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With every passing day, Bachelor Dankovsky looked a little less like himself. Artemy can read his exhaustion in the jagged lines of his body, the tension of his neck and jaw, the bunched knot of his shoulders. He is not sleeping or else not sleeping well. Not a week in town—five days, no more—and he has already burned himself to ash. He won’t last another week, Artemy thinks, not if he continues as he has.
He had Eva worried, worried enough to confide in Artemy. Frightfully earnest, she clasped his hand in both of her own and begged him to make Dankovsky see sense. September, and the twyre was in full bloom, thinning the blood and constricting the lungs. It was a bad year for it, but Dankovsky had resolutely ignored all of Eva’s warnings.
Artemy finds him in the loft at the Stillwater, hunched over a brass microscope like a seamstress at her machine. He moves the slides mechanically across the stage, seeking some unknowable pattern in the infected tissues Artemy had acquired for him. Utterly absorbed in his task, he didn’t respond to Artemy’s tapping at the door or to the scuff of his booted feet against the wooden floor. He lifted his head long enough to scrawl something in one of his notebooks, and then he returned to his task, his brows knit together in intense concentration.
Sighing, Artemy lowered himself onto the bed, kicking his boots off before swinging his feet onto the coverlet. The sheets smelled like Dankovsky’s cologne, sharp camphor and unknown spices, cold and fiery. Artemy made himself comfortable, stretching and settling down into the mattress, which creaked in protest.
Dankovsky’s focus never wavered. Watching him, Artemy could not help but be reminded of his father and of Stakh. They possessed the same singular focus, the same enviable ability to narrow the bonds of the world until all that remained was the task that lay before them. Artemy had never been able to manage the same trick; his mind flowed in all directions like a flooding river.
“You want something,” said Dankovsky, without looking up. His tone was mild. “I can hear you breathing, Burakh, you sound like a locomotive.”
Artemy frowned at the back of Dankovsky’s head. “Eva’s worried about you,” he said. “She thinks you’re going to work yourself to death.” Dakovsky made a non-committal sound, and Artemy continued, forcing himself to breathe more through his nose. “She isn’t wrong. It’s the twyre in the air, it’s hard on the lungs.”
“Eva is very kind,” said Dankovsky. “She is not a physician.”
“I suppose you’ve no interest, then, in women’s knowledge?”
Dankovsky shot him a warning look. He looked frightful, purple bags under his eyes and a week’s unkempt beard shadowing his jaw. “Are you implying that I’m a misogynist?”
“I’m trying to get a rise out of you.”
Dankovsky scoffed, turning back to the microscope. “Burakh, my dear colleague, I am entirely above such schoolyard tactics—”
“You look terrible,” said Artemy. “Death warmed over. All the ladies have stopped talking about the handsome Bachelor from the Capital, now they ask me if I’m going to put the tired scarecrow out of its misery.”
Dankovsky glared at him, turning in his seat to fix him with a scowl. “What do you want?” he snapped, his voice creeping upwards into a petulant register.
“Eva isn’t wrong,” said Artemy, gently as he could manage. “You need to rest, erdem. Nobody does their best work on the brink of collapse, and you’ won’t be any good to anybody if you’re too tired tomorrow to keep your head up.”
“How can I rest when you’ve made yourself so comfortable in my bed? I never figured you for a talker, Artyom.” He seemed to realize what he’d said as soon as the words were out of his mouth, eyes widening with horror. He went faintly red, flush creeping down from his temples to color his cheeks.
Artemy blinked. It would be kindest, he decided, to pretend not to have heard him. “I wasn’t lying when I said you looked terrible. Whiskers don’t suit you.”
Dankovsky seized upon the changed subject like a drowning man. “I’ve been far too busy to shave,” he said, “assuming I could even find a razor in this town.”
“I have one.” Artemy was glad to have an excuse to look away, busy his hands. A bride had traded the bone-handled razor to him in exchange for a pack of sewing needles and a candle stub; he hadn’t asked her where she’d found it. “Here—would you like me to shave you?”
Dankovsky blinked. “Pardon?”
“It’s part of the taboo,” Artemy explained. “Rather than risk cutting themselves, most men prefer having a professional trim their beards.”
“That sounds...inconvenient.”
Artemy shrugged. “It’s the custom,” he said. “I think it’s a means for the menkhu to train their apprentices, rather than waiting for the next caesarean section.”
Dankovsky laughed, although Artemy had only been half-joking. “So you’re a barber surgeon,” he said. “Do you pull teeth, too, or is that the role of the odongh?”
Artemy scowled at him. “If you don’t want my help, I won’t waste my time,” he said sharply. “I’ve places to be”
“Don’t be like that, I only meant to tease.” Dankovsky opened his collar as though making an offering of himself. “Come, Haruspex—if you cut my throat, Eva will be quite upset.”
“For her sake, I’ll resist the impulse.”
It was a familiar ritual, one he’d done a thousand times before: wetting the face, preparing the lather. The water wasn’t as warm as Artemy would have liked, but Dankovsky was an ideal subject, uncomplaining and still under his hands. After a moment, his apprehension dissipated and he relaxed into it, allowing himself to be handled, turned this way and that as Artemy brushed lathering soap over his cheeks and jaw. The woody, camphorous scent of his cologne mingled with the powdery smell of soap and the old musk of cigarettes and stale sweat. Altogether, not unpleasant—vital and herbal, understatedly masculine. The bedsheets had smelled the same way, and Artemy supposed the same odor was now clinging to him, masking whatever woodsmoke-and-twyre scent he’d brought in from the street.
Focus.
Dankovsky sat very still, hands folded in his lap. Only his eyes moved, tracking the movement of the blade, darting up to Artemy’s face and away just as quickly. His dark eyes were luminous in the warm light of the kerosene lantern, the deep brown of sun-warmed earth. Artemy cradled his jaw in one hand, pulling the skin taut as he shaved him with short, careful strokes. He took his time with it, surprised to find himself enjoying the work as he hadn’t in years. It had been a long time since he had shared this simple connection with another: skin-to-skin, hand-to-cheek. He was glad to know that he was still capable of gentleness, that his hands were fit for more than simple butchery.
He renewed the lather, brushing foam across Dankovsky’s face. He had already begun to look more like himself, more like the big-city dandy that had so rudely insulted him on that first day in Rubin’s apartment. Artemy had wanted to break his jaw, then. He was glad, now, that he hadn’t—there was something good in Bachelor Dankovsky, whatever pains he took to hide it. Idealism, his own peculiar brand of naivete. He had stayed, hadn’t he? Remained in the town when it would have been so easy for him to slip away like a thief in the night.
Artemy began to shave against the grain, still holding the other man steady. He lifted his jaw with two fingers, thumb falling down to rest at the base of his throat, brushing over Dankovsky’s pulse, strong and insurgent under his skin. At Artemy’s touch, Dankovsky drew in a sharp little breath his dark eyes dropping into his lap.
“Are you alright?” said Artemy, hand falling away.
Dankovsky swallowed, the movement of his throat made plain by the lather dotting his jawline. “Fine,” he said, voice faltering for the first time since Artemy had met him. “Forgive me, it’s—it’s fine. Please, continue.”
Artemy fixed him with a questioning look but said nothing else, holding Dankovsky’s jaw with a firmer hand than was perhaps necessary. The other man allowed him, eyes fluttering shut. Easier to focus without the weight of Dankovsky’s gaze on him, without the distraction of those fathomless eyes tracking his every movement. Artemy shaved his face as he would any other man’s, all practiced efficiency, nothing to betray the way that his heart had answered Dankovsky’s, elevated pulse pounding in his ears. He was glad, then to be finished, to rinse the last traces of lather from the other man’s face.
“Finished,” he said, his voice brusque and strange in his own ears. “There’s the capital dandy, returned to us once again.”
Dankovsky ran his hand across his jaw, examining his reflection in the small mirror on the table. He was still avoiding Artemy’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“All the same,” said Dankovsky. “I am glad to know that you don’t hate me utterly.”
Not knowing what to say, Artemy said nothing. He cleaned the razor in the basin and shook off the excess water, folding the blade back into the handle. He packed his things away, then crossed the room to retrieve his boots. “I forgot, I’d told Lara I would check in on Stakh.”
“Of course. Send my regards.” Dankovsky’s tone was clipped, formal. He sounded more like himself and less like the breathless man who had gone still and obedient under Artemy’s hands, who had looked up at him through half-hooded eyes, mouth falling open.
Artemy got to his feet. “Get some rest, oynon,” he said. “For Eva’s sake, if not your own.”
For a moment, Dankovsky regarded him, his expression unreadable. “Of course,” he repeated, turning back to his slides. Artemy took this as a dismissal and turned to leave, but Dankovsky cleared his throat. “Will I see you at the theater tomorrow morning?” He spoke casually, but there was a weight to his words that stopped Artemy in his tracks.
“Of course,” he said at once, before he had time to consider his response. “Your mustache will have grown in again, and I can’t have that.”
Dankovsky laughed weakly. “You do me a great service,” he said. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” Artemy agreed, and he fled down the stairs before he could say something unwise and embarrass himself any further. He would lie awake later, turning Dankovsky’s innuendo over in his mind. Almost certainly a slip of the tongue, no earnest declaration.
The possibility that it might not be haunted him all through the night, and into the next day.