parted lips. It seems like a thoughtless action on his part. It feels like an invitation.
It burns on Nikolai’s guts, and nothing makes sense anymore either way, so he lets Ranpo set the trap and falls right into it.
There are teeth and claws and blood. It’s not clear, between them, who is eating who.
✞
Ranpo, for all he claims not to care, ends up kneeling in front of Nikolai to help him properly bandage the wound in some dirty bathroom in a motel.
Nikolai leans in, nuzzles his nose in Ranpo’s hair, breathes him in. Ranpo scowls at that and says something. Nikolai thinks he says something back. It must have been the right answer, because Ranpo bites his fingers in retaliation, and that feels like a victory.
He feels so, so far away.
The taste of Ranpo on his tongue, his smell washing all over him. He thinks he will remember this.
When Ranpo finishes tending to his wounds, Nikolai leans in to kiss him on the lips. It’s deep and full of teeth, but somewhat softer than their previous kisses. It doesn’t mean anything except, maybe, thank you. If Ranpo realizes, he decides it’s better not to mention it, simply kissing him back.
When Nikolai leaves, the sun has yet to come up and Ranpo is still laying in the bed, the sheets covering his naked body, the red marks of teeth Nikolai has left behind.
His skin stings. Nikolai wouldn’t say he regrets it.
✞
There’s a small cabin in the woods where Nathaniel has been living since he woke up from the hypnotized state he had been in through all of it. He never speaks about what he remembers and what he doesn’t, nor where he was before coming back here. It’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it, but Nikolai asks regardless, if anything, to make him angry. He enjoys Nathaniel’s rage, cold and sharp as it is.
He has a routine. His morning prayer, the time he dedicates to the lecture of the Bible, the time he spends in the church, how and when he finds food and water. Nikolai comes and shatters that between his two hands, as he does with everything, because he finds it entertaining and he can’t deal with boredom anymore. Whatever he does, Nathaniel won’t send him away, he can’t, not without risking something precious to him. Nikolai envies him, somehow, for still having something he wants to hold close.
Still, what settles deep in Nikolai’s chest is apathy. He despises it, the emptiness, that void he doesn’t know how to fulfill. He can find easy fun in bothering Nathaniel, some sort of momentary satisfaction, but it’s always short-lived, always leaves him empty handed.
One morning, as Nathaniel leaves to try and find something to eat, Nikolai goes to the church alone.
He walks around it in silence, his eyes taking every detail. There’s no many figures here. Not in comparison with the number in the church back at the village, at least.
Nikolai remembers it. To have so many eyes looking at you was overwhelming; especially when you sat there alone, with the priest praying for you because everyone was convinced the devil was making your body his abode.
He doesn’t understand the joy to get out of this. To kneel and pray and try to get forgiveness from a being that’s never going to answer in a way you can’t understand. Is there even a point, really, except for trying to convince yourself of being holy?
It doesn’t make sense. This is just to put yourself in a cage of your own making.
“I believe I told you not to come to this church in my absence.”
Nikolai tilts his head, eyes fixed on the cross, where Jesus’ eyes would be if he was there. He isn’t. Nikolai feels this absence must be important, somehow.
“Are you keeping me away from God?” he asks teasingly, a smile creeping from his lips. “That’s not very kind of you, Nathan.”
Nathaniel lets out something that sounds like a scoff. “We both know you are not very fond of the Lord.”
Nikolai hums.
(He doesn’t know God, but he knows the look his mother held while watching him as if he were a monster. I love you, she said, but I am so scared of you.)
“I’m not very fond of chains,” he corrects. “I don’t think you could say the same about yourself.”
He turns and Nathaniel stops walking. They’re half a step away. The light reflected from the stained glass makes Nathaniel’s eyes shine. He looks almost ethereal standing there, with his teared robes and his silver hair. Nikolai has never been a believer in divinity, but if it existed—
(divinity reminds him of Fyodor’s eyes
in the same way the dove laid down at the altar reminds him of Sigma
and the lamb reminds him of—)
maybe it’d look like this.
“That is where you’re wrong,” Nathaniel says calmly. “You not being inclined to follow the Lord’s commandments has nothing to do with keeping yourself free”
Nikolai blinks. His vision blurs, even without the card covering his healthy eye.
“Oh?” he replies, his smirk sharp and lethal, exposing his teeth. “Enlighten me, then, Father! What is it you think you know about me?”
Nathaniel takes the step that breaks the distance with the type of boldness he only gets out of anger, and Nikolai wants to dig his fingers in his hair and tear the skin off his face.
“You have chosen the God in whose hands you leave your life,” Nathaniel bites. “You have buried him, too. You handed him the keys to your cage, Gogol, and you can think I’m a believer of something that doesn’t exist, but you are a devotee of a dead man.”
Nathaniel whispers those words over his lips, and it’s instinct that makes Nikolai bring his knife to Nathaniel’s neck. That doesn’t make him back away, so Nikolai goes for the best next thing, takes his chin between his fingers, digs his nails on his skin.
“I was aware I was trapped,” Nikolai whispers back. “I did not paint the bars of my cage golden; I broke them.”
“I doubt there’s freedom in being haunted.”
Nikolai licks his teeth, tilts his head. Nathaniel’s eyes are shooting daggers at him and Nikolai decides, then and there, that he wants him dead.
His hold tightens around the handle of the knife, but he doesn’t bring it any closer, its edge barely grazing the pale skin.
“Do not patronize me, Father. You are not better than me,” he hisses.
Nathaniel laughs, short and cold. “Am I not, really?”
Nikolai has a point to prove, so he kisses him. He kisses him, and if Nathaniel were a better man, if he were as righteous as he wants to be, he’d find the strength to break away from him. He doesn’t. He bites Nikolai’s tongue like he’s trying to tear it off and his fingers scratch his skin until he’s bleeding, and when the tip of the knife tears a fine line in his neck the only thing he does is gasp.
Nikolai pulls at the strands of his hair and pushes him until he’s pressed against the wall, and the knife falls with a sound that echoes in the empty church, and as he tastes Nathaniel’s blood on his tongue he wonders if this is what Eve tasted, if falling right into the devil’s hands was always this sweet.
✞
In his dreams, he tears Sigma apart with his bare hands and kisses his still beating heart with the utmost care, watching as color dries out of her skin. He tries to put her back together to no avail; there’s no way to make sense out of this mess of broken bones, exposed muscles and organs, there’s no bringing her back.
In his dreams, a bird cries far, far away as he presses both hands around Fyodor’s neck. Fyodor is smiling when Nikolai steals his last breath away from him, and then Nikolai has both hands buried on the dark earth, digging until his nails break and his fingers bleed.
In his dreams, he puts both hands deep inside Nathaniel’s chest and takes out his lungs, feeds on them.
In his dreams, his mother prays for his soul.
✞
Nikolai wakes up in the middle of the woods, hands deep on the dirt.
He holds no memories of what happened or how he got there. Everything would be pitch black if it weren’t because of the light of a small lamp, and Nikolai knows what he will find when he turns, but he still has to blink a few times upon seeing Nathaniel standing there.
“What are you even doing?” Nathaniel asks. His voice is not particularly soft, but it’s not as harsh as it tends to be. Nikolai looks at his hands.
“Connecting with nature,” he replies, his voice hoarse. His fingers hurt. Everything hurts, really. Breathing feels like a chore. He still smiles when he looks up. “It’s said to be good for the soul. What do you think, Father?”
Nathaniel doesn’t find it humorous at all. He gets closer, but he doesn’t offer his hand when he commands, “Get up.”
Nikolai doesn’t want to get up, not really. He can lie there. Maybe if he stays still for long enough, the world would take pity on him and take him away. A soul with no place to run.
If Hell is real, then maybe the devil will remember him when he gets there. Maybe he will open his arms to receive him like a father watching his lost son come back to the place where he belongs.
The thought makes him want to laugh, though it’s not particularly funny. Nathaniel wouldn’t find it humorous, either.
“Have you gone deaf?” Nathaniel says when the silence stretched too much without Nikolai moving from place, but there’s still no bite to it. Nikolai misses it.
“Go back to sleep, Nathan,” he says, rocking a little in place, still smiling, always smiling, like a mask, like a liar, like a beast. “From my part, I think I’ll stay here. Laying in the cool earth. Maybe that’d fix me.”
“There’s no fixing you,” Nathaniel says. He kicks him on the knee. “Get up.”
“You really think highly of me!” Nikolai laughs. It sounds unnatural, forced. “Am I beyond salvation, Father? Have you forsaken me?”
It feels like a stupid question to ask. Every word he says scratches his throat the wrong way. He was trying to joke, but Nathaniel looks at him like he’s just discovered something. If he holds any answers, Nikolai wishes he would tell him.
“I cannot fight your battles for you,” is what Nathaniel says, and Nikolai wants to rip his vocal chords out of his throat so any other word he wants to say would die between his hands. “I’m not saying it again.”
And Nikolai could decide not to obey and watch him walk away, and it would be a choice.
He presses a hand to the ground, uses it to push himself up. “You really are demanding, Nathan,” he mutters. There’s a teasing tilt to it, but it lacks energy.
Nathaniel doesn’t speak again as they walk back to the cabin. He doesn’t speak as he gestures for Nikolai to sit down on the worn out bed, and he still says nothing as he brings the bucket with water to the room.
He drops to his knees in front of Nikolai’s own, takes a wet cloth out of the bucket with one hand, one of Nikolai’s with the other. His touch is delicate as he starts cleaning the dirt off his skin, and Nikolai wants to say something, anything, but his tongue feels like sandpaper inside of his mouth.
His touch feels tender. It makes Nikolai want to throw up. Why, his mind demands, why, why, why, but he can’t bring himself to ask, he can’t question this because what if Nathaniel rethinks this and realizes this shouldn’t be happening at all, that there’s no point, what if Nathaniel looks into his eyes and sees the devil laying there, what if he walks away—
“You’re being weird about this,” Nathaniel says. It’s not an accusation. It should be.
Nikolai tries to laugh, but he sighs instead. “You are being weird about this.”
Nathaniel looks up, arching an eyebrow. “You put your hands on my things all the time. It’s only natural I want them to be clean when you do.”
It’s not the truth. They both know, but Nikolai doesn’t call him out on it.
(Nikolai’s hands will never be clean, doesn’t matter how hard Nathaniel tries. They both know that, too. Nathaniel rubs his thumbs over his tainted skin anyway, and Nikolai doesn’t stop him.)
✞
Nikolai holds a theory:
Nathaniel would devote himself to anything as long as it makes him bleed.
✞
Nikolai presses a hand to Nathaniel’s chest to feel him breathing as the floor under them turns crimson.
There’s only one way Nikolai knows how to deal with his desire, so he watches closely as Nathaniel lets himself lie still, compliant like never before. His desire was always big and deep, all-consuming, was always calling for blood.
His desire calls for blood, so that’s what Nathaniel gives.
There’s something warm inside of him, burning in his chest, running through his bloodstream. The quick rhythm of Nathaniel’s heartbeat matches his own, and Nikolai wants to put his teeth around it. He can't, so he swallows his breath instead, licking the inside of his mouth as his fingers press on open wounds. Nathaniel bites hard enough to hurt in retaliation, and Nikolai laughs over his lips.
When Nathaniel touches him like he intends to break him open, it feels like—
✞
In his dreams, he holds the dead dove between his hands. In his dreams, he kisses its head goodnight, and he whispers,
Я кохаю тебе.