Work Text:
The closer Artemy got, the more he could see the fault lines, like hairline fractures. Dankovsky was always well-groomed, polished, presentable . If he was seen on the street, it could be assumed he was between walking from his humble city apartment to his job as a head researcher at a renowned institute. Instead, he was slinking away to a crumbling slum with peeling wallpaper and barred windows with foggy glass. He had one coat, black leather, able to hide any stain well enough before it needed any real cleaning. He had only a few shirts and trousers to cycle through, and even less underclothes. Artemy should know, considering the sight of Dankovsky in his underwear frantically scribbling notes by lamplight was becoming more and more commonplace.
Speaking of which, the hypocrisy of Dankovsky ran into his bed as well. The man loved the thrill of control, he loved ordering Artemy around, loved pushing him down and taking him, but that wasn’t where he really belonged. He could see it in the way Dankovsky’s eyes sharpened at the sight of Artemy lifting a cadaver in one sweep of his hands like a bale of hay, could feel the way those dark eyes tracked the pull of his muscles over his arms when he strained. He showed his cards so unwittingly, running a reverent gloved hand over Artemy’s clenched back when he had him on his hands and knees before him.
Even as Artemy fisted his hands in the rumpled bed sheets and Dankovsky leaned over his back and crooned in his ear telling him how weak he was to lay down and take it like this, how he was lesser than him in so many ways, amusement wound through his ribs and pulled in his chest at seeing how little Dankovsky realized he knew. How little Dankovsky realized how much he was revealing with every thrust, every sigh, every bruise pressed into Artemy’s skin.
“Burakh, I need you to – what do you think you’re doing?”
Dankovsky had started speaking to him the second he heard him enter the room, only looking up when Artemy roved into the view of his downcast gaze. Dankovsky had been sat idle on the stool by the surgical table, back leaned lightly on the table’s edge and one ankle rested on top of the other knee as he read through some research paper or other. Artemy grabbed the papers and tossed them aside to the floor, prompting Dankovsky’s ire. Before he could continue to complain, Artemy took him by the waist and threw him down to the floor.
“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” Dankovsky reprimanded, starting to get up. From someone else it could have been a growl, but Dankovsky didn’t growl. His voice just grew colder and more detached. Metal that was being slowly frosted over, the squeal and crack of ice becoming audible once it got too far. Artemy didn’t dignify him with a reply and simply shoved him back down, sitting to straddle his hips and taking his forearms in his hands and fully pinning Dankovsky down with his hands over his head, Artemy’s expressionless face looming over him.
“If you wanted a quick fuck you could have said, you don’t need to be a damned animal about it,” Dankovsky said, as if Artemy didn’t see the flush creeping over his collar. His skin was so pale, it was easy to spot and impossible to hide. Artemy bore down on him harder, pressing his palms into Dankovsky’s forearms enough that he knew the man would have handprint bruises ringing his arms the next morning.
Artemy just stared at him, meeting his eyes with such intensity so as to not let him turn away. He could see the flickering in Dankovsky’s eyes: confusion, anger, fear, arousal. Artemy let a small smile crack his expression and narrow his eyes and he ground his hips down against Dankovsky and saw the stutter in his face, felt how he grew harder under Artemy’s weight pressed on him.
“W-what, do you get off to taking advantage of me? You really have sunk low.” It was a weak defense, his voice was wavering. As far as Artemy was concerned, he conceded the moment halfway through speaking when he tore his eyes away and looked to the side. Artemy moved Dankovsky’s arms so he could get hold of both his wrists above his head with one hand and kept him there as he moved one hand down to unbuckle Dankovsky’s slacks.
“N-now this is just,” Dankovsky started and then gasped and fell to silence when Artemy pulled his hardening dick free and twisted his rough palm over it in the mockery of a stroke.
“You like this.”
Dankovsky just glared up at him, not saying anything because they both knew there was no way for him to deny it. Artemy rubbed his hand over him, jerking him off harsh and uncaringly. The blush was reaching Dankovsky’s jaw, dusting over his porcelain throat like powdered ashen swish.
“Tell me your name.”
“..Dankovsky. Bachelor Dankovsky to you.”
“Your first name.” Artemy squeezed his hand and Dankovsky flinched, his hips bucking up into Artemy even as Artemy pressed his hand into his dick in a way Artemy knew had to hurt. Of course. Artemy pulled his hand over him and rubbed the flat of his palm into the head of his dick and Dankovsky gasped wetly and answered pleadingly.
“D-Daniil! Daniil Dankovsky.”
“Daniil.” Artemy rumbled it low in his throat and he felt the man shiver under him. He moved his knee to press in between Daniil’s legs, who whimpered. “You like being manhandled, don’t you, Daniil.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ve seen how you look at me. You’ve been aching for this.” Daniil was squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head even as he bit down on his lip while Artemy stroked him. “Waiting for me to throw you down and use you. Beating yourself off thinking of how I’d pin you up against the wall and take you. Make you helpless. Powerless.” Daniil was frantically shaking his head, but a cry escaped him when Artemy shoved his knee in harder. Artemy smiled.
He let it hang for a moment as he kept up his pace on Daniil, who was shuddering under his hands now. Then he leaned forward so his lips were by Daniil’s ear, so he would feel the puff of hot breath against the shell of his ear.
“I bet you wish I’d put you down on that table and crack you open, just like all those bodies before you.” A broken sob tore from Daniil’s throat at that and Artemy knew he had won. “I could hold you down, tie you to the table so you couldn’t fight. Let you watch for yourself as I showed you all my surgical knowledge firsthand. Slice you open down the middle, see your blood drip down and mix with all the rest on this dirty floor. Peel that paper skin back and see you for what you are .” He growled the last word and pressed his crotch against Daniil so the man could feel how hard he was. Daniil let out the most pathetic whine.
“Unwind your intestines, crack your ribs and snap them one by one, shove past your lungs to pull out your rotted heart. You can watch me dig my dirty hands inside you – they’re more trained than yours are. You hired me for a reason, Daniil Dankovsky. You can’t do anything for yourself.” Daniil made some sound, perhaps it was meant to be a denial or some sort of noise to show he was affronted, but it was impossible to tell between the uneven breaths and jagged, bitten-down moans.
“You look so pretty but we both know what’s underneath all that hairstyling and bootblack.” Daniil was staring up at him now, eyes open wide and stricken, hanging on Artemy’s every word. Just as he knew he would have him.
“A rotting carcass, better fit for floating down the river than walking down the city streets. You’re not fit for polite company. You’re a coward and a killer, who wants to be taken like a slut by the only one who sees you for what you are.”
A jagged, yelling sob broke from Daniil as he came all over Artemy’s hand. He panted dizzily while Artemy wiped it off on the front of Daniil’s shirt.
“I thought so.”
Physics, chemistry; all the math never quite stuck for Artemy. He was no good at it. He had to get his hands around something to understand it. This worked fine for him; a menkhu was about physical knowledge. Visceral knowledge, learned by cutting the Lines for yourself and finding where they ran. However the Capital wasn’t satisfied by this, and he was expected to learn useless theory and formulae. Wasn’t this just the Capital way though; to bog you down in the little things so much that purpose could not be seen, the world not acted upon. Trapping you underneath its ineffectuality until you laid down and died, never seeing the sky past its shadow.
A classmate had helped him, explained it in terms that a human being would use, telling him why he struggled to capture the meaning, why he left class frustrated and restraining himself from starting a fight with the lecturer.
‘It’s something we all know, innately. All it means, really, is that the longer something goes on the more it disintegrates. It takes more energy, it gets more chaotic.’
Entropy.
‘Say, if you had a machine that ran on gasoline. Every time, some of that gasoline is lost. It consumes the same amount of gasoline every time, but the more you use for the machine the more, total, you’ve wasted. And as the machine is used more, the more it degrades the pieces of machinery. In the end, it breaks down. Just like everything else.’
The Capital’s science was all so full of shit.
Another year and then some, and Artemy woke up to cold metal pressed against the back of his head. He stopped himself from reacting, continuing to breathe just as he had been, not going still the way his body wanted to.
“I know you’re awake.”
Dankovsky’s voice was as cold as the barrel of the revolver pushed against his skull.
“Then get on with it.” Artemy spoke partially into the pillow, unmoving.
“I know what you’ve been doing.” So he wanted to do a speech, then. Great. Another Dankovsky lecture before getting his brains blown out. What a way to go.
“If we’re going to do this, can I at least roll over?”
Dankovsky didn’t reply but the gun moved slightly, which Artemy took as an acquiescence. He rolled over and sat up in the bed to face Daniil, who was sitting on the side of the bed, fully clothed, gloved hands holding the revolver aimed directly at him with a steady hand.
So maybe he wasn’t the full coward Artemy took him for. Interesting.
“You think you’ve been subtle. You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you, Burakh?”
Artemy didn’t reply. He stared at him with dead eyes. Dankovsky cocked the gun.
“You don’t. You never have. I bet you didn’t even know I had a revolver.”
He hadn’t.
“You think I’m incapable of killing. I am. I have before, and I will again. I simply hired you to leave me more time for my research.”
Artemy didn’t move.
“You don’t think I’ll shoot it, do you? I will. I’ve done worse.”
Artemy didn’t move. And then he knocked Dankovsky’s hand to the side, to which Dankovsky pulled the trigger (of course he would have such a twitchy trigger finger) and Artemy could feel the bullet punch into his shoulder from where it went wide. Dankovsky didn’t smile but he narrowed his eyes and moved the revolver like he knew he had won, but that was soon overwhelmed when Artemy lunged for him anyway, wrapping his large, work-worn hands around Daniil’s fragile throat. They tumbled off the bed and onto the floor where Artemy pinned him down, a cruel reflection of a year ago when he had shifted their dynamic.
His hands pressed into Daniil’s windpipe, the sheets wrapped haphazardly around their bodies and twined them together as they had fallen from their shared bed, Daniil’s arm twitched as he tried to lift the gun back to point at Artemy.
“Y-you,” Daniil tried to splutter something out, some part of his pre-planned great speech, Artemy was sure. He was tired of speeches. Tired of talking. Action solved things much quicker. Too bad Dankovsky never seemed to learn that. He pressed down harder.
Harder.
And harder.
He had killed before, he had killed so many times before. Here is where he should say ‘but this was different because,’ but it wasn’t. It was just like all the other times.
He watched the anger flutter from Daniil’s eyes, the betrayal, all emotions fell away like a lamp’s flame guttering in a rainstorm. He felt the fight and tension wash away under his tight hands. He squeezed them tighter. Just to be sure.
Time moved on. No clock ticked, there was no clock in their bedroom. His bedroom, now. But he felt the steady clicking of the second hand forward nonetheless. Time moved on. He let his grip go, slowly. He stood up and looked down at the body. He could spend his time standing there, thinking pensively on the transient nature of life the way Dankovsky would have, but he had a gunshot wound to tend to. There would be supplies enough for it in the surgery room.
He stepped over the body, the twisted sheets, and left.