Archive of Our Own

Artemy Burakh has a work ethic that would put any of Daniil's students and nearly all his interns to shame. Daniil has long known it—could hardly have missed it, constant as it was through so many times through the same days—but the knowledge has expanded, like so many things, with variety. With witnessing Artemy through the singular days that followed, through the foundation of new moments and clumsy honesty they have been building slowly since Artemy opened his home to Daniil and—somehow—has yet to revoke the invitation. Witnessing Artemy at rest, absent the driving horror of crisis, is different: he has seen, in these days since, how Artemy's duty structures the very shape of his soul.

Or perhaps it is only that Artemy's dedication stands out so much now, a beacon of awe and envy shining like the Polyhedron against the dusty backdrop of Daniil's own stunted stagnancy.

"...and I'll have to remember..." Artemy is murmuring to himself now, voice as heavy as the chin that has fallen almost to his chest in half-asleep stupor. He lies supine on the couch, feet kicked up onto one armrest, the book he's been pretending to read resting lax on his chest, and still Daniil can practically see the whir of his mind, the determination not to lose his thought halfway through. "The tinctures." He blinks, long and slow; a tired frown seeks to tug his brows together but seems to lose energy halfway through. "I need to brew more Medrel; we're... we're almost out." He rolls his head to one side, that sleepy gaze finding Daniil in the chair he's been perched in for the last hour, those eyes a more solid weight than the stack of books Daniil really has been working his way through (in lieu of the more useful things he does not have to do). "Will you remind me... when Stakh comes in tomorrow, he'll be responsible for most of the patients?"

"Of course." Rubin won't be pleased; his bedside manner leaves something to be desired, but he always defers to Artemy as he must have done to Isidor—however begrudgingly. Daniil bites his tongue against the urge to offer to take on the responsibility himself, the knowledge that said urge is still as impotent as his will. That even now, weeks into an unfolding future in which he has had plenty of time to get himself together, he still cannot be trusted with patients on his own.

"Good, good." Slow and ponderous, one of Artemy's hands makes its wandering way up to his head. His thumb probes that spot where the frown lives between his brows, pressing in as if to chase the expression back to whence it came. "Thank you."

"Are you all right?" Daniil rocks towards the edge of the chair—to get up, or maybe to reach for him, impulsive inchoate motion drawn up short by his own marionette strings. Artemy would have managed it, would not have let his inhibitions stop him from reaching out to soothe someone who needed it—but then, Artemy would know, as he always seems to know, what to do. Daniil can only hesitate, drawn up tight and unbalanced within himself, and wait.

"Fine," sighs Artemy, though the lines in his brow do not slacken and his hand does not move. "Just a headache."

Again the rock forward, again the abrupt halt, jerked to a stop by the tight tether behind his ribs. "Can I get you anything?" he asks instead. Knows even as he does so that Artemy would not even need to ask.

Artemy shakes his head, winces again. "It'll pass."

"Says the physician," Daniil scoffs. Here, at least, is something he can do, and he pushes himself upright at last, swings off the precipice of the chair to find the ground solid beneath his feet. Perhaps he does not know the language of tenderness that Artemy's hands speak so well, but he knows his way around Artemy's clinic well enough. "You're falling asleep on that couch. I'll get you something for the headache, and then you can go to bed and sleep it off."

"Low on supplies," Artemy protests.

"And you're brewing more tomorrow." The relief of having something he can fetch, something he can do, is almost pitiful—after weeks of idling in Artemy's home, weeks of not earning his keep, this is the least he can do. "Stop arguing."

The fact that Artemy makes no further attempt to do so is enough to ratchet up Daniil's concern. He hurries to the clinic, finds the painkillers easily enough—not Artemy's precious home-brewed stock, which really is running low, but they keep meradorm as a backup and surely Artemy can't complain about that—and returns to find Artemy exactly where he's left him, hand still thrown over his eyes.

"Here," he says. "From the backup supplies, not your stores. Will this do?"

"If you insist," Artemy murmurs, and smiles faintly as Daniil passes him the medicine. "Thank you, doctor."

Daniil scowls, as if Artemy is looking at him—and as if that would do anything to stave off the heat in his cheeks. "It's nothing," he says. "Now. To bed."

"Fine, fine," says Artemy, and lets himself be coaxed up at last, guided down the hall. Daniil watches him disappear into his bedroom with only the slightest twinge of unease in his chest.

When Daniil wakes the next morning, the house is too quiet.

The sound of nothing forces him upright faster than any murmur of voices or clatter of pans from the kitchen ever could—for all those might rattle at this nerves, sizzle electric in his synapses, they are sounds he has become accustomed to, reminders of the safety he still sometimes can't let himself trust. Waking up in stillness is too much a reminder of the calm before the storm—the eerie quiet that greeted him in Eva's home, that trembled too ominously in advance of being split by the cacophony of needs and demands and his own scattered spill of loose ends. He is sitting up in bed before the first seconds of silence can finish their empty echo, hand pressed to pounding heart, feet finding the floor before the room resolves around him.

It is not the Stillwater. He is still in Artemy's house, still in the bedroom that has been cleaned and tidied for his use, that Artemy has never so much as intimated was once his own. But then, why...

Why is it so quiet?

Daniil sleeps too late, still. He has tried more than once to drag himself out of bed earlier—to sternly command his mind to wake up when Artemy does, to force himself out of bed for good during one of his restless pre-dawn stirrings. To order his insomnia to work in a more productive direction—to allow him sleep before two in the morning, during those hours when the house has gone quiet, and to wake him when its activity begins again. It has never been of any use; once he finally succumbs to insurmountable exhaustion, usually in the early hours before dawn, it holds him in a foglike fugue until it is ready to release him. He is the last to breakfast every day—dragging himself blearily into the kitchen with the kids either leaving or already gone, Artemy preparing for his day and leaving Daniil the dishes with an undeserved word of thanks. He has asked himself—and cannot remember—if he was always like this or if this is merely another holdover from those repeated nightmare days, those mornings when he would snap out of the purgatory between one day and another, limbo between wakings devoid of dreams or rest. Of course his body is still disinclined to give him anything like normal sleep, after how long it was denied.

But now there is no sound of activity; the house creaks only with the typical stray groans of a building haunted either by age or the ghosts of atrocity within its walls. Artemy should be up, making noise, and he is not, and Daniil's heart drowns out the thud of his feet on the floor in the two steps he takes to the door.

He checks the kitchen first, though it is obviously empty. Checks the clinic, which is the same. Artemy could have been called away early in the morning; it's happened before, though the pounding of an urgent messenger on the door typically wakes even Daniil. (In those moments he shrinks back into his blankets, feigning sleep as an excuse not to present himself for judgment or demand, knowing Artemy will be better off handling the emergency without him in the way.)

No, there has been no emergency this morning. He would have heard, and so Artemy must still be here. And if he is still here...

The obvious connection dangles stubbornly unmade in Daniil's mind, pieces refusing to click into place as if his failure to notice them might somehow prevent them from being true. He makes his way instead on heavy, reluctant feet to Artemy's bedroom.

This is the room in the house with which he has the least familiarity, a room he's visited only a time or two since Artemy offered his home as a refuge. He has avoided the place perhaps not because he would be forbidden entry, but rather because it has always felt like a liberty he dares not take. He is still a guest in this house; however often Artemy has reiterated his indefinite welcome, he cannot quite shake the feeling that he is little more than a drain on resources. Entering Artemy's space would be like an assertion that he thinks himself worthy of it.

And—

And there are words that still lie between them, words Daniil has not succeeded in tucking away into the back of his mind, words that drag at him during his waking hours and taunt him in his sleep. Words he remembers with an all-over flush and tug of guilt, words that keep him from darkening Artemy's doorstep for fear of being misinterpreted or of taking away whatever refuge Artemy still has from him: this man who takes up his time and his space while giving nothing back.

Artemy's door is still shut. Daniil taps on it, hardly loud enough to be heard, and presses his ear to the door.

Behind it, a sound. Nearly drowned out by his own rushing pulse, by his short and anxious breaths, but something like a low groan.

Frigid water seems to surge into Daniil's chest, a wave from something churning and roiling inside him. Without further hesitation, he pushes the door open.

The room is dim, curtains still closed against the light; the air is still and cold—stagnant and heavy with sleep, but without the warmth that should accompany it. The house is too cold for that; winter has crept over the town on the Gorkhon while Daniil has been hiding from the outside world, and how could the heat from the fire have crept into Artemy's room when Artemy has not yet gotten up to build it? He is still in bed, wrapped tightly in every blanket on his bed; he stirs at Daniil's approach and moans.

"'s it morning?"

The mumble is cracked and hoarse, barely audible. The blankets rustle, as if he's tried to push himself upright, but another low sound of discomfort marks a return to stillness.

The plague.

It is Daniil's first thought, instinct roaring to bright, infernal light inside him. He remembers the patients in the hospital hardly stirring in their beds, the curled-up shivering posture of those who were too far gone even to pick themselves up off the streets. Remembers the way they presented themselves to him, empty of all but a few scant hours of life, life he could steal so easily for himself. Looks down at Artemy, the gray of shaded light blurring before his eyes until Artemy's bedcovers have become protective robes, Artemy's body just another of the many that called out for his touch, for an eased passing that may never have been a kindness to any but Daniil himself—

"Artemy?" he whispers, and can hardly hear his own voice over the blood pounding in his ears. "Artemy, are you..."

"Infected," Artemy rasps—his voice louder now, if no clearer. It seems to tear coming out, shreds of sound unspooling and then muffling as he pulls the blankets over his head. "Get out, you need—need to get—"

The panic in his voice is its own infection, catching in Daniil's throat and heart, setting ripples of dizziness radiating through his skull. No, it can't—it can't be back, he can't—Artemy can't be infected; that, in all the worlds he lived through, was not one of his horrors. He wasn't—he couldn't—

He can't have survived all that only for Daniil to lose him now.

But Daniil was never one to walk away from plague victims, and Artemy was the one who brewed a cure. He walks forward, instead—to Artemy's side, where he belongs. "Do you know it's the plague?" he says, and his voice is shockingly steady, divorced from the boiling inside his head. "How could it have come back?"

If nothing else, at least he is far enough removed from it to keep time straight in his head—to know that even if this is the plague, then it has returned, not Daniil. In another, happier moment, he could almost rejoice at the realization of it: that no matter what new horrors he is encountering, they are at least new. This is not a repeat of any day he has lived before, in any nightmare scenario, because he has never woken in Artemy Burakh's house before.

"Won't let me go," Artemy moans, "never let me go... it was always waiting... waiting for me—"

He bats at Daniil's hands when Daniil reaches for him, squirms frantically away from proximity, but he has wrapped himself too tightly. He can barely extricate his hands from the blankets, can barely muster the strength to swat lightly at Daniil's wrists as Daniil folds back the blanket to feel his forehead.

This—this is what he wanted to do last night, but didn't dare. This is the way Artemy has touched Daniil so many times, a physician's surety in his touch that Daniil's trembling hands have always lacked, and this is what Daniil can do now in turn. Artemy's skin is warm and damp under his touch, but still supple and smooth—none of the cracking dryness or sores that accompanied the Pest. If it really has returned, then it is still in the early stages.

"The panacea," he says. "Wait here while I bring you some."

"Won't work," Artemy moans. His eyes squeeze shut, his head curls forward, as if to make himself as small as possible. "Not this time. Only one chance, and I wasted it—It's come back for me, like I always knew—"

"Don't move," Daniil orders him. "Don't get up. I'm coming back."

He knows where Artemy keeps the remnants of the panacea—of course he does. It was the first thing Artemy showed him and the first thing he asked, united by the impossible past they had lived through and the even more impossible terror of its return. He knows it is stocked in the cabinets in the clinic, knows too that Artemy keeps back-storage in the study just in case it ever runs out. The study is closer, and so it is to the study that Daniil goes.

His glance darts to the walls again and again. Should he search them? Look under the tapestries for hints of the telltale mold, the sign that that nightmare is returning? There is no one here to stop him this time, no one to prevent him from searching. Should he just—

No. He does not have infinite time any longer, does not have the chance to do this day again. Or rather, he can't count on this chance. If he wastes time bringing Artemy the panacea, Artemy could be gone before he returns. Could have slipped away into that void whose entrance is forbidden to Daniil once again, the years of his life streaming uncaught into the ether, and Daniil will never be able to catch them, never be able to rewind the clock to bring him back.

Unless he does. Unless this is its own sign, an indication that after weeks of an uneasy peace, after letting his guard down at last and finally releasing the habit of scribbling every day's events down each evening, that hell is reaching out for him again with greedy fingers, ready to drag him back in.

Daniil's steps falter in the doorway of the study; he clings to the doorframe to keep from sagging to the floor. He can't—he can't do it again. He can't pick up that burden now that he's finally let it go, can't go back—

Pons asinorum, says a voice inside him, and he clutches at the doorframe, feels the rough wood dig into his bare palms. If it saves him, you'll do what you have to.

He will. Resolve firms inside him, and he pushes himself forward again.

Artemy has not left his bed when Daniil returns to the room, but he's twisted and turned in the sheets, fever-tossed and drowned in distress. When Daniil cracks the door open again, glassy eyes turn to look at him.

"The children," Artemy croaks. "The children, are they—if it's come back, you have to check on them, please, you have to save them. The panacea, they need—"

"There's enough for everyone," Daniil says, his voice held steady by that sudden, firm surface inside him: you'll do what you have to. He will not let this happen again, and in the solidity of that certainty, for the first time, rational thought peers in at last, reluctant return guest at the door of his thoughts. The Pest was vanquished. Its source was destroyed. It was never meant to come back.

Are they both overreacting?

"There's enough," he repeats, but he returns to Artemy's side, hand back to his forehead with more surety this time. "But first, I'll need to perform a diagnostic examination."

The words feel like rehearsed lines in the mouth of a puppet, rendered clownish by how unfit he is, after all this time, to be saying them again. Still, they are lines he has rehearsed over years of medical work, weeks of repeated examinations. Every diagnosis he had to redo, every patient he saw multiple times, only solidified them in his mind—made them a script he can reach for with shockingly little effort, easier than his hand against Artemy's too-warm face.

"There's no time!" Artemy insists. "I know what it feels like! I feel it, Daniil—"

But does he? Daniil was never infected with the Pest, no; shielded by the time he stole and the fractures in his mind and the vaporlike dissolution of the world around him, he does not have this sense memory. But he knows well enough now how some memories can echo others, how easily the mind is fooled by the tricks of the body. And God knows they have had enough patients rushing to their door with just this anxiety, just a regular fever mistaken for the enemy that Artemy seemed to have vanquished forever.

"I know you do," he hushes Artemy now. "But humor me just for five minutes. We can afford to lose that much time."

It is, perhaps, his own damaging habit. For all the horrors he lived and relived, he was at least spared the fear of not having enough time. For him, it was the opposite: if it would never stop no matter what he did, then he could afford to experiment. Perhaps it is wrong now, wrong even as Artemy strains and struggles beneath him, to assume he can spare even a second.

But in the time he took to retrieve the panacea, Artemy's skin has remained smooth, his fever consistent rather than spiking. Daniil checks his pulse and finds it steady, finds only inflammation of the nose and throat consistent with any standard respiratory virus. His breathing, too, though mildly congested, lacks the strained wheeze Daniil heard in the worst of his patients.

"Artemy," he ventures at last. "I don't think it's the Pest."

Artemy inhales sharply as if to retort, then coughs. The sound is harsh, grating in a way that makes Daniil's throat twinge in sympathy, but it lacks the breathlessness of the desperate fits that echoed off the walls and stage of the hospital-theatre, that ring still sometimes in Daniil's precarious dreams. And perhaps even Artemy realizes it, because he reaches up to touch his own throat, eyebrows inching together in a ponderous frown.

When he speaks, it is with a child's denial. "You don't know that."

"I don't," Daniil concedes. But his surety is growing, the longer Artemy lies there without worsening, especially with that mirrored gleam of enlightenment forcing its way through the fog in Artemy's eyes. "But I can find out. I'll go check on the children, shall I? And the house—if there's no infection in the walls, then we'll know."

"Yes," grates Artemy. "Yes, check on the children."

"And the house," Daniil says—and though it pains him to do so, he picks himself up from Artemy's bedside, leaving the bottle of panacea within easy reach. Just in case.

Sticky and Murky, of course, are nowhere to be found. Daniil checks their bedrooms and finds them empty, the kitchen and finds it untouched. It is not uncommon for them to be gone before he wakes up in the morning, but he could curse them for it now—could curse the whole world.

In his hunt for them, he at least manages to scour the house. Lifts every tapestry, moves every item of furniture, just to make sure he's missed nothing at all—and no matter how long he hunts without it, the surge of panic in his chest never lessens each time he moves something aside, that certainty that this will be the time he finds the fateful mold. A discolored waterstain on the wall behind the couch leaves him clutching its armrests, bending over himself and breathing in gulps as all the blood rushes from his head. But there is nothing. No mold, no infection, no sign of the children.

He returns to the bedroom empty-handed—a source of consternation one way and relief the other. Further relief is the realization that Artemy still has not worsened; the bottle of panacea rests untouched at the bedside table and his breathing and pulse remain steady, his skin still unblemished. Further consternation is the way Artemy strains to sit upright when Daniil cannot produce word of the children's wellbeing.

"We have to find them," he insists, pushing himself up against the head of the bed and clutching his head at the effort, voice rough with suppressed coughing. "Have to know if they're—last time, when I took my eyes off them, it came for them, and I—"

"Who is this we?" Daniil pushes at his shoulders, testing his own meager muscle against Artemy's diminished strength. "I will find them. It won't be the first time I've babysat for you, after all."

The lofty bravado in those words barely heaves itself clear of the jagged edges in his chest, the realization of what this means. That he needs to venture out, to find the children, on his own—outside the small radius of this home that has circumscribed his existence ever since he realized he could no longer sustain it on his own.

In Artemy's home, the world is small—different each day, but always changing in small, predictable ways. What Sticky will want for breakfast; what bug or leaf or frost-sketched shape on the window has caught Murky's attention; which tinctures Artemy is brewing for which patients they will be seeing. When he can reliably keep his thoughts in the present, Daniil might join Artemy and Rubin in the clinic room to see patients with predictable ailments, his controlled exposure to the world outside. The townspeople might see him; they might bring word of his presence back to town—but if they do, that is none of Daniil's concern. Here, he is safe.

Out there...

Outside the house in one direction lies the steppe, sprawling too vast for Daniil to navigate without Artemy's help. In the other direction lies the town.

"You'll find them?" Artemy's eyes shine up at him with fever and pleading, a fervency Daniil has only seen and heard in him when one of his own memories surges up to overcome him—when he is reminded of his own nightmare: shorter than Daniil's, perhaps, but more acute by far. In hushed conversation after the children have gone to bed, Artemy has told him of starvation and thirst nipping at his heels, of the supplies from Daniil's fund drained away within minutes by theft or the twyre bloom or simply the constant, sapping exhaustion of too much to do and no clock to rewind for it. Of children gone missing; of the fear, constant and unstoppable, that as soon as he looked away from them, the plague would sink its claws into everyone he loved. As if overcome by that memory now, drowning in its mire in a way Daniil knows all too well, he reaches up to clutch at Daniil's hand.

His hand is fever-warm and damp, his grip too tight. Daniil clasps it in his own, his heart constricting as if in the same grip. "Of course I'll find them," he promises Artemy. "I'll make sure they're all right. You can count on me."

He searches the house again, just once more, just to be sure. But of course that would be too easy. Of course he has to look in town.

He makes it out the front door all right; that, at least, is still within his power. Then, a few steps from the door, he stops again.

In one direction: the steppe. He would get hopelessly lost there, of course—and even if he knew his way around, even if he remembered, he would find no one there to help him look. No one to ask if they'd seen the children, no indication one way or the other that he was going in the right direction. But of course, it is that very absence that makes the steppe so tempting.

He can't look there; he already knows it. But the process of turning towards town is like dragging leaden shoes up through mud.

Once, this was so easy. Once, the map of the town was emblazoned practically on the backs of his eyelids: there at a glance, dotted with landmarks. The town was familiar to him and he to it; he might be accosted in the street with pleas or demands or anger, but he had a purpose that drove him through day after endless day. He had a plague to stop and the mantle of emergency command thrown over his shoulders, and he—

And he accomplished neither of them, and the town remembers it as well as he does.

That map has faded along with the drilled-in recall of his notes from each day. Time, flowing and accumulating once more, has done its work—supplanted old memories with new experiences, clouded that endless twelve-day loop with a skim of fog. When he tries to focus on it now, on remembered locations or remembered moments, he finds them either obscured by film-reel static or sharply defined in the incapacitating clarity of remembered horror. Useless to him in both directions; no longer a source of knowledge or aid, only a paralyzing blow to his senses, to his ability to be of any use at all—

You have a job to do, he reminds himself viciously. Children to find, to ease Artemy's mind and his own. To be sure that the plague has not returned after all, that those times are over for good—and for once, he has no time to waste. Get a hold of yourself.

One step. Another. The grass is slick with frost; his foot skids a little and he catches himself—or does he? Something inside him is still sliding, insides detached from his body like a renegade drawer, no catch at the back to hold it in. The sudden emptiness inside him sends him gasping and listing; he grasps at nothing, fingers closing around only air, and the world seems to tilt on its axis around him. A vast roaring squeezes his head in its grip, and all sound and sight goes distant and blurry.

Dimly he becomes aware of himself going to one knee, of the hand clutching at his chest, of the sawing sound of his lungs straining to breathe. No warmth seems left in his body, though it must be, because frost melts beneath him and sinks damply into his borrowed sleep pants—Artemy's too-large house clothing that he had no time to change out of. He needs—his coat. His boots. His armor. Something, anything, to pull over himself, to hide from the world, or to pretend he is anything other than what he is—he needs—

You need to pull it together, his mind rails at him, but his body refuses to obey. Legs and lungs alike are frozen solid, suspended in the echoing tick between one second and the next; the one will not lift him; the other will not take in any air. He is a shade drained of life, of energy, of time; he is half a corpse on the precipice of an agonized death, waiting for someone to come and siphon away his time. He is—

He is gasping for air on the grass outside Artemy's house. How long has passed, he could not say, but the light is the same, the grass still damp and chilled beneath his knee. Was it any time at all? Or did the clock lend him one last moment of aid, hold him suspended in that agony but stop time around him, so no one else was here to witness his loss of control?

Does it matter? He has children to find.

Stumbling, listing, he hauls himself to his feet. His breath still comes too fast, dully serrated edges sawing at his throat and chest; his legs wobble beneath him but hold his weight. His face is damp; he dares not investigate whether the cause is sweat or tears. The roughness in his throat and burn of his eyes suggest both.

He takes another step.

His throat threatens to close again, that lead weight to drag him back down to the ground. Doggedly, he lifts his other foot and brings it forward.

He'll look a mess in town. That is nothing new, perhaps, but for the first time in weeks he will have to see them seeing him. He knows, from what Artemy has let slip and what he can guess, that his reputation is lower than it's ever been—that there is no love lost in town for Bachelor Dankovsky, the doctor who intruded and usurped and failed and hid. He knows, but that is different from seeing it for himself.

Another step.

He can feel his hair—lank, grown out, uncombed—on the back of his neck and spilling over his forehead. Maybe it will hide him. Maybe without the coat or cravat, no one will recognize him as the man he once was—maybe they will pay no mind to him at all.

Another step.

And none of it matters! This is not about him; it's about Artemy, and about the children whom Daniil, too, wants to protect. About ensuring that the Pest has not returned, that they were not wrong to let their guard down. In the face of such a mission, why should he be so concerned with how others might see him?

Another.

His momentum builds the further he drags himself on: he grits his teeth and puts one foot in front of the other, and he is making progress. Out of the radius of Artemy's home, on the street—he shudders as his foot hits the cobbles, as the buildings rise up around him, straining to keep the map straight in his mind. He knows where the children trade their wares, where the gangs that neither Murky nor Sticky have ever quite belonged to—or are they affiliated with both?—have their hideouts. Surely he must be able to track down two children amidst it all.

The town is both familiar and different around him. His feet carry him in patterns burned into them by long muscle memory; though it has been some time since he walked these streets, he traversed them so many times, back and forth and back and forth on repeated day after day, hours spent dashing back and forth, each day working out the best and most efficient pattern to accomplish everything he needed only by virtue of trying again and again and again. He knows their streets with his body, even if his mind and eyes reel at the sight of so many districts clear of that choking gray miasma. Even if he tenses at the entrance to neighborhoods he remembers up in arms, shouting and furious and—

And it sinks in perhaps too late, dragging at the heels of the choking memory, what that means. No shouting in the streets, no fog of infected air. No bodies in the streets, corpses or half-corpses, leaking precious time. Only the stares, the narrow-eyed gazes that have haunted Daniil's nightmares, the judgments whose threat have kept him crouched in Artemy's house for so long like a wounded animal in a burrow—but in the face of what he has realized, even those can hardly touch him. His pace increases; he pays them no mind as his feet thud along on the cobbles, still in search of that final proof—but he knows.

The plague has not returned.

There would be more panic if it had; does he not know that from the patients who still come to the clinic in fits of agitation from a simple cold, a slight fever? The same agitation he and Artemy were not immune to this morning? If enough people had come down sick overnight, there would already be screaming in the streets.

And so now it just remains to him to find the children, that final proof to reassure Artemy that it has gone. That it has not reached back grasping fingers from beyond the ether for him and those he holds dear. If he can manage this, it will be only the tiniest step towards repaying Artemy for all that he has done for Daniil—but at least it will be a start.

His head is moving constantly as he walks—quick, jerky glances darted in one direction, then the next, faltering sweep of a malfunctioning searchlight. By design, his eyes take in faces too quickly to recognize them. He is looking for Murky and Sticky. If he is waylaid by anyone else, he might lose his nerve entirely.

The unevenly-mirrored thuds of his pulse and his footsteps jostle for space in his ears. If there is no plague, then no one can have any need of him, but still he is braced for a call of his name, for someone to catch him and pull him over, demand something of him—a favor, perhaps, but more likely an explanation. To answer for his failures, for the thousands of people he didn't save—or perhaps for the way he disappeared so immediately and thoroughly after the fact. Neither question is one he is prepared to answer.

He is so braced for his name, so hunched and hunted in his stride, that he nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears it.

"Daniil?"

Nearly jumps out of his skin, and then relaxes back into it all at once, nearly crumpling with the relief of the familiar sound. His first name, spoken by one of the few who have ever shown interest in calling him by it—one of the few voices he has heard recently enough to still say he knows.

"Sticky," he says, and only the knowledge that it is too early to let down his guard keeps him from slumping to his knees.

Sticky and—yes—Murky come scurrying out from a building, and Daniil catalogues their features with both instinct and duty. Cheeks flushed, yes, but the healthy flush of winter-nipped skin; eyes bright with the same. Cold, not fever. Voices healthy, steps quick, as they come up on either side of him and take his arms.

He must look a mess, he supposes, for them to catch him as if to support him. None of that shame makes it out his mouth as he says instead, "Where have you been?"

Too much like a scolding parent; the tone of his own voice surprises him even as it emerges from his throat. Sticky lets go of him to fold his arms over his chest, though the way Daniil lists in his absence is hardly encouraging. "Busy," he says. "Why do you care?"

A question like that demands more explanation than Daniil is able or willing to give, so close to being overmastered by his own senses. "I wanted to make sure you were all right," he says instead. "Artemy is sick, and—"

Sticky's hands are around his arm again, clamped tight as a blood pressure cuff. Daniil spares a single hysterical thought to imagine what such a device might possibly read on him. "Bear is sick?" he says, quiet, urgent. On Daniil's other side, Murky too is clinging.

"Not with the plague!" Daniil says hurriedly. "We hadn't finished proper diagnosis yet, but I imagine just a seasonal illness." Artemy sees so many patients, after all; he works too-long hours seeing to the Kin and the Town both while Daniil hides in his home and offers his sparing help. That realization is just another sick throb at the base of Daniil's stomach, another rock joining the cluster of weights dragging him towards the cobbles—the reminder of how much Artemy has worked, has overextended himself, while Daniil has been less a help than a drain on those same resources. But that is a matter for his conscience, not for Artemy's children. "But he was worried for the two of you. I promised to find you and make sure you were all right."

And then he is being turned, marched by the grip of two children on his arms in a half circle and back the way he came—half-carried, half-dragged back through the streets towards home. Towards their home, he reminds himself, though the reminder is faint and fleeting and born more of habit than any real sincerity. Artemy asked him to stay, and at very least, Daniil can do that.

If he thinks about it as a kindness to Artemy, it is easier to accept. Better than to think of it as a kindness to himself—to acknowledge that Artemy's house already feels more like home than anywhere he has lived in a long, long time.

The journey back moves quicker than the slow, agonizing grind of his walk to town, spurred both by the children wrenching his arms half out of their sockets and the line in Daniil's heart reeling him back. Back to safety, back to comfort. Back to Artemy, who means both, and who now waits for Daniil to return them to him.

They burst into the house with the exuberant door-flinging of two children—and then Daniil has to rush ahead of them, put in all his effort to beat them to Artemy's door. To caution them to quiet, to restraint, before opening the door with more desperation thrashing at the inside of his ribs than he would ever admit to.

Artemy is sitting rather than lying in bed, back propped up against cushions. More light streams in from the curtains he must have dragged himself up to open, but he is clutching a blanket around his shoulders, holding himself tight against chills. But when the door opens, his eyes snap to them immediately—and he sags with relief.

"You're all right," he says. His voice has gone hoarser, if possible, since Daniil left—or perhaps the rasp is merely the choked throat of relief. "Both of you? You're feeling well?"

"Feeling fine," says Murky—subdued, perhaps at the sight of him.

"It's not the Pest, Artemy." Daniil crosses the room to him, reaching out on an impulse that almost overmasters him, the desire to catch Artemy's hand between his own and hold on. He stops himself at the last minute, diverting his hands to pluck at the blankets instead—useless fussing, as if he could bundle Artemy's fever out of him. "The town is normal. We're safe."

Artemy mumbles a quick prayer in his language, words Daniil is learning to recognize as those of thanks. He's been trying to learn the language of the Kin, as he can—devoting his long, empty hours to studying something—but rarely has occasion to practice. "You should get out of here, then," he says. "Don't want—" He coughs, long and pained, and Daniil's heart shudders at the sound—"wouldn't want to spread anything."

"Yes," says Daniil. "You two should go again. If you want to make yourselves useful, you could build the fire."

There is a moment where they both want to protest—he can see it in their eyes, the mutinous set of Sticky's mouth, the indrawn breath. Then Artemy coughs again, turning into the pillow to muffle the sound, and they crumble all at once.

"I'll get some wood," Sticky mutters, and Murky follows him when he tugs on her arm, both of them glancing back even as they leave the room.

"I meant all of you," says Artemy when Daniil does not move from his bedside.

"That'll be the fever talking," he says briskly, and presses a hand to Artemy's forehead. Still feverish, though no worse than before. Likely it will pass on its own, though he'll get the tinctures just to be sure. "What layer do you think, blood?"

Artemy laughs, a short bark that rasps and rattles in his throat. "Look at you. Quite the steppe medic now, aren't you?"

"Well, it seems to me that the steppe medic has been taking on the work of more than one person," says Daniil, brusque over the lump in his own throat. This too could so easily be a haunting spectre of the past: a memory of another time, another man, who worked himself to death compensating for Daniil's shortcomings. But this is not the Pest; that will not happen again. This time, Daniil can intervene before matters have gone too far. "Even doctors need a doctor sometimes, don't they?"

"Hm." Artemy looks at him, and for all the glassiness of his eyes, Daniil still feels too seen, too taken in by that sharp gaze. "You should take your own advice, oynon. You look like hell."

And damn his inability to hide it: to press down the part of him that clearly still cannot function without Artemy's assistance, the part of him that yearns to drop to his knees at Artemy's bedside and press his face into the bedsheets and never move from there again. Instead he leaves his hand on Artemy's forehead, eases it back in long strokes that push sweat-damp hair back away from his brow. "You're one to talk." Something in Artemy's body almost seems to hum to him: not the Lines that Artemy can read, but perhaps something simpler, born of his knowledge of Artemy and of what the human body is and is not meant to tolerate. A cry for comfort, the misery on the far side of exhaustion—the way, just as Daniil cannot bring himself to move his hand, Artemy has made no move either to pull away. "You've been working too hard, Artemy. Let me take care of you now."

Artemy closes his eyes and rolls his head to one side, sinking his cheek into Daniil's palm and molding that roving hand around him like clay. His skin is warm and damp against Daniil's hand, prickly with stubble, and the weight of his head is suddenly like holding the whole world.

No. Not like that. Daniil has held the world in his hands before and found the weight of it crushing, soul-destroying. This, though—the trust Artemy is placing in him now, feels like being made anew.

"All right," Artemy murmurs, as if hearing his thoughts. "I'm in your hands, Bachelor."

The heat from the fire has begun a slow trickle into Artemy's room by the time Daniil returns from the clinic, tinctures and antibiotics clutched firmly in hand.

Artemy's method of diagnosis and treatment feels more like mysticism than science to Daniil; even the act of retrieving the bottles felt like touching someone else's invention, something that would come alive only for the right pair of hands. That impulse was one he would have scoffed at months ago, before stepping off the train to this town and having his mind torn asunder. Now, he has no choice but to heed it. The clocks did not rewind for anyone but him, after all. Perhaps, then, this is Artemy's own way of bending reality.

But if they are not meant to be in Daniil's hands, perhaps they will at least render some aid to the man who makes them come alive.

Artemy has slid back down from the pillows when Daniil returns to his bedside, face turned into the cushions and blankets clutched around the hunch of his shoulders. Daniil places a tentative hand on the mound of him under the covers—tremors rippling under his palm, subtle vibrations almost like a cat's purr, if from a much more malevolent source.

"How are you feeling?" he asks anyway, redundantly.

"Never better," says Artemy through his teeth. "If you've brought the tinctures—"

"Of course." Daniil settles them on the bedside table, glancing at the viscous liquid in each one. Again, a treatment he could not believe in if he hadn't seen it work so many times. If he hadn't felt it on his own body—locked in the fever-grip of addicted desperation and calmed only by the blood-herb slurry he has now watched Artemy brew with such confidence, hands measuring and mixing in a dance Daniil would watch for hours. To be on the other side of such a procedure is almost a joke. He imagines the headlines suddenly, the disappointed headshakes of his colleagues—and he looks back at Artemy and the thoughts vanish again. "I await your expertise, Haruspex."

But the words fall flat, the humor drained and deflated, at the sight again of Artemy's huddled form. At the crumple of him, equally deflated, a slough of shed skin absent the vitality of the creature inside. As if—

How long has he been draining himself? How much of himself has he given—to Daniil, to the children, to the town—while Daniil has been preoccupied with himself?

"Blood, I think," Artemy mumbles now, working an arm out of the knot of blankets and shivering violently even as he gropes for the bedside table. "As you said."

Blood, always—the blood Artemy has spilled for the town, and the blood he has given up for it. Daniil wonders if this method of diagnosis is more than half philosophy, as if here some of the rules of reality have been bent enough to recognize the soul-sickness at the root of bodily afflictions and treat it more directly. He rescues the bottle from Artemy's fumbling hand, uncorks it for him, and presses it into that hand, still warm and clumsy beneath his own. Artemy's fingers fold compliantly around the bottle, and Daniil withdraws before he can do something as foolishly sentimental as helping him lift it to his lips.

Artemy swallows with a grimace and a shudder. "They work," he whispers, "but I'll never claim that our medicines are pleasant to take."

"Really?" Daniil takes the empty bottle from him: another brush of fingers, another surge of helpless affection. "I'll remember you said that for—"

For next time. He stops himself before he can say it, before he can overtly remind either Artemy or himself how often he has been the burden on Artemy's expansive mercy, the faltering heart in desperate need of a tonic. Before he can remember or remind that it will not be long before he is looking in that cabinet for himself, swallowing blood he might as well have spilled with his own hands in imperfect substitution for the silver-sweet oblivion of morphine.

Luckily, Artemy does not seem to have heard his slip of the tongue. "The antibiotic, then," he murmurs, "and then I can be ready for—"

"Oh, no you won't."

Daniil's voice comes out stronger and clearer than the muddled thoughts it has pushed aside, the certainty of the moment for once outweighing the confusion of the whole. "These tinctures reveal, you've said," he pushes on. "It's not just a cure for the symptoms; you also have to treat the cause."

Artemy's formidable eyebrows draw, bladelike, together. Daniil holds himself firm against the unspoken assault. He has hardly acted it lately, but he is a doctor as much as Artemy is, and he can surely still hold his own against a recalcitrant patient.

"You'll rest," he sallies forth, over the trembling beneath his ribs, not again not like last time this time it will be different, "until I say you're recovered. And you will not see any patients for at least two days after that."

Artemy sighs, a dead-leaf crackling through the constriction of his throat. "Far be it from me to contradict the specialist in contagious diseases," he begins, "but—"

"Not because of that." Maybe he shouldn't say this, should strategically lean on the excuse Artemy has already given him, but Daniil Dankovsky has never been especially good at knowing when to stop talking. "Medice, cura te ipsum, remember? As your doctor, I decree that you've given too much of yourself. You'll take the antibiotic, and then you'll rest because you need to rest. And you'll resume work when I say so." He plants his hands on his hips, seeking to draw whatever shreds of his former persona he still possesses like an old coat over his shoulders. To wrap himself in it, just as he would have with the coat, to hide the quaking self underneath—the desperate fear of not being able to live up to the promise of retribution... or to the implicit promise his words hold.

If Artemy is to sit out work, after all, then who else but Daniil to take it up in his place?

"I," Artemy begins, and Daniil can't bear this any longer, can't hear the many excuses Artemy would come up with for how he hasn't done enough, for how he should give yet more of himself. For why he is somehow an exception to the care he has given Daniil, the permission not to give more of himself than he has to give, extended to everyone but himself.

"No," Daniil says, and reaches out again to catch Artemy's hand.

It folds into his instantly, unsurprised. Artemy's face wears the collapse of one expression into another, a jumble of emotions Daniil can hardly read; his ragged breath catches on the cusp of words his lips do not quite form—but his hand is certain, wrapping into Daniil's with more confidence than Daniil himself could ever claim. Again, the language of touch is Artemy's surer tongue; Daniil cannot speak it with the same fluency, but from the tight, clammy grip of Artemy's hand, he knows that this time, at least, he has made a foray.

"You'll rest," he repeats, and he squeezes Artemy's hand. "I'll be back soon."

The protective face covering Daniil wears in the clinic has always served a dual purpose. Ostensibly to prevent contagion whenever possible, it also allows him the comfort of feigned partial anonymity—if his patients know, unavoidably, who he is, his face at least can give away as little as possible, provide them less to stare at in their curiosity.

He cinches the mask tight around the back of his head, drawing the ties shut with more care than usual to ensure that as little air as possible remains between his face and the outside world. The cloth goes humid immediately, damp with his quickening breath, but that is a small sacrifice to make for the shield it provides.

Rubin is waiting for him in the clinic, prompt as always. He greets Daniil with the distraction of habit—a hard-won ease, after the early days of Daniil's awkward fumbling and Rubin's sparse tolerance for his company at all. Once, they had been collaborators, colleagues—but the reason for its interruption is something Daniil can never confess. There are things Artemy has forgiven him that Rubin can never—

No. That is not something he can think about with Rubin staring at him now, waiting for Artemy to follow him from the main house and then looking quizzically at him when he does not.

Daniil clears his throat, squares his shoulders. "Artemy won't be joining us today," he says. "He's come down sick this morning."

Rubin's eyes widen, then narrow—the same expression Daniil knows so well, the one that must have once found a mirror on his own face. "Not the—"

"No." In this at least, Daniil can be the bearer of good news for once. "I suspect a seasonal illness of some kind. He's taken Zürkh and he's resting." He licks his lips under the mask, grateful for the protection it offers. "You'll have to rely on me."

Daniil has never been one for false modesty, or for being propped up with flattery when he doesn't deserve it. As such, he's able to weather the way Rubin's face falls slightly, the resigned set to his uncovered jaw (no one else has picked up Daniil's preference for face coverings, perhaps in part because they have less to hide). "You'll have to keep up," Rubin warns.

Daniil grits his teeth against a flinch. "To Artemy? Not likely," he says—eager, perhaps, to get ahead of Rubin's expectations. To reassure him that he's aware of every way he falls short. "But I'm what you have today. Unless you'd prefer I drag a patient in here to play doctor."

Never mind that Artemy would. That he—he, who has done nothing but give and give of himself—still seems to feel there is more blood, sweat, and tears that he owes. Never mind that he, who did more for this town in twelve linear days than Daniil managed in five times as many, still finds depths of generosity and care to dredge up in himself when he's given seemingly all he has. Daniil has done so little to thank him for the kindness he has shown; in this, if all he can do is throw himself as a bulwark between Artemy and a world that would take yet more from him, it is incumbent upon him to do it.

"Fine," Rubin says with a sigh, and pushes a list over to Daniil—that day's patients. "Let's get to work."

"Daniil!"

The sound of the voice—his name, spoken with deadly urgency—reaches Daniil's nerves before his brain. His hands clench, one so tight around the pen he holds that it threatens to snap, the other clawing the paper on the table into rumpled peaks; white-hot lightning surges through his blood and up into his head. Emergency.

Across the clinic, where he's been restocking shelves, Rubin snaps to equal attention. They both turn to the door in time to watch Sticky burst in, pale-faced.

That energy drives Daniil to his feet, halfway across the room, arms reaching out as if to seize Sticky by the shoulders. Artemy. "What's wrong?" he says. "What's happened?"

"He's asking for you," Sticky says breathlessly. "He's—I was checking on him and I don't even know if he saw me, he was just saying your name."

Daniil is only aware that he's moving once he has brushed past Sticky, shoving his way into the rest of the house. Delirium... If he was wrong, if he miscalculated the severity of this, if Artemy is—if he is—

Daniil opens the door to the shadowy warmth of Artemy's bedroom, urgency pushing him past the instinctive pause on the threshold, the not your place that otherwise threatens to halt his motion. Artemy is a dim figure in the bed, a shadow of crashing and surging waves of bedcovers rolling as he tosses. He is mumbling something in his own language, words Daniil has yet to learn, though he thinks he can make out the word help.

His chest twists.

"Artemy?" he says, too loud, but unable to modulate his tone or volume. If something is wrong, really wrong, then he has no time to waste. "Artemy, what is it?"

"Daniil?" He is at Artemy's bedside now, catching his hand again in a motion that has become—already—so easy, almost natural. Artemy twists, forehead shining with sweat in the dim glow of the firelight, eyes wild beneath the glaze of exhaustion and fever. "You're—no, no, but you weren't there; I reached, but you faded away, and I couldn't—I can't see you—"

"Shh." With his free hand, Daniil pulls off his mask: a foolish thing, the last thing any scholar of infectious diseases would advise him to do, but all of his medical knowledge is powerless against that look on Artemy's face. The way Artemy's eyes hang on the movement, the way something of the pleading emptiness in his face seems to slacken—it is hardly rational for Artemy to evince such relief at the mere sight of him, but how can Daniil pretend it away? "I'm here, Artemy. You see me."

"Are you?" Artemy's hand gropes at his own, squeezing and plucking at the leather of his glove in unspoken dissatisfaction. "Were you ever really here?"

Daniil hesitates.

Then he casts aside his mask, letting it crumple carelessly to the ground. Extracts his hand from Artemy's grip against the wordless cry that slides knifelike between his ribs—"only a moment, it'll only be a moment," he realizes too late that the words are spilling from his mouth—to yank at his gloves until they too fall away. Reaches out again and clasps Artemy's hand between his own, skin pressed to skin.

And Artemy—he settles at the touch, half the deep furrow in his brow melting away. He squeezes Daniil's hand, almost wonderingly, and then says, "Daniil?"

As if only now, only through touch, does he recognize that Daniil is in the room with him. "I'm here," Daniil whispers past the tightness in his throat. "How are you feeling?"

"Cold." Artemy curls forward, bending towards their clasped hands until his sweat-damp forehead is warm against Daniil's fingers. Too warm, still, but not blazing—not something that would have concerned Daniil, were his patient anyone other than the man before him.

Cold. A little twist, a wrench in his chest. Artemy is never cold; Artemy is the warmth at the center of the world, of this house, of this town. Of Daniil's own heart, though he cannot say it aloud—cannot poison it with clumsy words or confused thoughts. Artemy is not meant to be cold.

"You're still feverish," he says instead. "You'll warm up soon enough once it breaks."

"Mmm." A little grumble of protest as Artemy seeks to burrow further into the covers.

"I can make you tea," Daniil says. "Or soup—you should eat something." Instead of leaving, though, he edges against the side of Artemy's bed, leaning his hip against the mattress to bear some of his weight. Not quite a seat, hardly a perch, but an unspoken indication of his reluctance to leave Artemy's side.

"No," says Artemy, too pitifully, clutching harder at Daniil's hand.

"You need to eat," Daniil whispers, above the sound of his own resolve melting away. "And someone will have to take care of the children. I'll come back."

"You won't," says Artemy. "You'll slip away." The pleading note in his voice is a tug, a siphon at Daniil's will—stripping away his determination to do the right thing, leaving only the part of him that wants nothing more than to stay by Artemy's side. "I'll close my eyes and you'll be gone."

And, with a long sigh, Daniil gives it up. "I won't," he promises. His perch is precarious, impossible to hold for long—and yet he can't let go of Artemy's hand to pull up a chair, can't leave him for even a moment. "I promise, Artemy; I'll be right here."

There is nothing for it. He releases Artemy's hand with only one of his own, using it to boost himself onto the bed, nudging Artemy closer to the center until he can make room to pull himself fully onto the mattress. Clumsily unbuckles his shoes with the same free hand, letting them thud to the floor, and stretches his legs out with his back against the headboard, Artemy's body a warm line against his own.

"Daniil," Artemy murmurs, and he turns his head into Daniil's leg, forehead pressed to the meat of his thigh—nuzzling, catlike, into Daniil's body as if it might provide the warmth his fever-drenched body perceives itself as missing.

A wave of tenderness crashes over Daniil, stronger perhaps than he has ever felt—the desire to protect this man who has given him so much and expected no thanks, who leans against him now with a trust he does not deserve, who clings to his hand as if Daniil alone possesses all the good the world has left to give. It is a lie, of course—a lie either of Artemy's feverish mind or Daniil's longing interpretation—but true or not, he will give what he can to be worthy of it.

"Artemy," he says in response, and his free hand finds its way into Artemy's hair, cupping the back of his head against his leg as if to cradle him, to cherish him—as if he could speak, somehow, directly to Artemy's misfiring synapses, his overheated blood.

With his other hand, still folded into Artemy's own, he holds on.

Artemy sleeps and wakes, mumbles and moans, tosses and turns. Every time his sleep is disturbed, he reaches for Daniil. Every time, Daniil clasps his hand, strokes his hair, reminds him he is not alone. He cannot bring himself to move.

Sticky and Murky cycle in and out. Daniil tasks Sticky with making his excuses to Rubin, swallowing down the twinge of guilt that accompanies the request. Artemy would not have fallen so hard to a seasonal illness if he hadn't been working himself too hard to begin with—to overcompensate for the limitations of their small team of doctors, of his own responsibilities and Daniil's damaged and faltering efforts. The right thing to do would be to take over his workload, to ease the weight of his responsibilities, even if it meant his absence at Artemy's side.

But he can't do it. He can't leave Artemy's side when he shivers and grasps for Daniil's hand, as if his ever-chilled skin might somehow provide the warmth Artemy feels he lacks. He can't peel himself away when Artemy is still asking for him, when he thinks himself abandoned whenever Daniil so much as shifts his weight.

"I told you I'd be here," he mutters, as if to ease the weight of his own failings, smoothing sweat-damp hair back from Artemy's forehead. "I meant it."

Rubin sends word via Sticky when he departs, and Sticky scowls when he passes on Rubin's heavily-worded hope that someone will be available to assist tomorrow. The boy is perceptive enough to understand the implication—and anyway, Rubin is hardly one for subtlety in his grievances. Daniil has nothing to say in his own defense, but Sticky, at least, seems to think he hardly needs it.

He creeps in closer now on cautious feet. Daniil inhales to remind him to wear a mask of his own, to do his best to keep from falling ill in his turn, and Sticky says, "He will be all right, won't he?"

Daniil presses a hand to Artemy's forehead again: warm, but perhaps less so than before. "He will," he promises.

If I have to break all the laws of reality again to save him.

He would do it. Now, months distant from the horror and despair that shattered and remade his world, far enough away that he has allowed himself to tentatively believe, each night, that a new morning will await him—now that he has stopped the practice of daily notetaking and finally allowed himself to forget the reams' worth of memorized days—now, even after all that, Daniil would march into the Cathedral and demand another chance if he had to. If something new had arisen to take Artemy away, Daniil would throw himself once more into psychic hell to drag him back.

But it hasn't. It won't. If there is anything Artemy has given him, these last weeks, it is the tiniest modicum of trust to face the future—to believe that there will be a future, that some measure of safety can be clawed out of the ashes of what was lost. To trust that Artemy will recover, that even illness can be a passing thing.

"He will," he says again to Sticky, and the hand on Artemy's head curves, cupping forehead and cheek in something like a caress.

"Mmm?" Artemy mumbles, and stirs.

Mortification bolts through Daniil, and only concerns for dizziness and jostling keep him from wrenching back from Artemy—from removing his hand all at once, trying to extract himself from the tangle of their limbs. Instead he forces himself to stay still, to leave his hand where it is—even to use it to tilt Artemy's head very gently up towards himself.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Umm." Artemy grimaces. "Not so well, I'm afraid."

Sticky's face tightens in worry, but paradoxically, Daniil laughs. Artemy's words are clearer than they have been in a few hours, suggesting a lucidity accompanying the lessening of fever. "I think that's an understatement, my dear Haruspex," he teases.

"Well," Artemy mumbles. "So long as you can read between the lines."

"Sticky," Daniil says, "why don't you fetch Murky and let her know Artemy is feeling better? And both of you—if you plan to come back in here, I had better see you with masks."

"You're not wearing one," accuses Sticky.

"No," Daniil allows. "Call it a lapse in judgment you don't need to repeat." And then, half-wry, a line he's heard from teachers and supervisors alike: "Follow my instructions, not my example."

"But—"

"Artemy doesn't want you to get sick," Daniil says, playing his trump card. "Do you?"

"Of course not." Artemy's voice is still tired and slow, but he manages an edge of the fatherly demeanor he seems to wear so naturally. "Listen to Daniil."

Sticky can't argue with that. Grumbling, he backs out towards the door, leaving Daniil and Artemy alone again.

Daniil takes the opportunity to thumb over Artemy's forehead again, smearing at the sheen of sweat. "I think your fever is dropping," he remarks.

"Hmm." Artemy smiles, tiny and slow and not, perhaps, with the full return of his faculties. "Like when you call me that."

"Pardon?"

"My dear."

Heat blazes in Daniil's fingers where they still touch Artemy's face, then rushes to Daniil's cheeks in turn—as though the fever has transferred to him in an instant, in two simple words. The words—and Artemy's face—are so naked, so guileless—his defenses are down; he doesn't know what he's saying, and that—

True to Artemy's word, they haven't spoken about the confession he made to Daniil in the kitchen weeks before, as openly, artlessly honest as his face now. I've come to care for you. The words had seemed to Daniil to be a cruel trick—a lie not from Artemy, but from fate. The Daniil Artemy knew and cared for was only a faceted fraction of the whole, unburdened by memories of so many deceptions and mistakes and cruelties. So long as the whole of Daniil could never be known by anyone, how could anyone ever possibly care for him?

Artemy said then that there was no need to answer—that he wouldn't bring it up again. In the weeks since, he has been as good as his word, enough so that Daniil could even believe he hadn't meant it—that it had been the mistake Artemy refused to admit, easily banished from thought and the comfortable friendship they have found. And Daniil has—never quite forgotten, no, but allowed himself to pretend he had. To push it back in his mind, chalk it up to a slip of the tongue, pretend that the thought of it didn't haunt his thoughts in the liminal ether between sleep and waking, between the sweat-drenched spasms of withdrawal that even Artemy's medications could not entirely banish. That he didn't wonder, sometimes, what life could look like if it were really possible. Really true.

"I," he says, and doesn't know how to continue. "Artemy, I—"

The door bursts open wide and two children, reluctantly masked and clearly eager, practically tumble over each other in their rush to the bed. Murky goes straight to Artemy's side and reaches out for him, and Daniil surrenders the hand he holds to her tight-clenched grip, allowing himself to be edged aside in the clamor.

Perhaps only this could suffice to drive him up, out of Artemy's bed and room to those few duties he has not forsaken today. "I'll make us something for dinner," he announces. "And—" he picks up his own crumpled face covering from the floor— "I'll keep the mask on while I do it."

"Boddho forbid you be a hypocrite," Artemy says weakly, and Daniil mock salutes before fleeing the room as quickly as possible.

Cooking and cleaning—this is at least something he can do. Yet again, a task in which he does not pull his full weight, but at least he has stepped up more in the last weeks and so has some muscle memory to fall back on. An awareness of where most pots and chopping boards are, what can be found in the icebox. He manages to put together a passable thin-brothed soup, something that should be easy on Artemy's throat and hopefully will not cause Murky to turn up her nose. Though her aversion to certain sensations is understandable to Daniil in concept, he is still learning her preferences and how to satisfy them.

Thankfully, tonight at least, he seems to have managed well enough. He brings the soup in and then lets the children take their masks off to eat together in Artemy's room, as long as they move well away from him. Something in his mind shrieks at him—inconsistent adherence to sanitary protocols, and now there is no chance to undo it if someone gets sick—but their pleading eyes are no match for the memories, and—

And it will be all right. He has to remember that. This is a different time, a different illness. This time, no one is going to die.

He remembers that and it helps him steel himself against Murky and Sticky's pleading eyes when he chivvies them out of the room and, eventually, towards their own beds. He keeps his own mask on (despite their comments) as they wash up first the dinner dishes and then themselves. Convincing Murky to brush her teeth, a task Daniil typically accomplishes by dint of gruesome descriptions of dentistry, is made simpler tonight with the simple threat of Artemy's potential disappointment. (Her hair he'll leave for tomorrow; ragged as he is, he has no strength to attempt that task tonight.)

And then, finally, he bids them good night and makes his way back to Artemy's room.

Artemy is propped up on pillows when Daniil returns, looking tired but lucid, and tilts his head when Daniil drops his mask again, pulling the door mostly closed behind him.

"Well?" he says.

"They're in bed," Daniil says with a sigh. "Whether they stay there is beyond my purview."

"It's beyond anyone's, oynon." Artemy laughs, then coughs, the sound no less painful than before for all the relief of his broken fever. "And you?"

"Me? I'm feeling fine—no problems yet." Daniil presses the back of his hand to Artemy's forehead again, breathes a quiet sigh of relief at its temperature. Still, that cough had sounded concerning. "I'll bring you more tea." He nods to the empty cup on Artemy's bedside table, which he managed to make and bring while the soup was simmering. "And do you want more broth?"

Artemy shakes his head. "I don't need—" he starts to say, but the need to move is already squirming inside Daniil: the awareness—again—of the imbalance between them, of the care Artemy has shown him that every part of him yearns to reciprocate. He is at the nightstand sweeping up the mug before Artemy can stop him, borne to the kitchen on that wave of agitation. Herbs, hot water, the strainer and saucer—and then he hurries back to Artemy's room with the lot, heart thudding in the uneven threat of an episode he ought to stave off.

"Oynon," Artemy begins, and Daniil sets the cup on the nightstand, arranging the rest around it, avoiding Artemy's eyes. An absurd urge overwhelms him to fluff Artemy's pillows, and he prevents himself from giving in only by not really knowing how.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" he asks instead. "More water? I should have brought the—"

"Daniil."

Artemy's hand closes around his wrist—heavy, grasp still loose and weak from fever, but perhaps weightier for all that. Daniil stops, feels the pulse in his wrist fluttering under thin skin, legible to Artemy's knowing grip.

"I don't need anything," Artemy says again. "If anything, I should be asking you the same question."

If only cursing his damned heart would prevent it from racing. "Please don't," he says. "I don't—I only want to make sure you're all right. I only—"

He swallows the incoherent mass of words that bubble up against each other, threaten to tumble free in no discernible order. This home revolves around you. You are the magnetic center. I need you to be well. I need you.

"I care about you," he says weakly—too little for the vastness that wells up in him at the mere thought of Artemy, at the safety and care Artemy has given him in turn. Too little, and perhaps also too much, for the way they echo those words Artemy said to him weeks ago, the words that have not come up between them ever since then.

Artemy goes still. His thumb draws a small, slow circle over the pulse point in Daniil's wrist, and Daniil wonders if Artemy can read in its beating the truth that Daniil cannot even allow himself to think.

"I know," he says at last, low and hoarse, another grate in his throat that sets him into a fit of coughing. Daniil slips his wrist free of Artemy's grip and hovers, hands fluttering, as Artemy recovers himself and grasps for the tea.

"And you're sure there's nothing—" He breaks off at the look Artemy casts him over the rim of his cup, flushing again. "All right. But you'll call me if you need anything? Even in the middle of the night, you'll get up and find me—and if you can't get up—"

He's falling over himself again, contemplating a bell, something that might prevent Artemy the pain of shouting, and then Artemy says slowly, "You could stay."

It is Daniil's turn to fall silent.

The tables have turned quickly, because Artemy is already blushing deeply even as Daniil looks up. "I meant—I didn't mean—not like that," he says, waving a hand. "Not as—just, if you—if you were worried. If you wanted to. There's enough room."

Daniil looks down at the bedcovers, rumpled from Artemy's tossing, and the mattress, still indented from where he had sat or half-lain for most of the day. He'll need to change the sheets tomorrow, perhaps move Artemy out of the bedroom and onto the sofa. Or—

"All right."

Artemy's babbling stops; even the flush on his cheeks seems to pause in the act of deepening. "You—?"

Daniil's own chest seems to have constricted, the lower third tightening around each breath he tries to draw, until he sips shallowly from above it. "Let me change," he says. "And I'll—I'll be back."

That tightness, that tremble, the racing pulse—they follow him down the hall into the room Artemy has allowed Daniil to use indefinitely. Follow him out of his slacks and shirt, into the loose nightshirt and soft pants he sleeps in. He shivers as he changes, skin prickling all over with sharpened awareness of itself, of the shape of his body.

His body has no secrets from Artemy, not anymore—no secrets, and no shame. But still, it is different for Artemy to know him as a doctor would than to feel that body so close to his own in a shared bed. Different, but—

But for all the anxiety in him, the shortness of breath and quickness of his pulse, there is no real fear. No regret or reluctance. Only the knowledge that he does want this, that if he slept on his own in a room down the hall unaware of Artemy's state in the quiet, closed-off room, unaware of anything that could be possibly happening behind that door, he wouldn't close his eyes for a second.

Artemy has taken the opportunity of Daniil's absence to visit the washroom, to change into fresh nightclothes of his own—free of fever-sweat and the wear of the day. He is resettling himself in the blankets when Daniil returns, with the slow, cautious movements that bespeak tender skin and aching bones. But when Daniil taps at the door and pushes it open, Artemy gives him a weak smile.

"Come in," he says, but that smile slides away—replaced, perhaps, by his own nervousness when Daniil pushes the door mostly closed behind him. When he tiptoes to Artemy's bed and kneels up onto the mattress as a prelude to sliding in behind him.

Artemy sleeps on the right side of the bed, closest to the night table. When he sat there before with Artemy's head in his lap, Daniil squeezed in to his right; now he makes his way to the other side, pulling up the mostly untouched covers on that side and creeping beneath them. Waiting, still somehow waiting, to be told he's doing the wrong thing.

He isn't. Artemy sighs when Daniil shuffles in beside him, politely untouching. "Thank you," he whispers.

"No need," whispers Daniil back. Artemy radiates heat—not from fever, this time, but from that internal core of warmth that always seems to shine forth from him. Daniil wants to roll to the side, closer to it; wants to bask in that heat; wants to pull Artemy close to him and rest a hand on his chest and feel for the steady beat of his heart—

"Well," Artemy says. "Good night, then, Daniil."

"Good night."

But of course Daniil does not fall asleep. Even as they both fall silent, as the sound of their breathing fills the space between them—even as Artemy's evens out into the slower, deeper rhythm of a sleep more restful than the fitful fever dreams of before—Daniil lies awake, frozen in place, his heart thrashing almost out of control in his chest. What does this mean? What can it be? He knows already that this is not something either of them can forget—not something that can be undone.

None of it can be undone. Every choice he makes with Artemy, every day, stretches irrevocably into the future now. Whatever mistakes he's made today—prioritizing Artemy over Rubin and work, allowing the children in the room without masks—are irreversible. They will echo in a constantly unspooling future, no longer eddying by the banks of time. And if this was a mistake—

In his sleep, Artemy sighs and rolls over. Still frozen, there is nothing Daniil can do as one of Artemy's arms is thrown across his chest, Artemy's head burrowing against his side.

For a moment, he is trembling on a precipice, hovering over an ice-cold ocean of fear and consequences. Artemy's arm over his surgically altered chest, Artemy's body so close to the rest of him which has seen so little change. Artemy burrowing into him, as if Daniil could ever possibly mean anything akin to the safety Artemy has come to mean for him.

But...

But what if he could?

What if he could stay here? What if he could become a source of safety in Artemy's life? What if he could give back the good he has been given, not as a debt to be repaid, but as a wash back and forth between two people who expect the best of each other? Who care?

"I would," he whispers, words too soft to be heard—just a breath sighing out into the sleeping air and disappearing into the night. Artemy does not so much as shift—settling against Daniil as if he has found, at last, where he wants to be. He is sound asleep; he can't have heard.

But in the end, it matters less what Artemy might have heard. More important is the realization that Daniil cannot unhear himself.

Artemy's fitful sleep keeps them both up that night. The fever does not spike again, at least, but he is still plagued by tossing and muttering and that harsh, jagged cough which refuses to let up, raking across his throat and Daniil's raw nerves. The sound wrenches at his heart with pity and anxiety alike, dredging up memories of hospital beds and pleading eyes and letting people down, day after day after day, but—

But whenever it threatens to drive him up and out, seeking comfort in motion, Artemy murmurs and grasps for him, and Daniil cannot bring himself to leave his side. So many patients he could not help, so many deaths he could not prevent, but Artemy is here and asking for him, and Daniil will ensure that he recovers fully. What he could not do for those others, he will do for Artemy.

The determination of it keeps him up no less than Artemy's own disturbed sleep: the concern that if he closes his eyes, he'll miss something—will lose a chance, somehow, to do the good he could have managed if he'd stayed awake. This particular anxiety has surfaced in the weeks since he moved into Artemy's house, since he started the slow and painful process of letting go of a replicable past. Now that he cannot turn back the clocks, now that the days are outside of his control, the consequences of inaction are more dire than ever. It interferes with his sleep more nights than it doesn't; though very little happens at night, still he sits awake sometimes paralyzed with the fear that the one time it does, he will be unable to interfere.

But that fear too is soothed by the warm weight of Artemy beside him, restless and pained as his movements are. With Artemy here, Daniil does not have to worry that he'll slip away.

I could get used to this.

He could. He could stay in Artemy's bed, maybe. Could stay with him, longer and more certainly than the indefinite yes he said to Artemy all those weeks ago. All he would have to do is say—

Say words his conscious mind shies away from, even still, out of fear they could be misguided or duplicitous. Words that back up in his throat, choke up his lungs, even as the sense and truth of them expand inside him in a solid, promising weight.

Sleep claims him at last in the early hours of dawn, once Artemy has settled somewhat and Daniil himself cannot keep his eyes open any longer. Dragged down by exhaustion and by the warm weight of Artemy beside him, he closes his heavy eyes at last and lets himself sink away from the world. Into a warm, dark cave of quiet, into dreamless oblivion, into a world blissfully free of his mistakes and his agitations and his—

"Daniil."

His name swims through the wrapping warmth, nagging at the edges of his awareness in unwelcome summons. He grumbles. Burrows in deeper.

"Daniil!"

More awareness comes back at the increase in volume. His eyelids still feel desperately heavy, ridged in sandpaper that seems to scrape over his eyes, but he drags them open even as he becomes aware of the warmth around him. Of the warmth and the—

And Artemy's arms. Daniil fell asleep in his typical tight ball, curled against Artemy's back, but Artemy must have turned in his sleep. One of his arms is draped over Daniil again, hand resting in an almost proprietary grip on his hip, and his face is buried in Daniil's shoulder, heavy breathing warm and damp against his neck.

Still asleep. Daniil lets out a shaky breath.

"What is it?" he whispers. The mortification is coming; he can sense it hovering at the edges of his awareness, but the remnants of sleep and the urgent task before him keep it staved off for now: he mustn't wake Artemy. Not after the restless night they have shared.

Sticky is in the doorway, of course. "Rubin is here again," he says.

Of course he is. Rubin is punctual enough that he was probably half in his own grave when his persecutors decided to bury him alive there. A tiny shudder works its way through Daniil at the memory—at the image of Rubin's body cold and heavy in his arms the three days in a row he'd failed to exhume him in time—and Artemy murmurs against him.

"Time to get up?"

"Not for you," Daniil says briskly, even if Artemy's own weight has gone suddenly cold against him, even if his nose is suddenly thick with the remembered scent of grave-dirt and corpses. Rubin is alive; for all those who are not, he at least was one person Daniil was able to save, one reality he was able to protect. The reality we have is the one we live in. He has taken to repeating Artemy's words like a mantra, a reminder to stay in the present even when the past sucks at all his senses. "You're resting still, remember? You promised me."

"Should be helping," Artemy mumbles, though he pushes his face harder into Daniil's shoulder. "I could probably—"

"None of that." The chill lingers on Daniil's skin as he extricates himself from the bed, avoiding Sticky's curious eyes. "You'll rest. Doctor's orders."

Artemy should be doing nothing. It is those shoulds that have sent him here, that sense of duty that has driven him to his sickbed. Daniil is the one who should be working now, and unlike yesterday, he will not shirk his duties today.

He rests his hand on Artemy's forehead, preparing to assess his temperature and confirm the absence of fever, and Sticky says, "Have you been here all night?"

Daniil flinches, yanking his hand back from Artemy's forehead as if burned by the touch. "I," he says, and curses himself for such a reaction, for the inability to maintain any semblance of decorum. "I was—I wanted to make sure—"

"He was looking after me," says Artemy. Clearer than before, as if he's heaved himself clear of the remnants of sleep solely to defend Daniil's honor. To throw himself in the path of scrutiny for him yet again, even here.

"Yes," says Daniil stiffly. Returns his hand to Artemy's forehead, letting it rest there this time and nodding in satisfaction. "Ensuring I would be close enough if anything happened."

"Really," says Sticky. "Because I've never heard of a doctor doing that before."

Daniil's heart stutters and skips; he withdraws from Artemy at a more sedate pace this time, resisting the jerky exhortation of his misfiring nerves. "It seemed the thing to do," he says around the constricting tightness in his chest. "I need to—"

"Especially," says Sticky ruthlessly, "with all your talk about wearing masks."

Daniil's cheeks are burning; he dares not look down at Artemy again to see if his face is flushed to match. "I notice there isn't one on your face," he says instead of anything more damning, retrieving his mask from the bedside table and cinching it tight. Now at least his traitorous flush is hidden, even if it burns on beneath the cloth. "You either wear one in the sickroom or you wear it everywhere else."

"If you say so," says Sticky, in the tone that Daniil already knows means he won't be listened to. "Even if no one else does."

"Yes, well—" Daniil bites back the flood of response to that, the reminder of days upon days of repeated frustrations and failure to listen, the hundreds of deaths that could have been prevented if people had just listened. The shuffling of decrees like puzzles, the graffiti and posters, the fury in district after district, brought on by a simple strip of fabric or the thought of perhaps staying home rather than crossing town—

It's over. It's all over. The plague is not returning, and no one will die this time.

"Why don't you make Artemy some tea?" he says instead. "And breakfast, if he wants it. I'll put you in charge of his care while I'm helping Rubin in the clinic. You can practice being the doctor, and maybe that will inspire you to consider some protection."

"I'm sure I can make my own tea," Artemy protests, and Daniil doesn't have the strength to quibble about this. Can't even look down at Artemy again, can only wonder what kind of expression must follow him out the door as he retreats hastily to his own room (to Artemy's room) to armor himself for a second day of this.

Daniil throws himself into Artemy's duties as fervently as he has into his care. Partly in determination that Artemy will find no reason to get up to compensate for Daniil's own shortcomings, partly to distract himself from his own restless thoughts and anxious heart, and partly—

Partly, perhaps, because the reality we have to live in has taken on a new weight in his mind and heart. If this is the reality he has, then what has he been doing waiting for it to cease? What is the use hiding from the world and waiting for time to sweep him up again?

He stays late with Rubin, rather than rushing back to Artemy's side as his instincts demand. Overrides them, drags against them, with every grain of himself, like redirecting the flow of his own blood towards duty rather than desire. If he is to be a fit partner to Artemy, in medicine or—or otherwise, he must relearn that way of being, after all. He must be able to supply the strength or the work when Artemy's own falters. It happens so rarely, but that is no excuse for Daniil not to take up the weight.

When he retires at last, nerves worn thin but humming with determination, he finds Artemy at the kitchen table, the children on either side. None of them are wearing face coverings, and Daniil cannot bring himself to fight them on this—not any longer. Wearily, he drags his own mask down and slumps sighing into a chair beside them.

"We've disappointed you," Artemy says, only somewhat contrite.

"I should be used to it by now." Daniil winces as the words escape his mouth—the tone is wrong, he knows already, a flat insult where he'd meant it to be a tease. But Artemy laughs anyway, a rough sound that dissolves into coughing, and Daniil frowns at him. "You should be resting."

"I am," says Artemy when he's recovered himself, far too innocently. "See? Sitting."

Daniil presses his lips together. He can't expect Artemy to confine himself entirely to bed, not when he needs so badly to be up and doing. He supposes that as long as the fever remains broken, motion around the house can't hurt—but he reaches for Artemy's forehead anyway to confirm it, pushing the glove up to press his hand to his forehead.

"Well?" Artemy says, eyes sparkling with mirth. "Do I pass muster?"

"Your fever is gone," says Daniil. "But you still shouldn't push yourself."

"As my doctor commands."

Artemy is still looking at him. Even when Daniil looks away, he can still feel it, Artemy's gaze like a hook in his back, tugging him back around. He doesn't dare turn, but makes his way further into the kitchen instead, opening cupboards and poking around with the vague thought of preparing dinner.

Hmm.

There is not as much in the cupboards as Daniil could have hoped. Not as much food as Artemy likes to have on hand, shelves only partially stocked. Someone will need to buy more food, and Daniil knows who that someone will need to be.

Artemy has done all the grocery shopping without ever asking. Daniil offered, feebly, to help in the early days of his time here, but the offer never had any teeth behind it—he could back it up neither with money, of which he has none, nor with the will to step outside and purchase the food they needed. But now...

"We'll eat the soup leftovers for dinner tonight," he says, striving to pull a cool curtain over the tremble in his voice. "Then tomorrow, I'll... I'll go into town for groceries."

"Are you sure?" The weight in those words joins the magnetic tug of Artemy's eyes. Though he doesn't turn, Daniil knows how Artemy must be looking at him, that understanding sympathy that has allowed Daniil to live as an uncontributing occupant in this house for so long. That patience Artemy has had for so long with Daniil's fears, with the wracking terror that accompanies any thought of stepping out into town.

No longer. He ventured out the day before when fetching Murky and Sticky; surely he can do it again.

"I'm sure," he says briskly, and pulls down a pot to reheat the soup. The banging of metal is loud enough that he can pretend to drown out the concerned echo of Artemy's voice.

And so it is that the next morning, he stands at the door with a basket and the money Artemy has assured him will be enough, trying to muster up the strength to step outside.

He is more carefully dressed than the last time he tried this, clad in shirt and slacks at least—though he's left off the waistcoat and cravat, wrapped himself in one of Artemy's bulky winter jackets instead of his own distinctive snakeskin coat. Perhaps, bundled as he is in winter clothing and a mask, he is less likely to be recognized. Perhaps no one will know it is him.

It will be only the briefest foray, he tells himself. Just a walk to the nearest grocery, fill his basket with food, pay at the counter. Aside from the exchange of goods and money, he won't need to talk to anyone. He won't need to explain why he's here, where he's been. Where he plans to go next.

What he's done.

It is not a secret that he is still in town, that he's been staying with Artemy. The patients see him, of course, though less than they do Rubin or Artemy. A messenger or two came to the door in the early days ostensibly with messages for him, but Artemy greeted them and sent them away, and always returned to Daniil with a heavy scowl and a tight-lipped demurral. Daniil can only imagine the kind of messages they must have been carrying. Can only imagine his reputation in town, solidified as a failure and then fossilized by his absence.

The longer he stays away, the more impossible he has found it to venture back out. To try to resume any kind of personhood, any reputation, in this town that stripped him bare of everything and then had the nerve to try to heal while he remained a raw nerve, a still-weeping wound in the whole. To be seen, known, for what he failed to do—and yet to still not understand the magnitude of the ways he has fallen short.

It's just a shopping trip.

Less urgent than his last attempt to venture forth, a simple quotidian task of the sort that anyone could do. That Daniil should be able to do. He came out here to look for Murky and Sticky only days ago; shouldn't that have been enough to break this absurd hesitation, this agonizing reluctance?

Perhaps it is that very past that makes it so impossible to step forward now. If he could have counted on any of the anonymity of being forgotten, surely his desperate dash from days before must have undone it, reminded anyone who saw him that he is still here. The surprise is gone, as is the ability to avoid anyone but the two children he sought. If he is seen, he will be known.

But there is nothing else for it but to go, no one to do this but him. Artemy is in his room still, napping after another restless night. Daniil did not share his bed this time, could think of no logical reason to argue for it, and so he returned to his own room and tossed and turned in response to the sounds of Artemy's motions down the hall. Now, he leans against the doorframe, grips the wood in numb gloved hands, tries to coax wooden legs into motion. Dares not make a sound, for fear Artemy will hear him and come to investigate.

It's time you pulled your weight.

For Artemy, for himself, he has to do this. Still, his body is unresponsive. His limbs refuse to move, and with all his effort of will, he drags one foot forward.

Up from the ground, like wrenching a statue from a glued-down pedestal, and then back down onto nothing solid. His foot hits nothing, either crumpling beneath him such that the impact bears no weight, or perhaps the ground itself has simply disappeared and he is falling forward into nothing. Into a chasm that seeks to swallow him.

He catches himself on his hands—ground, then, solid after all—and on the folded back knee. Again, just like last time, overmastered by his own mind and the perceived threat of nothing worse than he has already endured tenfold—and his exhortations are no use to drag him up from the crumpled heap of his own impotence. He has lost track of the foot that sought to move, lost track of the basket skittering away from his hand, the coins jingling in his pocket. If any sound leaves him, he is too far gone to hear it—mind yanked up even as his body crumples down, into an echoing whine and white light.

"Daniil?"

No, no, he can't be found like this. Artemy can't have gotten up to follow him, to witness him so utterly incapable of fulfilling the simplest task—but the hand that wraps around his is small, gripping onto him rather than enveloping him as Artemy's would. The voice is small, too, the quiet of someone used to being overlooked.

He blinks rapidly against the white haze, and it clears enough to reveal Murky, standing over him, one hand on her hip and the other holding his.

"Murky," he says. "I'm sorry, I—did you need something?" As if he is in any position to give it to her, whatever it might be; as if he could possibly—

"Is it the shopping?" she says, and he is reminded not for the first time that a child as quiet as she is frequently knows more than she lets on. "You were going to get groceries, but you don't want to."

"No, I—no." Denial fades all at once into confession under the pierce of her dark eyes. "It's been a long time and I don't—I'm afraid I—I'm afraid," he admits at last, faintly, no use pretending otherwise from his pitiful posture. No use feigning courage in such a moment.

But she just nods sagely. "Town is loud," she says. "Too many people."

Again, there is so much about Murky that reminds Daniil of himself in his own childhood. His oddities found a more honed edge than hers, perhaps; a purpose in the halls of academia with others more like him than not—but then, she is young yet. There is time still.

"Yes," he agrees. "But I'll—don't tell Bear, all right, Murky? I'll get up soon and go. I promise." Perhaps if he says it fervently enough, he will begin to believe it.

"I could go with you."

Daniil blinks at her. Surely he must have misheard, but her hand is still tight around his and her eyes are as earnest as ever.

"But you don't like it either," he tries.

"Maybe it would be better with you," she says. "Bear says sometimes two people can be braver than one."

And Daniil lets out a choked laugh, bows forward over their joined hands just for a moment at the rush of affection. "Bear is right, as always," he says. "Well. If you don't mind braving the noise, I would love to have some company."

In the street and store alike, Daniil holds the basket in one hand and Murky's hand in the other. She makes no protest, even helping to take things off the shelves as he directs her and loading them into the basket as if she understands how impossible it is for him to let go of her—or perhaps, as if she derives her own strength from the contact between them. She is his lifeline, and maybe, somehow, he has become hers as well.

Heads turn towards them like faceless shadows from nightmare; he fancies he can hear the occasional whisper of "Is that—" "I think it must be—" but Murky distracts him every time his breath comes short in response, every time he tenses up in advance of turning to face them. She chatters at him throughout in a trust he doesn't know when he won: telling him about the best herbs and her favorite tales, listing her stipulations for the next story he tells her. He's too scattered to make one up on the spot, but he promises her one in the evening, and she accepts his offer and keeps up a running stream of requests—easier to listen to than the imagined whispers of townspeople.

He keeps his head down at the shop, picks out what they need and nothing more, and then—at the last moment—selects a sweet for her. In thanks for her help.

She keeps her hand in his while she munches, and Daniil finds it easier than ever to ignore the imagined stares.

Artemy recovers apace—better every day, regaining strength quickly enough to dispel any lingering unease that logic could not quite banish. Quickly enough that when he presents himself at last for Daniil's examination, eyes dancing as he waits to be deemed fit for duty, something uneasily close to regret twists in Daniil's chest.

"Well?" he says, voice echoing in the stethoscope Daniil has pressed to his chest to listen to his breathing. "What does my doctor say?"

Daniil lingers, face turned away from Artemy's, pretending to listen. Artemy's heart beats steady and strong, his breathing clear at last of the dragging rasp that lingered even after his energy began to return. His skin is warm to the touch—a healthy warmth, born of hours by the fire and free, as it has been for days, of the fever that led to him tossing and turning and clutching Daniil so closely.

The memory sets Daniil's heart stuttering; if he had the stethoscope turned on himself, surely any doctor would cluck his tongue in dismay. But Artemy is well, whole—by all metrics, perfectly sound once more. No longer in need of Daniil's attention, of his care. No longer is there any benefit to sitting by his bedside, seeing to his needs. No need for someone to care for him, like a—

"You're back to normal," he says at last, lowering the stethoscope, his own voice gruff. He turns to wipe down the stethoscope and replace it in the cabinet, not daring to turn back to Artemy. Not trusting his hands, empty now, to keep from hovering over him—from reaching out to touch him, like someone who would be allowed to, like—

Like a lover.

"No need to sound so disappointed about it, oynon," says Artemy playfully. "Surely you'll be glad of someone to take some of the weight off your shoulders again."

And—and yes, Daniil can't deny that that relief is there. The willpower of forcing himself through each day has sufficed to carry him through the errands and responsibilities that Artemy has hitherto performed alone; enough practice, and perhaps those too will eventually feel like something normal and expected. Maybe one day he will even venture back out onto the streets without glancing around him at every moment, mapping out dark corners to duck into at the first sign of adverse attention. But Artemy is right that the effort of doing even this much has sapped him, reminded him only how far he has yet to go.

Still, Artemy's words strike him in his traitorously stumbling heart. "Taking too much weight on yours is how we ended up in this situation to begin with," he reminds Artemy and himself. "From now on, I intend to do my share."

He won't let himself forget it—not that he ever could, here in the room with the dwindling stores of medicines Artemy has not taught him how to make, the ones that keep him closer to an even keel than anything but the medication he doesn't dare to order from the capital. Not here in Artemy's home, still open to him despite how little he has to give.

He is still turned away, staring relentlessly into the cabinet with the equipment and the bottles, when Artemy's hand falls onto his shoulder.

The weight of it seems to travel through him, anchoring his fluttering thoughts and his unsteady balance alike, and his throat constricts. Artemy seems to touch him so effortlessly, reach out so easily—as though he feels nothing of Daniil's hesitance, as though he was born with the knowledge that his hands have both the right and ability to heal. Without the stethoscope in his hands, without a reason to do the same, Daniil's own hands tingle with the absence of that implicit permission and the longing to feel it once again. He remembers again the feeling of Artemy's sweat-damp forehead beneath his hand, his hair between his fingers, the weight of his head like the weight of the world.

"You know I don't resent you," says Artemy. "For needing help. Don't you?"

"Of course," Daniil snaps, though his hands tremble on the cabinet door. That was never the problem, the fear of what Artemy might think. It is Daniil himself who has made the calculations again and again, who has weighed his own soul and found it wanting. Perhaps there is another, more shameful thing he will miss from these days, then: the feeling that he has been, in some small way, making up that debt. Proving he can do more than just take.

"Then what is it?" The hand on his shoulder tugs, turning Daniil with gentle inexorable pressure to face him, his impulse to conceal stripped bare under the weight of Artemy's gaze. Daniil keeps his eyes on the floor, but he can still feel it raking over him, as if Artemy can see even those thoughts Daniil doesn't know how to order for himself. "Tell me."

"It's nothing," he says, and his voice is a peep.

"Don't," Artemy says, and the hand moves from Daniil's shoulder to his chin, fingertips turning up his face. "Don't do that. I want to know."

His eyes burn into Daniil's own, the color of an unclouding sky and just as relentless. His fingers withdraw, but his gaze still holds Daniil captive, helpless to lie or deny. "I just want—" Daniil falters, cheeks flaming anew. "If I'm to stay here, I intend to contribute as much as I take. That's all."

Artemy blinks—the clarity of those eyes veiled for a moment. When they are revealed again, there is a softness to them that threatens to melt Daniil's very bones. Very carefully, Artemy says, "You are thinking of staying, then?"

Oh.

The softness in Artemy's eyes has spread to his whole face, his lips parted slightly as he waits for an answer, and abruptly Daniil is overcome by the same sensation he felt when sitting in Artemy's bed, pillowing Artemy's head on his thigh. The desire to take care of him, to protect this man from the world. To give him all the good he can, however meager it may be.

Is that what Artemy wants? Could that ever possibly be enough for him?

"I've been thinking," Daniil says, and his voice is dry. He swipes his tongue over his lips automatically, and this close, he cannot miss the way Artemy's eyes dart down to follow them. He lets his own gaze drop in turn, speaking to Artemy's mouth and chin, unable to meet his eyes any longer. "About—about the place I might take up here."

"You can take up whatever place you want," Artemy says, "Daniil."

His name—not the teasing nicknames, not the steppe language. Just the syllables of his own name, rolling over Artemy's tongue like a caress. Like something cherished.

"When I," His throat is dry again. "When—that first night, when you needed—"

"When I needed you?"

Heat in Daniil's cheeks, in his chest. How can he say it so easily? After all these weeks, after all this proof that Daniil could never be enough for him—after nearly convincing himself that those words could only have spilled from Artemy in a moment of regret—how can he admit it again so nakedly? Everything in Daniil cries that it must be a mistake, a return of delirium—but no. He cannot doubt it; however impossible it is to believe, he cannot show Artemy the disrespect of disbelief. Artemy has spoken already; it is incumbent on him to respond.

"I needed you just as much," he whispers. "Not in the way that I—not like in the early days." Not like when Artemy had been his only protection against himself, against a world that felt too cruel to bear and his own impulse to escape it by any means necessary. "But I needed you to recover, and I needed to know that you would. When I stayed with you in your room, I found myself wondering what it might be like to stay longer. To be there again, not just because circumstances demanded it, but because we both wanted it."

Artemy's hands are on his shoulders again: both of them this time, pinning him to the moment as surely as any moth. Somehow, despite his intent focus on Artemy, Daniil missed the movement.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

And he can't be coy about this, not anymore. Artemy deserves better than caginess and reluctance—broken and beaten as it is, he deserves the whole of what Daniil has to give. So he takes a deep breath and reaches out in turn, catches one of those hands on his shoulders and squeezes. "I'm saying that I've thought about what you said weeks ago. And I still don't know if it's possible, if I can—if I'm—" If I'm whole enough to love. "But if I am, if we can, then you should know that I care about you too. That I want to try. If you still do."

He stutters at last into silence and drags his gaze up to meet Artemy's own.

And Artemy's eyes are soft and bright, his cheeks flushed with nothing like fever. "If I still," he echoes, and then laughs, and shakes his head. His hands move from Daniil's shoulders to his cheeks, pinning Daniil's face in place when he would otherwise try to turn it away. "Never doubt it, Daniil."

That is a promise he can't make. But Daniil inclines his head anyway, heart pounding, body awash in trembling. It has been so long since he existed in a moment like this—a singular moment, a glorious shining fragment of time that will never be repeated, that will live in his blood and bones just like this.

"Then," he whispers, and leans even closer, and it has been so long since he's done this, but he knows the movement, knows his own hands fluttering up to cup Artemy's face, sliding back through his curls and curving around the back of his neck. "Then, can I—"

"Of course you can," Artemy half laughs, and his hands cradle Daniil's face like they were always meant to fit there, and Daniil's eyes fall closed on the sight of Artemy's face turned towards his in perfect, blissful certainty.

He leans forward, and Artemy leans with him, and when their lips meet, the future seems to fuse into a single, brightly shining whole.