Work Text:
A rotting church stands before them. The stone walls are a faded, shadowy gray, and it seems to wilt under the sparse morning light. Yet still, there's a beauty about it permeating even through the dereliction. Must have been a fire that did it in. By God's hand or by sinners, a harder question, but undeniably, a fire.
It's by no means large, and by no means tall, but the longer Fyodor looks at it, it seems to loom higher into the sky. It stares him down with its empty sockets—punched through windows whose stained glass clutters the front steps—and he stares back.
"This is where you've taken us?"
Beside him, there is a thoughtful hum; then a white blurred shape zips across his vision, running to a corner where fence meets foliage, and where overgrown daisies sprawl wild over the graves of good Christians whose names have been rinsed away by time and rain.
Nikolai kneels, plucking one out from the ground, and turns to face Fyodor. He holds it out. The stem is thin and limp, the petals shivering under a chilly breeze—yet all the same, it's held out with pride, like a bouquet.
Fyodor takes it mildly. He gestures with his chin at the building whose gaping mouth groans as the wind sweeps through it. "You drove us nearly an hour, Kolya, all to visit a ghostyard?"
"Of course I did. It's tragic and beautiful and holy and dark. It's twin to your soul, Fedya. So of course I did!"
"… It reeks of sacrilege."
"And does it reek even more since we are here?" Nikolai chuckles. There's a silence in this place that could rise mist and snuff out candles. The sort of disquiet that seems to stir up the brewing sky above. It will rain soon.
Fyodor does not reply. They tiptoe over shattered glass and krapivas and snuffed joints that pepper the aisle like wedding petals.
"One year of you and I, and in celebration you bring me to a corpse of a church that's become a pot house for god-knows-who." Fyodor purses his lips. They are inside now. It has a caved in ceiling and greenery which has laid claim over the pews and pillars. At the far altar, there is a tree, still young, but with strong roots that slither under the steps, causing the earth to rise and crack.
"You say this, but you know there's no candlelit dinner on earth, under any cluster of stars above, that can come parallel to this sort of romance!" Nikolai sing-songs. "I've cleared out the place, if you're worried about being interrupted. And I've bought snacks, if you're hungry. And there's plenty of declarations I can load up, if you're feeling unloved. But you should know this place is just per-fect!"
Fyodor rolls his eyes and steps through the row of pews. Many are broken, splintered straight through the middle by a large trunk that must have collapsed in during a nasty storm. Others are swaddled with animal excrament and insect colonies.
But there is one, on the leftmost side, second row to the altar, coated in silky cobwebs that stretch gleaming silver in the surrounding air. Fyodor brushes them away and takes a seat.
Nikolai does not follow. He crouches in front of him, elbows propped on knees—smile as wide as the world that scorns them.
"I mean," he goes on, "do you sense the direction? Do you need to read it in our tea leaves? The road ahead is jagged, Fedya—we are hurtling toward a sharp drop. We're doomed to be crucified, which is why I bought us here; not to be crucified, ha-ha!—but because I felt it appropriate. In truth, there's rhyme behind it but no reason, do you understand? Of course you do. You understand everything."
Fyodor presses his palm against Kolya's cheek, who leans into it. Hot skin under Fyodor's cold touch.
"You want to flaunt your sin in the House of God."
"Wrong." Nikolai grins, "I want to flaunt our love in the House of God. For it's a flower in a battle tank, dear Fedya, and sooner or later everything will go up in flames. You understand, don't you?"
"I do."
Nikolai stands. Fyodor watches him head up to the altar—where a golden shaft of sunlight shines directly over the raised platform.
"Are you going to deliver a sermon?"
"If you want, I will," Nikolai replies, "Or I can whistle a tune. I'll tell you a joke if you want to laugh. I'll even do the hopak if you like. Fancy a magic trick? Want me to sing? What would you like, Fedya?"
Fyodor rolls his eyes. "I want you to get down from there."
"Why?" Nikolai laughs, "Does it look so wrong, me standing here? Am I a blot in the snow? A blood stain on the bible page? But this church is ruined and so are we—so if anything we fit perfect, as wilted roses do against a blackened tomb."
"It's because you're standing directly in the sun, Kolya, and there's a small tree behind you. You're shining. My eyes don't like it."
"Shining! That's a funny way of putting it. Do I look like angel to you, Fedechka?" Nikolai cooes, "Am the white dove in your black world? Am I the single star in your empty sky? Am I—”
"If that's what it takes to get you away from there, then yes."
Nikolai doesn't leave. He dips his head to the side, braid hanging off one shoulder, the paleness of his hair swallowing up the sun and those mismatched eyes swallowing up all the world's colours. "Are you ashamed of being in love with me, Fedya?"
"No."
"Are you afraid of being in love with me?"
Fyodor does not answer.
Now Nikolai steps down; tiptoes over the soil and pews and crumbs of stone. He's back in front of Fyodor, this time kneeling—with a look so fond Fyodor half expects a ring to be whipped out.
"The babushkas can croon, and the dedushkas can wave their crosses, and our families can weep all they like. I don't care. In fact I like it. Makes it feel like we're vampires, not sinners, and that's far better than imagining we're doomed for hell. Isn't it?"
Fyodor reaches out a hand, pushing back the hair and exposing Kolya's forehead. A pale forehead. Creased, slightly, from all this smiling.
"Want to kiss me there, Fedya?" Nikolai murmurs, "Then do!"
Fyodor lets the hair fall back and rolls his eyes. "I don't kiss clowns."
"What! You kiss clowns more than you breathe air! And what if I asked you to marry a clown?"
"I don't marry clowns either."
"What! And if I asked you consummate your love for a clown, in this rundown orphan of a church?"
"I'd say no. Because I don't love a clown."
Nikolai's laughter rings loud and true, cracking sharp through this old withered side of nowhere, like a crow's call.
"There's no one here, you know. None for miles. That's more privacy than any we'd get in any locked chamber back there."
"Providence's eyes are everywhere."
"And they'll continue to be everywhere! Let Him watch us love in this life and let Him watch us burn in the next! There's nothing that will change."
"It's disrespectful."
"I'd say there's nothing more disrespectful than a voyeuristic God! That's one Peeping Tom you can't escape from, even if you dove into the ocean under the ocean—so does it matter, today and tomorrow and next week and the foreseeable future?"
"Don't ever say that again."
"No need to sound so angry, Fedya, why are you angry at me? Why not at them, back at home? Why not at Him, up in the clouds? Why not the devil, for making us fall in love in the first place? Hey, now, what are you doing!"
Fyodor turns away. The soil on the pew has stained his hands. There is a hammering in his rib cage and a dark pit in his stomach. He pulls out the rosary from his pocket; he counts through the beads. One by one, slowly, until finally he feels the oppressive weight of a furious Gaze slowly subside.
Nikolai snatches it out. "We are alone here, Fedya. No one can touch us. Not even God. In the next life, sure, but not this one. So let's live like death row inmates. Let yourself be my last meal, and I you."
Fyodor glares down at him. "You should have that tongue cut off." He tries to reach for the rosary. Nikolai holds it out of reach. And when Fyodor leans forward, he pulls him by the waist until they are chest to chest, nose to nose.
"If I had no tongue, you would suffer the most, Fedya." He purrs.
Fyodor scowls, but doesn't move. He attempts another grab at the rosary, so Nikolai tosses it behind him. It soars in an arch through the air and lands caught on the branch of the baby tree.
"Don't look at that." Says Nikolai, "Look at me."
So he does. Nikolai kisses him, smiling against his mouth, and when he pulls back, says, "Now don't you dare say you've never kissed a clown."
Fyodor rolls his eyes again but still does not move. He can feel himself slipping, as Kolya rubs circles over his hips and as the sky parts for rain. It falls over them through the gaping ceiling; paired with the sunlight, it's like champagne mist glittering down.
"Are you ashamed of loving me?" Nikolai repeats. This time with an urgency. Like the answer actually matters this time. Like part of him expects something different to come out of Fyodor's mouth.
Which is stupid.
"No."
This time, Fyodor is the one to close the distance and, at the same time, there is a roar of thunder. The rain breaks forth, slabs of heavy water pouring down harder and faster, soaking them to the bone.
Even still, they remain. They don't leave this church for a very long time.