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As soon as the plague ended, Artemy stopped eating. It wasn't quite a conscious choice, but it might as well have been.
The trains didn't arrive until a little more than a week after the plague's resolution, and even then it was just the one at first. Of course, the population of the town had become so heavily reduced that the amount of food was enough to feed everyone, but not one person had gone without starving during the late summer, and they all had to put on some fat to survive the cold winter that always came too early.
Thus, it made sense for Artemy to give away his portions to the kids residing in the warehouses. Many of the town's children had been evacuated and yet to return, but as one greasy head after another appeared when he strode through the district, he wondered if not even more had chosen to stay.
"Don't be daft now, Haruspex", Notkin had told him with a reprimanding gaze that made him appear to be the adult between them. "We can't take all of this without giving you something in return!"
"Fine", Artemy had relented, since he'd been too tired to argue with the surprisingly insightful boy. He'd left their hideout with pockets overflowing with marbles, bracelets and pocket-watches, only being allowed to leave when he could prove that he really couldn't carry anything more.
That had been almost two weeks ago.
"Cub? Cub!"
Artemy jerked awake when he felt pain shoot from his calf and through his leg. He was disoriented for an embarrassingly long while before his eyes and mind caught up with his surroundings. He was sitting in a chair outside of Lara's home beside Grief, who was wearing his usual grin, although his eyes betrayed his worry.
"Did you just kick me, Gravel?" He asked, trying hard not to let his face prove how much it actually hurt.
Lara crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. "I barely touched you, Princess and the Pea."
Artemy didn't reply as he had to bite on the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning. There was no way that she hadn't hit him hard, was there? The pain pounded through his body, almost drowning out the words of his friend as she continued.
"We're worried for you, Cub. You've not been yourself since... well, you know. The plague and all that." She looked at Grief for support, who nodded in agreement.
"A suffering man easily ties himself into knots. What he fails to realise is that it squeezes every last drop out of him - blood and bone both."
Lara nodded sagely, as if what he’d said had made perfect sense. And perhaps it had, Artemy wasn't sure of anything anymore.
"I'm fine", he tried to assure them, even though his head felt as if it were swimming alone in the Gorkhon river. "I just need some rest."
"Time is never-ending, but the ending is not timeless." Grief looked at him with an expression that was way too serious after his silly riddles.
"At least eat some bread, your face is all hollowed out nowadays."
Artemy rose to his feet, and had to shut his eyes for a few moments as the entire world spun around him. He felt Lara's hand steady him by his arm.
"Okay", he agreed, then, because he knew Lara enough to know that she would never let him walk away if he didn't relent.
He glanced to where the worm had stood by his boat beside the house before, now seeing nothing but the dirty water. His heart tugged at the knowledge that it was his own fault that they were gone now; his own choice that had made his kin return to the soil beneath his unworthy feet.
The few chews of bread he'd managed to swallow seemed to poke at his stomach from within. You should've gone with them, it seemed to say, they are gone so why aren't you?
He gave away the rest of the bread to a passing urchin, and declined the offer to barter as kindly as he could manage. Not ten steps later did he stop to think. Seriously, he thought as he leaned against the wall of a house barely outside of eyeshot from Lara's. Why was he so tired all of the time? He'd managed to fall asleep by his friends, probably mid-conversation, and now he was acting as if he'd been running non-stop for hours. He swore at his own inadequacy, and forced himself to trudge on. It was a long way to walk, and he'd never reach his destination if he had to stop every five minutes to feel sorry for himself.
Inside his body, the bread squelched and drummed against his stomach - as if it wanted to break free; to fulfill its purpose inside of someone more worthy than himself.
He wasn't quite a doctor, but even a surgeon knew that bodies require sustenance to survive. But he also knew that the rules he'd thought of as inherent weren't always applicable to himself. Not anymore.
During the days that the plague had roamed the town, Artemy visited the Theatre of Death four times. The strange stage director had told him that he'd escaped death each of those times. He hadn't believed it, then. He'd had much more urgent matters to think about. But since then, he'd had little else to do but think. The Theatre of Death might not have been as metaphorical as he'd assumed - especially since he’d even met a person claiming to be his successor in the play called life.
Yes, he thought as he grit his teeth against the constant ache in his body. Death was not an option for someone like himself; he couldn't be killed and he couldn't die. And if it was true, which he was growing increasingly certain that it was, then a mere lack of bites of food would do him no harm. Indeed, it would be better spent on those with the ability to starve.
"Haruspex, is that you? Hey, Burakh!"
Artemy looked around himself, but saw nothing but a white blur as his eyes failed to follow the quick motion of his head. For a short while, he was disoriented and blind, unaware of both who and where he was.
"Burakh? Are you alright?" Suddenly, though, Notkin was in front of him, his pale face adorned with a slightly worried expression. A few of his friends were standing beside him, their heads tipped to the side as they scrutinized Artemy who silently cursed himself for being so lost in thought.
"Yes, of course I'm alright", he snapped, and was glad that Notkin wasn't one to care for angry tones. The teen simply shrugged despite the rudeness and thrust a bottle in Artemy's face.
"Could you check the amount of alcohol in this?"
Artemy blinked. "The what?"
"The amount of alcohol", Notkin patiently replied. "It's a bottle of vodka, but it might be pretty old. Would it be strong enough to work on injuries?"
"Because surely you won't just walk away and drink yourselves plastered if I tell you that it's very strong indeed."
"What?" Notkin looked absurdly affronted by the accusation, which was a dead giveaway to his antics. "Of course we would never do such an irresponsible thing!"
"How about I-"
Artemy began to speak, but had to cut himself off when a wave of exhaustion suddenly hit him like the locomotive of a train. He stumbled backwards until he almost tripped on a few stairs, and practically fell back onto the steps with a harsh huff as pain shot up his backside. Again, the world spun around him in shades of white before Notkin's annoying face materialised again, this time much more worried than before.
"Haruspex? Seriously, what's-"
"I'm fine!" Artemy palmed at his eyes as he tried to make sense of his irritable mood. It wasn't like himself to yell at children, or at least not unless they were actively putting themselves in danger or such. Yet, he wanted to shout at these kids until they disappeared. He was just so tired, and didn't have the energy to entertain them anymore. Let them drink themselves into oblivion, he thought, so long as they stopped looking at him like that.
"Normally, I'd ask if we should get you a doctor, but seeing as you are that doctor, I'm not sure what we should do."
Artemy shivered. He felt cold, despite the autumn still not having relinquished its warmth for the winter's cold. "Really, I'm alright", he tried again. "I've just had trouble sleeping recently." At least that was no lie; he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept an entire night undisturbed. Perhaps it was before the war. Perhaps he never had.
Notkin still looked a little anxious as he observed Artemy, seemingly biting the inside of his cheek as he decided what to do. "If I promise you that we'll drink really responsibly, will you at least go to the city-doctor so that he can check on you?"
Seeing an exit from the tiresome task of having to think and speak, Artemy nodded vigorously, until his vision blurred again and he promptly stopped.
"Yes", he agreed, although his brain felt foggy. Was there something he couldn't think of? He felt his body sway slightly to the left so he straightened himself. "Wait, was it Dankovsky who gave you that bottle from the beginning?" Now that twyre will no longer bloom from the Earth - all because of Artemy, the butcher of the Udurgh - twyrine is soon merely a memory. It seemed that the town had already begun to request imports of spirits rather than to distill ones. Another blow to the independence of the town, and its culprit had a name and an exhausted body.
"No way, that big-city quack is much too greedy with his possessions. Although, he definitely turned a blind eye when his friend gave me this as a gift…"
"Right." That sounded like Dankovsky and his buddies down at the Broken Heart, alright. Still, Artemy couldn't muster up either anger nor feelings of retribution. To be honest, all that he could feel was pain and exhaustion, and all he could think about was how he wanted to be alone.
After exchanging a few more words with Notkin that he immediately forgot about, he forced himself to his feet to continue his stumbling through the town. They walked on their own accord, his feet, which was good seeing as Artemy found himself unable to truly concentrate on anything at all. He caught glimpses of his surroundings, received snippets of information about the world every now and then. But nothing seemed to stick, and he was too tired to figure out why he was feeling so strange.
After all, he deserved this and much worse. He'd let the Earth die - it might as well have been he who drew the edge of the Polyhedron out of her body. It was certainly because of him that the town was flooded with her blood, at least. He'd made her suffer, so he should, too.
When he next stopped in his tracks, he was standing out on the Steppe. He had to spin around a few times to reorient himself, after which it felt as if he was continuously spinning for an eternity even after having stopped. He found himself standing very close to the old factory building he'd used as a workshop during the plague.
Lately, his senses had flowed into and out of his body not by his own accord, so every now and then he heard the sound of the wind sweeping through the grass where before he would have heard the sounds of the herbs that grew from the blood of the Udurgh.
Looking down, he saw rather than felt that he was standing ankle-deep in water. It was the end of the Gorkhon, as perhaps it was the end of himself. He chuckled, although the motion hurt his chest slightly. Wasn't that a fitting thought to be had; that one life could end while others endured.
He didn't feel his legs give out, but he heard the sound of a splash when something hit the surface of the water. He drew in a deep breath, and felt himself growing irritated again when he drew not air but a mouthful of water. He knew not if the next breath he took was air or liquid, as he could only feel the irrational anger filling his body in a way that energy had not.
It was for the better, he told himself, to close his eyes. If they were shut, then he couldn’t be surprised by the whiteness any longer, as it would all envelop him soon. Theatre of Death, here I come, he thought.
He kicked and punched at whatever it was that attacked him, unaware of what it was but certain that it was. He spat and coughed and clawed at his attacker, his eyes blind and his mind as groggy as it ever was. Perhaps he lost consciousness for a short while, because suddenly he was puking in the stable side position, and even though he hadn't eaten anything he could feel an almost never-ending stream of liquid flow through his intestines and out through his mouth. It was the most disgusting taste he'd ever felt, but perhaps that was only due to the fact that he could not remember many tastes at all right then.
Slowly, his other senses began to return to him. They still flowed in and out like the tide he'd experienced in the Capital, but he once more began to feel the smell of soil and grass. He heard the sound of the wind accompanied by what his delirious mind mistook for a man's breathing. He felt the ache of his body as it lay on the soft ground, and the gentle caress of fingers combing through his hair. But only after a while did his vision return, and not until the white blur was exchanged by the view of Daniil Dankovsky's face - shadowed below the late rays of the sun - looking down at him, did he jolt.
"What the fuck", he got out, and thought for sure that he had to be imagining the chuckle that fell from Dankovsky's lips.
"I think that such a statement should be reserved for me at a time like this", the smug doctor replied. Although, while his obnoxious smirk never seemed to leave his elegant face, the expression he wore was closer to that of Lara and Notkin the last time he'd seen them.
Why was he worried, Artemy wondered, now that the plague was but a memory that would eventually fade into a tale of old?
"Why are you here?" He asked.
Depending on who you spoke to, the state of Artemy's spirituality was highly interchangeable. According to the kin, he was a faithless man who had been completely disconnected from his roots. According to the townspeople, he might as well have been the physical representation of spirituality itself. Yet, Artemy wondered if it was possible that when he finally split the Earth open to climb through to the other side, Daniil fucking Dankovsky would be the one to grant him passage, whether it was real or simply in his mind.
"One of your urchins told me to keep an eye on you. Said that you were acting strange - more so than usual, that is." He grinned, which would have made Artemy roll his eyes if he'd had the energy to. "It seems that he was correct in his assessment. You are dying in more ways than one, that much is obvious."
Artemy noticed that his hair was still caressed in steady but kind motions, each motion calming the irritation that had grown to be a constant in his life these past weeks. He wanted to swat the hand away, but was too exhausted to wave his arm. Had he ever been strong enough to run across the town a dozen times per day?
"Perhaps I'm dying, but I can't die."
His words hung in the thick air between them for a while. He imagined Dankovsky smelling the words, analysing them rationally in his mind before replying.
"I have made it my life's motive to find the cure to death, and I have yet to be able to wave any real results in the faces of my peers. But please, old colleague, do tell me what makes you special enough to have broken through the only thing in this world I still dare to believe in."
Artemy blinked, or at least he thought that he did - the world had turned white once more. While his brain felt foggy and thick like oil, he truly believed that had he been in Dankovsky's shoes - in the belief that a man before him was actually about to die - there was no way that he'd speak to them like this, was there? Irritation bloomed in his chest again, fighting through the calm that spread from Dankovsky's fingers still in motion across his head.
"You were a player too, weren't you?" Vague pictures of the stage director crossed his mind only to disappear into the fog again. "You must've gone to the Theatre too, no?"
Dankovsky scoffed, and changed his position with a grunt, as if his bones were forty years of age rather than not even having crossed the mark of thirty. "Of course I was in the theatre. Has the lack of nutrition already begun to gnaw at your brain?"
Artemy shook his head, but immediately regretted it when the world spun again. "Not the hospital", he said as if it were an idiotic assumption. "The Theatre of Death, I mean."
Dankovsky shook his head, and let his hand trail down to Artemy's back, instead, as if he sensed that his head was beginning to get sore from the endless attention he'd given it. Only when the Bachelor's hand stiffened did Artemy realise that he'd let out a moan of pleasure. But fuck it, he was too exhausted to be embarrassed.
"Do you speak in metaphors again? I know only of the regular theatre, and the hospital it soon became. But that hardly matters now. You realise that you've become incoherent due to a lack of sustenance, do you not?" He scoffed once more, and tentatively continued to draw his fingers across Artemy's back.
With a sigh, Artemy resigned himself to the unpleasant conversation that was about to ensue. Had he been able to, he would've flung himself upright and run to the workshop as quickly as possible. At some point, he might've been able to outrun the doctor before him, but he was growing increasingly certain that he'd always been just as weak as he was now. Had there really been a time where he'd had the capacity to carry two full-grown men from the fire of artillery and all the way back to moderate safety to carry through a medical examination of them? That time was no more, that was for certain.
"I must say that I am surprised, dear colleague. But perhaps I shouldn't be. I always took you as somewhat of a boulder; a hard obstruction that only a bomb could pierce through. On the other hand, your compassion towards others - even the ones not quite deserving of your kindness - is admirable in the truest meaning of the word. If I had to wager a guess, this has more to do with your sense of duty than with an actual desire to hurt yourself."
The fact that Dankovsky seemed to use Artemy's predicament as a mental thought experiment annoyed him. To give nuance to the way that he'd acted, and even more annoyingly to be on the right path made him want to despise the man. Begrudgingly, it had the opposite effect.
"How do you know that I haven't eaten much?"
Dankovsky snorted yet again, because apparently being right and obnoxious always carried more weight to him than to show the compassion of which he spoke. "Please. It's obvious to anyone with more eyes than one. You're irritable - although I do believe that you usually are in my company. You're hollowed out like the carving of a woodcraft, and you're obviously exhausted enough that you lack the energy to even crawl out of a frankly extremely shallow puddle of water."
Instead of replying, Artemy just huffed. And for a while, the two young men simply sat and lay there. Dankovsky kept drawing on his back, and together they looked across the Steppe. But then, the Bachelor had to destroy the peace by thrusting a bottle of milk against Artemy's lips.
"Drink", he ordered.
Inside, Artemy's gut clenched in more ways than one. He couldn't, the voice that he'd allowed to steer his actions these last weeks spoke, having traveled through the entirety of his body by now. But he should, the increasingly tiny voice of reason in his mind countered. It was tiny, and immediately began to be pushed down by the other, more frantic voice. In the end, it was his sense of taste that won the battle, as it reminded him that his mouth was absolutely putrid after having both swallowed and puked what he was growing horrifyingly aware of as the water from the Gorkhon.
When he'd gulped down about half of the bottle's contents, Dankovsky drew it away, saying that he’d feel unwell if he drank too much too quickly. For a moment, Artemy wanted to complain, but then regret put its claws into him and began to drag him under.
"…Don't deserve it", he heard himself mumbling.
At that, Dankovsky surprised him by letting out a cackle. He laughed, and it seemed to light up the entire Steppe, no matter its vastness. It was long, hard and slightly deranged. "Deserving…" He laughed some more, seemingly just for good measure. "Oh, Burakh. I can't even count on one hand the amount of people either I or my colleagues have saved from certain death, only for them to walk away and be the cause of someone else's demise." He watched as Artemy finally gathered enough strength to climb into a sitting position so that their eyes were at the same level. "To be deserving of something is but a tale that we're indoctrinated to believe through religious buffoons."
Artemy pondered his words. His brain was still foggy, and his vision grew white every now and then. But still, he could sense a difference, in the air if not his body. As if Dankovsky had found the harmful voice inside of Artemy and pushed it down with his bare fist through blood and intestines both, always with that obnoxious smirk adoring his lips.
"I'm the one who's killed, Bachelor." The words were whispered, but no sound was ever made in vain on the Steppe.
Dankovsky hummed, and looked at the sky above. His neck was bare and the top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned. He'd most likely been drinking at the pub before Notkin and his friends had alerted him to seek Artemy's attention. And while Dankovsky fit perfectly inside a dimly lit pub, the light fell so perfectly on him at this moment that Artemy wondered if not this was the place that he was always meant to visit. He didn’t know if he believed in fate anymore, but he believed in the feeling in his gut that told him that Dankovsky was beautiful.
"Everyone kills, friend. It's a part of life, is it not? We kill our mothers by being reckless and obtuse. We kill the ground on which we walk by penetrating it with infrastructure of our making." He looked up, and his eyes seemed to shine in the last rays of the sun, and Artemy drew in a breath of awe as he met his gaze. "We're all murderers. That is exactly my point."
He placed a hand upon Artemy's thigh, and although he'd spent most of their time drawing patterns through his hair and back, this touch sent sparks of energy through Artemy's body that made his exhaustion slightly more bearable.
"This is why my colleagues and I didn't throw in our aprons the second we understood that our patients could walk away and cause more havoc than us saving them caused." His eyes were intense, almost manic, as they met Artemy's. "We care not of the person we save, but the life itself."
His words repeated in Artemy's head, bouncing from side to side until nothing remained but the sentence he'd spoken. Was it really possible? That his life held intrinsic value, despite the lives he'd consciously taken and the ones he'd unavoidably failed to save? He wondered if his mental problematisations were obvious on his face when Dankovsky spoke next.
"Since I stepped into this town, I felt myself the only one truly capable of carrying responsibility in this sea of people who'd rather place it on my shoulders than help me carry it. That is", he said, his eyes still radiating, "until I met you." He smiled, a slightly manic one but a smile nonetheless. "Never have I met a man capable of carrying as much mental weight as physical one."
"I'm not strong", Artemy was quick to put in before Dankovsky strangled himself in the unwarranted compliments he kept spewing.
Dankovsky only grinned and shrugged. Their eyes held a conversation that Artemy was much too exhausted to even begin to analyse the meaning of. Yet, the words he'd spoken still floated through his head: "We care not of the person we save, but the life itself." Perhaps it really could be true.
"Do you remember when we first met?" Dankovsky began. "I asked you then if you value honour, and if I am not mistaken you replied that you do."
"Just get on with it", Artemy said and rolled his eyes, sensing where the man was leading the conversation. Still, the corner of his lip tugged towards the darkening sky, probably for the first time in more than a month.
"Well. Seeing as I've saved your life, and will work my absolute hardest to make sure that you're not stubborn enough to squander it again, you…" He coughed in the most artificial way possible. "You owe me. A favour."
Artemy tried to cross his arms over his chest, but felt Dankovsky's hands intercept their ascent. Instead, their fingers held onto each other. A small caress that meant more than the world. Perhaps the world fit inside of their palms, now that the Udurgh was no more. Artemy held onto Dankovsky's hands just in case, to make sure that the world wouldn't end if he were to let go.
"What favour could you possibly need from me?" He asked, although the spirit in the eyes he looked into told him exactly what.
"That you stop blaming yourself and begin to eat." Only when Artemy finally nodded after an eternity of silent scrutiny did he add: "And for you to kiss me, when you feel confident that you would want such a thing."
At that moment, as Artemy could finally use all of his senses and the fog in his mind dispersed when he looked at the handsome man in front of him, he was certain of his needs and desires.
He grinned, and nodded.
"Fine. Buy me dinner, and I promise to think it through."
Dankovsky's head shot back in beautiful laughter, and he nodded. "Certainly. I'll hold you to it."