Oh, the hands that will hold you home

    It was high June, a week from July. The steppe was hot to the touch like a stray cat warmed in the sun. The ground was starting to dry and the wetlands settled in the fingers of the Gorkhon that slithered south of the warehouses. 
The train came, roaring and snorting like a racehorse. It came to a loud halt and bled out on the yellow grass its flock of passengers. Sticky, wandering by the station with Murky on his heels, immediately spotted in the crowd a familiar coat. He ran back home and barged into the kitchen. Here, Lara had invited herself over, bringing a lukewarm Grief who looked like he would rather be somewhere else but still went along to try to mend the bonds, insisting Burakh hold a get-together. (Rubin had politely declined Lara’s invitation and walked into the steppe, head high, eyes closed, an uncharacteristic smile on his face.) The three of them stared at Sticky’s freckled face as he tried to catch his breath:

“The dandy—huff—the doctor—huff—the Bachelor, he’s here, just arrived by the train. I saw him. He had his snake coat under his arm.”

Burakh bolted upright. He turned to his guests, then to Lara in particular.

    “Gravel, would you be the bestest of friends and have the kids over tonight?”
    “I would. Are we not drinking my tea?”
    “We are. Just give me a minute.”

And with that, Burakh ran into the hallway and donned his boots, half-heartedly tying the laces before Lara bumped into his shoulder.

    “If I had remembered he was coming today, I’d have shaved,” Burakh mumbled and ran scratching fingers through the more-than-stubble he sported on this day.
    “Oh yeah,” Lara chimed in, her voice mischievous as it escaped her quirked lips, “I’m sure you would have.”
    “Mind your business and don’t you dare insinuate anything,” Burakh interrupted with a stern pointed finger, and Lara burst out laughing as she sent him through the door, drumming on his back, between his shoulder blades.

Grief watched him leave.

    “I don’t get it,” he told Lara.
   “What is there to not get? Don’t you know?”
    “Know what?”
    “Well… I’ll tell you when he’s far enough.”

And eventually, Burakh was far enough. 

He met Dankovsky halfway, where he was offered his hand to shake. He took it warmly. The Bachelor’s coat was folded and tucked between his elbow and his waist, his suitcase held firm by the same arm. 
Burakh could see he had trimmed his hair, at the front and around the ears, perhaps the back too — he couldn’t see, not yet. He was looking a bit tired, eyes cradled in a purple hue, but the smile that played with the corners of his lips was sincere, placid, fittingly tranquil like a summer afternoon. 

    “Hello, Burakh,” he said. “The beard suits you.”
    “Hello, oynon. Thank you. You look well.” He wasn’t going to tell him he had forgotten to shave it for his arrival. Maybe he’d get the occasion, were it to be brought up again later in the night. 
    “I am. I feel well.”
    “That’s good.”

There lingered an awkward pause, and Dankovsky’s hand lingered in his. They kept a formal distance as they walked to Burakh’s house, shoulders only brushing in turns. Burakh observed him still, and he knew he was observed in return. The black lakes of Dankovsky’s eyes twinkled on the surface with specks of the sun, golden dots dancing in his gaze as he watched his step. Burakh would have liked to kiss him there, to taste the warmth of June against his cheek, or into his hair, but he kept himself in check and led him home.
Lara welcomed them with a wide grin eating into her cheeks. She had chosen Rubin’s cup to be Dankovsky’s and already poured them all a drink. The new guest was delighted.

_______

    Sticky tip-toed into the kitchen, only to find lights on still. He knocked against a side-table and brought attention to him. 
    “... Sorry. Didn’t mean to—”
    “It’s fine,” interrupted Burakh. “Does Lara know you’re out at this hour?”
    “She is. Murky forgot her doll. I just came to retrieve it.”
    “Ah… It must be upstairs. I put it back on her bed this morning.”
    “Okay. Thank you.”

And then Sticky didn’t move. He stood awkwardly on the other side of the table where Burakh and Dankovsky had laid out wine glasses. Burakh looked at him looking at Dankovsky, then at him. The Bachelor was surprisingly relaxed. 
Burakh shrugged out a “well?” and Sticky shook his head a “well, huh…” and Dankovsky interrupted them both when he reached for his bag and pulled out a book. 

    “Oh,” he said. “ For you.” With that, he put the tome in Sticky’s curious hands.
    “For me…?” His eyes were gleaming 
    “The Treatise On Modern Medicine. Thought you might like it.”

Proving him right on the spot, Sticky already held the book open. It looked huge in his arms. 

    “Don’t you… need it?” he asked, worried.
    “They print it again every few years,” Dankovsky brushed off with a hand. “This one is not that old. Few things have changed since then. It’s perfect for a first look into the practice.”

Sticky, in awe, had brought the book on the table and started flipping through. 

    “Don’t you have a doll to retrieve? Your sister is going to get worried,” Burakh shooed him away, and after he stuck his tongue out at him, Sticky trotted upstairs, treatise under the arm, and trotted back down as fast. The two men at the table listened to his steps as he went up, down, then out the door. 

Burakh got up, locked the door, then leaned through the window to hide the key on the sill, where Sticky was used to fetching it. 
Dankovsky was already right behind him, standing in the hallway, when he turned around. He walked to him like he was owed a kiss — and he was, and Burakh paid his due, then paid some more. 

Upstairs, the bed was fit for two people, and Burakh was thrilled to show it, but they still landed atop each other. Oh well!

_______

    “What else did she say?”
    “... Said she loved me. Despite… what I’ve done.”
    “Mmmh. A thing she and I agree on.” 

With Dankovsky’s words muffled in his hair and his own cheek pressed against his chest, Burakh allowed himself to laugh. 

    “I’m not sure I’ll ever get rid of the feeling of blood on my hands,” Burakh said, and Dankovsky took his wrist to bring his fingers to his lips, kissing gently. “Even after what she said. I’m… not even sure I believe I heard her right. Or heard her at all, for that matter.” He rubbed his head into Daniil’s shoulder like an affectionate cat. “... I wish you could hear her, too.”
    “I’m not sure she’d be too keen on speaking to me.”
    “She’s of love. I’m sure she would speak to you.”

Dankovsky stayed silent. He ran distracted fingers on Burakh’s shoulder, down his side, to his naked hip. 

    “Even if she spoke,” he finally said, “I don’t think I would listen. No — I don’t think I could listen. I don’t think I could hear. We… don’t speak the same language.”

He brought his hand back up to ruffle through Artemy’s already-messy hair.

    “I hear her through you,” he then spoke. “I don’t doubt a lot of it is lost in translation, but I hear her through your mouth. Through your tongue — the speaking one.” (The clarification made Burakh laugh, and he rose on his elbows to give his guest a noisy, wet kiss.) “I feel her through your hands. That’s your trade, isn’t it? Healing her whole through healing the living parts of her that walk with us. Sewing her to completion by weaving your thread into connections.”

Artemy laid his head on Daniil’s chest again. He listened to him talk. Dankovsky’s voice echoed and rang in the depths of his ribcage, right where Burakh had felt the Earth’s words tear through. Right where was his (living, beating) heart. 

    “I don’t doubt you’re made of her,” Dankovsky said. His voice was very low. Burakh could barely hear it over their breaths. Still, it washed over him. “Your hair is the color of sand, color of the tall grass later in the year. There’s hints of red clay on your cheeks when you blush — yes, exactly like that, like now. My mother took me to lake Sevan earlier this year, I see its depths in your eyes, when you look at me.” Burakh did look at him. “Like now. Like just now.”

He lost his train of thought. He lost restraint of his hands, he ran them over Artemy’s cheeks, against his neck, his shoulders, his back. They realized, together, the presence of lines and runes on Artemy’s skin — they were already faded, or just appearing. They laughed about the implications of them appearing only when they met (they didn’t only appear when the two met, but Daniil had more eyes for Artemy’s shoulders, for his back, for his flanks, his thighs, his strong legs than Artemy had for himself.)

Burakh didn’t dare to sleep with an open window, not yet; the image of the breath of the Plague slithering into the thin opening of the curtains haunted him, he thought he heard its voice when he didn’t close the blinds tight enough. The room was toasty, stuffy enough that, at some point, they just kicked the covers off altogether. A stripe of moonlight landed, crooked, across Dankovsky’s back, and Burakh looked at it for a long while. His skin was pale, color of bone, color of milk, color of the reflection of the moon in the ponds. It was warmer than bone, warmer than milk, warmer than the moon, licking Artemy’s palm hotly when he brought it to his shoulders. 
Daniil had brought his characteristic scent of cedar and bergamot all over the sheets, the blankets, the pillowcases. Artemy liked the way it joined with his own, a bit more crude, not unlike clay, not unlike tart spices and herbs, earthily heady. He liked how they met. He liked how and where they joined, intertwining like fingers — and, almost as if he had spoken it out loud, Daniil reached for his hand, and did just that. 

_______

    Maybe Artemy doesn’t mind feeling like a pinned butterfly. It’s how he feels laying down on the warm ground, held in place by the needle of the sunlight piercing through him. Wings spread out are an expression of vulnerability. 

There is a spot on his chest that, he found, if Daniil touches with an index and middle finger, makes him draw a sharp, sounding gasp; not unlike the breath one takes before diving into the sea. Daniil doesn’t have a surgeon’s hands, because he’s not a surgeon. He doesn’t have a butcher’s hands, because he’s not a butcher. He doesn’t know the Lines. But he’s gentle. He’s a doctor. He’s a thanatologist: even when he carries corpses around, even when he cuts them open, he carries himself with deference, moving slowly as if he was facing a scared, small animal. The bodies do not open themselves up to him, unraveling spilling secrets across his palms, but he looks diligently still. He speaks low, for himself and for the spirits that still wander; he’s watchful. His hands are delicate, even more delicate under the gloves (that’s how he touches Artemy).
They're not corpses. They like to lay down by each other like such, still, silent, eyes wide open. But then they kiss, and kissing is noisy, and Dankovsky is of the loud type. He's easy to ignite, like a beautiful, impatient, hungry matchstick.

Daniil has long preferred the company of the dead, and he still does, but Artemy falls asleep and wakes by his side with the knowledge that he’s the living Daniil loves the most. He touches warm, shivering skin with a restrained reverence. Maybe he’s a bit scared, Artemy thinks, of the enormity of it all. He’s not used to handling beating, living hearts. Artemy lets him cradle his, because he knows he will be careful (he’s seen what the Bachelor’s hands can do, and he’s not afraid, not when they’re on him).
Artemy once brought blood to his mouth. Daniil brings heart to his lips — or rather, brings his lips to it. He leans in slowly, like he’s bowing low for water. He kisses with a carnal, earthly piety. Even trimmed, his hair still brushes against Burakh’s skin. Feather-light, not unlike his touch.

_______

    They’re outside. The air is this lukewarm embrace around them, a few hours past the cold midnight, and Burakh leads him by the hand across the wetlands south of the Crude Sprawl. 

    “Can you hear them?”
    “Not at all…”
    “I’m not surprised. But, trust me on this. If you follow the sound of swishing… like a whisper through the grass… maybe the fluttering of the wings of a moth…”
    “I trust you.”

“Ah, here you are!” says Burakh when they eventually stumble across swevery. It is right where he had first seen it. It had grown, extending its bifurcating stems towards the sky, bowing lightly under the night breeze. Burakh crouches to it and Dankovsky follows suit. 

    “What you would do then — which I am not going to do now, because it can still grow, see? Some of its buds have not bloomed yet. You want many flowers on a blade like that, that’s when it has matured. You can cut or crush the petals into thin stripes or powders. Very versatile herb.” Burakh pinches the stem gently. “So what you would do is, with your fingernail, go through it as close to the ground as possible. You never want to uproot it, of course. You want your nail to go through in one motion, as fast as you can. This way, they don’t hurt for long. Swift.”
    “Mh-hmm.”
    “You’re not quite listening, are you,” Burakh asks, and he’s not mad, not even a little. Herbs are his trade, not Dankovsky’s. He catches Daniil’s eyes on him, heavy-lidded, still a bit sleepy, catching in small pins of white light the face of the moon. They look overflowing with it—overflowing with love. 

    They’re sitting against the flank of a minuscule hill, nestled like calves resting against their mother. Dankovsky doesn’t have his gloves, he doesn’t have his coat or cravat, his shirt collar is not fastened all the way and his sleeves are rolled to his elbows. He looks airy, he smiles with a welcomed fatigue. Their eyes are northwest-bound, watching the hollow left in the Tower’s silhouette.

    “... It feels weird to not see it,” Dankovsky says. 
    “It does. It did for a while. You never get quite used to it.” He scratches his beard thoughtlessly. “I can’t quite shake the thought that it went down for nothing.”
    “It went down so you could stand,” Dankovsky interrupts. His voice is thin, whispy, it gets lost in the breeze, but he doesn’t sound sad. “You cannot know what this town would look like if it still stood.”
    “Maybe the Aurochs would wander the Earth…”
    “They do,” Dankovsky says, and when Burakh looks at him with wide, confused eyes, he points out a silhouette in the distance. Burakh turns to it promptly. A loose bull stands, trying to involve itself in the conversation. 
    “Well. If they could wander a bit further,” Burakh says, and shoos it with the back of his hand. When the beast walks away and dips down to graze, Dankovsky laughs frankly. 

They sit in silence as cowbells ring in the distance. Chants from the Brides barely reach them across the steppe, into the warming night. 

    “Burakh… See what stands in its place,” Dankovsky says and, as Burakh leans in, he points to the night filling the Tower’s place. 
    “... Stars?”
    “Precisely.”

Dankovsky draws them across the sky with a long, pale finger. 

    “If the Tower still stood, we wouldn’t see those. Look here — Arctophylax, with Arcturus, a bit red, right where the stem once was. Muphrid is hidden right behind the Cathedral.”

Burakh drinks his words, looks at him more than the stars. Seeing him entranced in the constellations, he eventually looks at them too.

    “... Do you know what stars we’d have in September, oynon?”
    “Here, at this time? Hmm. Cygnus, if I were to guess. Its wings would span the width of the Tower. We would see Lyra just below, maybe hidden behind the Cathedral as well. Lacerta would be above.”

Burakh hums an impressed, acquiescing noise, then adds, laughing: 

    “I should invite you in autumn to point out all the stars for me!”
    “You sure should!” Dankovsky replies, as jovial.  
    “Where did you learn all of that?”
    “My mom told me.”
    “Your mom?”
    “Yes. I was just too calm and level-headed as a child to demand supervision, so she had to fill her time however she could,” Dankovsky relates, and his smile, however playful, is wide with fondness. “So she took on astronomy. She did, then told me, so I could tell you.”

Burakh lies on his side, arm bent under his head, eyes on Dankovsky. The night wind plays with his white shirt collar, swaying it like a ghost right below his mouth. (Burakh also looks at Dankovsky’s mouth.) 
For a minute, they hear nothing but distant bells and chants, crickets far and close, and the silent gears of the stars above slowly moving west. 

    “Ah… Since we’re watching the stars… Look, Tyoma,” Dankovsky calls into the silence, low enough that Burakh barely hears it, as if he didn’t want to cut the stillness too sharply. “Look east.”
    “I’m looking.”
    “See the triangle poking out over the horizon, just ahead of the sunrise? Right below the Pleiades?”
    “I do.”
    “That’s Taurus.” Then, lower: “That’s the great celestial bull.”

Quiescence hooks itself to Daniil’s words and grows, swelling, heavy with the weight of the sky. The calm whistling through the grass, snaking through flowers and herbs, is warm. It breathes hotly against Dankovsky’s neck, into his shirt, where goosebumpy skin catches Burakh’s eyes. 
Burakh stays silent. He watches the five stars, two of them sticking to each other like twins, brushing like lips against the horizon line upon which stands the Abattoir. 
Dankovsky’s train is in the morning, when Taurus will have risen, walking to the heart of the firmament before the sun, its crown of the Pleiades waning into the pale blue of the sky.  
But for now, the astral bull of summer dawns rises over them as a warm breeze sails across the steppe from beneath the golden clouds of daybreak.