Work Text:
Media Inquiry: Interview request
The formal words stood out amongst the handful of friendly exchanges and life updates his former lab colleagues last sent him. Letters glowing on the screen, faintly illuminating the dimly lit office. Dankovsky felt a twinge of mourning for the lost art of sending physical letters as he stared at the technological contraption. Hand carefully reaching for the mouse device—a silly name—and left clicking the digital mail.
The words became smaller as they filled the screen, Dankovsky glared at the offending technology. Reaching into a drawer, opening the case where he stored his reading glasses. He never liked wearing them; their round lenses and golden flame stirred an unpleasant memory at the back of his mind.
Dear Dr. Dankovsky,
I'm writing to you on behalf of the—skip the courtesy talk, Dankovsky thought as he skimmed the email for any important keywords.
With an extensive background in research science and a passion for medical history—blah blah blah—I have a PhD in Biological Sciences—so did half his students
—During my doctoral studies, I focused on investigating the molecular mechanisms of gene regulation in—when was this person going to get to the point?
—also known as the Sand pest
I look forward to—Dankovsky moved the mouse pointer towards the X mark in the corner of the screen, closing the page.
With the click of a lighter a thin ribbon of smoke trailed up, dissipating into the air. Dankovsky's lips wrapped around the end of a cigar, the type his younger self always thought looked ridiculous to own, let alone indulge in. Closing his eyes, Dankovsky found bitter irony in the way his current self would fail to measure up to that young boy's expectations, despite achieving the fame and recognition he always hungered for.
"But did we defeat death?" A young gentleman's voice sounded from the far corner of his mind, a voice much more youthful with vocal cords still not as damaged by the cumulative years of nursing a multitude of addictions.
A mere figment of his imagination.
He could clearly picture it, picture him standing here, right in front of his desk. Furrowed brows and thinly pursed lips, eyeing his current self's fully greyed hair and wrinkled skin with skepticism.
"What do you think?" His lips moved on their own, speaking to no one in particular in this empty room. Really, what kind of question is that to ask a man in his 70s, practically between the jaws of death.
"I think you're lying to yourself." The youthful voice sounded once again, more real than the first time, and not quite like the scolding tone of his conscience that Dankovsky grew used to through the years. "Because you don't have a conscience. Or else you wouldn't have abandoned a dying town in the middle of an epidemic. Abandoned her."
Dankovsky opened his eyes, being met with a mirage of his own young face. A certain foggy atmosphere filled the room, blurring the lines of reality. He looked at Daniil's face, his younger face, charming in its noble features and not so subtle signs of exhaustion.
"Are you referring to Eva or Maria?" Those names felt foreign on his tongue, to call again after many years.
"Both, neither... what does it matter." The more he spoke, the more Dankovsky observed him, the more this past version of Daniil resonated into physical reality. Part of Dankovsky wondered why he wasn't reacting to his other self's impossible presence as a sane person should, but deep down he knew the grim answer to that question. "Look your enemy in the face, as any brave knight should." Daniil gave it a voice.
"I didn't imagine death to..." be so peaceful, familiar, inviting. Adorn the face of his deepest desire, to go back one last time. To be him, himself, true self. It's only fitting.
"I didn't imagine life to make this of me, either." Daniil sat on the edge of the wooden desk, crossing one leg over the other, looking around the pristine office, the extensive library, the intricate frames holding aged photos within.
Dankovsky followed his gaze, looking over the images of treasured memories. Yulia's apathetic face staring him in the leftmost picture, the last one they took before she was sworn back into service of the inquisition. Serafima and Platon in the middle one, celebrating Thanatica's twenty years anniversary. The third containing—a sharp clicking sound stole his attention back, anyone would turn their head at the sound of a revolver being reloaded. Dankovsky sank back into the comfortable leather of his chair, taking another deep breath of his cigar before softly blowing the smoke away, watching the pupils of his younger self dilate. "Your hand is shaking."
Daniil paid him no mind, turning the small gun around so the barrel may face him. "I should've done this from the start, had I known escaping the town meant throwing it all away anyway. Better a cowardly death than a cowardly life."
"And to think I bothered to quit morphine some years back... your timing is really unfortunate, young man." The older Dankovsky said, unimpressed eyes watching his younger self open his mouth to make space for the gun barrel, teeth scraping against the iron, lips wrapping around the rim.
One finger against the trigger, trembling as it pressed down. A thundering boom shot through the room, a flash of light vanishing as quickly as it appeared. The black smoke of gunpowder delicately intertwining with the grey ribbons of cigar smoke.
Daniil opened his eyes, confusion evident in them for still having said eyes to see with. The bullet went through him, spilling no blood, wedged into the far wall of the study, piercing the wallpaper and burrowing into the bricks. It was then that he paid attention to the details of the office, to the broken mirrors lined against the walls, cracked glass and golden frames.
Dankovsky watched the confusion morph into defeat on his younger self's face. A feeling he's well acquainted with from the inside, but only now does he get to appreciate how prettily it painted his features from the outside. The doomed look in Daniil's eyes, the half-sneer half-pout, the grip squeezing the gun until his knuckles turned white. Body slowly sliding from the desk. Dankovsky moved ahead just enough to catch him, so Daniil's falling body may slide into his lap instead of the floor.
"Are you done with your tantrum?" How did anyone endure his company through those juvenile years, Dankovsky wondered under Daniil's scorching glare. "Ira furor brevis est." Dankovsky clicked his tongue. Softly tapping the cigar so the collected ash scatters down.
Age mellows you out, steals your spark. Indifference adorning the mask of wisdom. Everything ceased to matter past a certain age, especially after reading the ninth obituary of a name he intimately recognises.
The younger Daniil—nearly in his thirties—looked more akin to a misbehaving child in Dankovsky's eyes. Prideful, ignorant, and brimming with misdirected warth.
"You're dying. I'm dying." His younger self hissed through his teeth, clenched to mask the cracks in his voice. Gun scattering to the floor, useless and empty. "How could you let him win?" Gloved hands wrapped around Dankovsky's neck, cold leather squeezing the wrinkled thin skin.
He didn't get to choke him, not for more than a second, at least, before Dankovsky forced his jaw open with an iron grip, stuffing the cigar headfirst inside, and snuffing the flame atop Daniil's tongue.
"Look at yourself." Condescension dripped from every syllable out of Dankovsky's mouth as he watched his younger self choke out a pathetic sound of pain from the burning sensation, coughing out the ash of the cigar before it, too, joined the gun on the ground. "Afraid till the very end, and of what exactly?"
Daniil's attempt to hiss back a reply was in vain as the burn on his tongue prevented him from articulating a sentence without his quickly numbing tongue stumbling over his words, butchering the pronunciation. He had to swallow the bitter humiliation. Sitting atop the older man's lap, blinking away the tears as his hands retreated back to his side from a painful lesson learned. He's usually more held together, impenetrable facade of authority, but something about being faced with no one other than himself made his walls melt away, forcing acute vulnerability on him akin to an exposed nerve.
"I don't..." it hurt to speak, his tongue stung with every sound—"want to die." He can't say that, he pretended he hadn't. "I fear nothing." Daniil lied instead.
Dankovsky's hand cradled the side of his younger self's face, thumb caressing the corner of his lips. "You're not the one facing death." His thumb forced its way between the other's lips, pressing down on the burn mark, agitating it further "I am."
Daniil's face twisted in pain at the intrusion, but Dankovsky saw through his thinly veiled facade: one glance between his spread legs showcased his true feelings towards the older man's mistreatment. Always had a thing for older figures, Dankovsky didn't bother to stifle his huff of amusement.
Pushing his knee up, Dankovsky pressed his leg against the younger man's erection, rocking him atop his lap. "What you're seeing is only you, through the looking glass." His fingers in Daniil's mouth prevented the other from muffling his sounds of pleasure. Embarrassment burned in his throat as much as the hatred in his eyes wished to burn a hole through the older man's face. "A reflection in a mirror."
There it is again, that strange feeling of comfortable indignity. Urging him to shed any pretence of civility in front of his true self. The Id itself. Daniil found himself grinding back into Dankovsky's knee, against his better judgement. All rationale out the window, reaching a manic induced state of hysteria as he surrendered to all sensations the older man threw his way. Taking both the pleasure and the pain. His hard cock strained against the confines of his pants, leaking a damp patch into the fabric, staining the leg below him. It felt too much and not enough at the same time, the way Dankovsky pushed his fingers deeper inside his mouth until he had no choice but to gag against them. The nauseating taste of ash and smoke still at the back of his throat, only serving to confuse his brain as the disgust got twisted into pleasure in his instinct-driven arousal-clouded state.
The younger man's movement gradually turned erratic and feverish. Dankovsky pulled out his fingers, breaking the thin line of Saliva connecting them to the other's lips. Wiping the wetness in front of Daniil's pants, where his leaking cock strained. He ought to spank him for ruining his clothes in such a juvenile way, Dankovsky thought as he worked on his belt—bend him over his knee and make him count the slaps until his ass turned a red matching his face—unzipping him down, freeing Daniil's cock.
The instant the rough fabric of Dankovsky's pants rubbed against his oversensitive cock, a hoarse cry left Daniil's throat. Instinctively reaching to wrap his arms around the older man, burying himself in Dankovsky's chest, face pressed flushed against the very same neck bearing the imprint of his fingers. The fragile skin has been bruised easily.
"Little... did Yakov..." Daniil breathed out between the hiccups and cries, hips still grinding down against the harsh fabric. "His discovery..."
"The history books will remember him long after we're gone." Dankovsky replied, eyes drifting towards the third framed picture on the wall. A photograph, the only photograph he had half a mind to bring with him of his assistant before boarding the train. Blurry, immature, and out of focus; Yakov was testing the camera the day the hospital was established before taking the patients’ picture, accidentally snapping one of himself in the process. Dankovsky remembers scolding him about the wasted film, frustrated with his carelessness... Now he couldn't be more grateful for Yakov's clumsiness.
"What about Eva... did she agree—" A loud cry interrupted Daniil's question, turning into a dragged out moan as Dankovsky increased the pace, hands around Daniil's hips to set a rhythm to his movements. Lifting his hips up so he may press him down harder against his rising leg, move him up and down, driving him closer to the edge.
"No." Dankovsky himself was starting to get affected, a sheen layer of sweat covering his forehead. Pulling apart the silk cravat as it started to feel uncomfortable and clammy around his neck, a silver chain hidden underneath. "I'm sorry."
Pre-cum collected below Daniil, grinding into his mess. His cock a pretty shade of pink, flushed and swollen, pulsing with arousal. Recognition sparked in his eyes, blinking away his clumped eyelashes to get a better look at the crimson ruby held within the silver necklace. He's so close, the knot in his stomach tightened, the warmth of the ruby beckoned him forth. Trembling fingers fishing the necklace from under Dankovsky's collar, staring into his fractured reflection within the red stone. "Mar..." He's so close. Climax within reach. Daniil could barely speak the first syllable of her name before choking on another moan. The lewd high pitched sounds coming from his throat unfamiliar to his ears, only serving to add to his indignity.
Daniil's lips pressed against the ruby in a promised kiss, feeling the stone heat against his welcoming mouth. A mantra of 'forgive-me's repeated in his brain amidst the pleasure-filled haziness. The long-awaited climax washed over him like a waterfall. Powerful and overbearing. Painfully intense as it drained him of all of his energy. Stripes of white staining the clothes of his older self, overspent cock sore and aching. In the drunkenness of his orgasm, he found pleasure in the way the gradual heat of the ruby turned scorching against his lips, much like the cigar flame burned his tongue.
He looked up at the face of his older self, aged skin and silver hair, he took him in, etching every detail into memory, before he closed his eyes for the last time.
And woke up.
The Stillwater's bed creaked underneath as he turned, the distant chatter of people not far off, just one staircase away. The morning sun did nothing to ease the burden inside, the knowledge that a part of him died. One book closed for eternity, a life branch shrivelled off.
The missing bullet in his emergency pocket revolver told him the other half of the story. The esteemed scientific genius, the prodigy epidemiologist, founder of Thanatica, deceased at the age of 77.