Gifts for neonregrowth
List of Gifts
-
Tags
Summary
“I wanted to see how you’re doing. I know this—being here wasn’t your first choice.”
“No,” says Daniil. It’s hardly an admission. “But few of us have had our first choice these days, have we? In adversis, necesse est accommodare.” Never mind that he’s not adapting especially well at all, that Artemy has seen the proof for himself. “If you’re feeling responsible for me, I’d rather you save it for someone better suited for your protection.”
At that, Artemy looks up, and straight into Daniil’s eyes.
This close, in the light of the gas lamps, they are an unfathomable color and depth: light and simultaneously shadowed, somewhere between blue and green and gray, like staring into a clear lake that stretches deeper than the eye can make out. Daniil stares into those depths and finds himself straining forward, leaning, as if he could tip into that body of water and lose himself beneath the surface.
“No,” Artemy says at last, his voice low enough to stoke that heat in Daniil’s gut again. “I invited you here because I think you’re the only person in town I’m not responsible for."