Anastas sat on the edge of the bed, his head bowed low and his fingers run through his hair. He was deeply immersed in his thoughts, which spun in his head, finding no way out. Thomas was situated at a small wooden table with his back to him. The youth was engrossed in a task—he was writing a letter home.
The silence of the room was broken only by their breathing and the measured scratch of a steel nib against thick paper.
Anastas raised his eyes and looked at the youth's back. Looking at his fair hair, at his slightly bowed neck, he felt an uncontrollable anger, mixed with despair, boiling inside him. Why didn't Thomas remember anything? Why couldn't he just turn around and say whether it was him or not? Why couldn't he ease this torment with a single word, simplify everything that had turned Anastas's life into torture?
Thomas wasn't blind. He saw perfectly well how Anastas was suffering, how he was losing his mind from lack of sleep and constant tension. If Thomas was the reincarnated Athit, then why not just admit it? And if it wasn't him... if he was just some random youth, then why was he so diligently messing with his head? Why did he want to intrude into his life? Why was he acting this way? Why was he making him feel something?
Next, Eist's face surfaced in his mind. Anastas remembered how the mercenary had blatantly flirted with Thomas, how he had joked, how easily and quickly they had gotten along—and all this happened right before his eyes. It was so easy and good for Thomas with Eist.
The sounds in the room suddenly began to seem unbearably loud. Thomas's breathing and that scratching sound of the pen—scratch, scratch, scratch... It was boring right into his brain.
"Could you keep the noise down?!" Anastas threw out sharply and loudly into the silence of the room.
Thomas flinched in surprise. The scratching of the pen instantly stopped. The youth froze for a second, and then slowly turned in his chair and looked at him. In his amber eyes, there was bewildered confusion.
"I'm sorry," Thomas replied. "I'll finish it later."
He didn't argue. He calmly stood up, carefully closed the inkwell, set the pen aside, and left the unfinished sheet lying on the table for the ink to dry.
It was exactly this calmness, this meek submissiveness that suddenly infuriated Anastas even more. He didn't like how good and understanding Thomas was. Why didn't he get indignant? Why wasn't he being stubborn, why wasn't he defending his right to simply write a letter? This perfect, all-forgiving softness of the youth now seemed like a sophisticated mockery.
Thomas, meanwhile, looked at the man again. He saw Anastas's tense posture, his pale face, and clenched jaw. The youth perfectly understood how hard it had been for him lately. Thomas absolutely did not want a conflict. Reasoning that Anastas needed to be alone right now, and that his own presence was only irritating, he made the only correct decision, as it seemed to him—to leave. Perhaps he should go downstairs and rent a separate room for the night to give his friend a breather.
Without uttering another word, Thomas headed for the door.
Anastas watched as the youth silently prepared to leave, leaving him alone with his own demons, and that became the last straw. His reason finally failed, giving way to blind, unjust anger.
"Why are you silent?" the voice caught up with Thomas right at the door, forcing him to stop. In Anastas's tone, there was a venom he hadn't expected from himself. "You don't like all this, do you."
Thomas froze right at the door. His hand, already resting on the forged latch, dropped powerlessly to his side. In the dim light of the single candle, it was visible how his back tensed. He took a deep, shaky breath, as if gathering his courage, and slowly turned around.
"Yes, I don't like what's been happening lately," Thomas's voice sounded surprisingly even, but behind it hid carefully restrained bitterness. "I don't like seeing you destroy yourself. You've closed yourself off, Stas. You say absolutely nothing and stubbornly refuse any help, rejecting anyone who tries to get close to you."
These words, spoken with bluntness, acted on Anastas like a spark.
"You want to help?!" his voice broke, sounding frighteningly loud in the cramped confines of the tavern room. "Fine!"
Anastas rose abruptly from the bed. In a few wide, swift strides, he crossed the room, ending up right in front of the youth. Thomas instinctively pressed his shoulder blades against the door, but did not look away.
"Then answer me," Anastas ground out, breathing heavily, towering over him. His eyes shone feverishly in the gloom, betraying the degree of madness to which he had driven himself with sleepless nights. "Who are you?"
The questions poured out of him in an uncontrollable, desperate torrent, mixing pain, doubt, and maddening uncertainty.
"Why did you get close to me? For what sake did you get involved in this cursed journey? Why the hell didn't you go back home after you almost got hurt in that brothel?! Why did you stay? Why did you crawl into my head so deeply that I can no longer breathe without thinking about you?!"
With every question, he pressed harder, leaving Thomas no chance to insert even a word. He was at his breaking point, his chest heaving heavily, and his hands noticeably trembling from restrained tension. He looked into this pale face, into those cursed, impossible eyes, in which shock and bewilderment were now splashing, and desperately searched them for answers that Thomas could not give him.
Anastas sharply threw up his hands, gripping the collar of Thomas's shirt with a death grip. The fabric pulled tight and tore pitifully. With one impulsive movement, he pulled the youth toward him and, not letting him recover or pull away, dug into his lips.
There was no tenderness in this kiss. It was a cruel, almost destructive collision, full of accumulated pain, jealousy, and madness. Anastas kissed him as if he wanted to tear the truth out of him or, finally, drown out that ruthless voice of the old woman that still echoed in his head.
The world outside the tavern walls ceased to exist. All that remained was this sudden, crushing fall into the abyss, toward which they had both been heading so long and inevitably.
For Anastas, this collision was a desperate attempt to feel out the truth, an attempt to wrest salvation from the universe and answers to those agonizing questions that were driving him crazy. He searched in the other's breath, in the yielding of his lips, for echoes of that past life, hoping that physical intimacy would destroy the insurmountable wall of doubt.
But for Thomas... for Thomas, in this sudden kiss, all those unspoken feelings hidden deep at the bottom of his soul, which he had carried through all the years of their friendship, intertwined into one. This was what he had dreamed of during long nights, what he had desperately and painfully chased away, terrified to death of giving himself away. He feared that one careless word or look would forever deprive him of the right to simply be near Anastas; he dreaded the condemnation and contempt in his friend's eyes. Over these year and a half, Thomas seemed to have forever buried the hope that this closed-off man would ever see someone more in him than just a loyal friend.
And now everything had collapsed. Anastas himself had taken this step, himself crossed the invisible line separating them from each other.
Out of surprise and the overwhelming realization of what was happening, Thomas went numb. He didn't dare, was physically afraid to touch Anastas in return—as if his slightest movement could destroy this fragile, impossible delusion, forcing him to come to his senses.
Sensing his confusion, Anastas pulled the youth even closer. His palm slid down Thomas's back and rested authoritatively on his lower back, leaving not a single inch of free space between them. From this searing, possessive touch, Thomas's breath caught, the room swam before his eyes, giving way to an intoxicating, reckless warmth.
But it did not last long.
The intoxicating veil suddenly fell from Anastas's eyes. The madness retreated.
He abruptly broke the kiss. The fingers that had just been gripping Thomas so tightly tensed. Anastas pushed him away.
"No," he exhaled hoarsely.
This short word was not meant for Thomas. It was directed at himself, at his own weakness, and at that cruel mockery of fate that had driven him into this trap. Anastas took a step back.
Thomas swayed, barely staying on his feet, and pressed his back against the wooden door. He stood, breathing heavily and erratically, with his eyes wide open, splashing with bewilderment. His lips burned, and his mind refused to understand and accept the cruelty of what had happened.
A second ago, these strong arms themselves had sought him, pulled him close, gripping him with such greedy, desperate necessity, and now they had thrown him away as if he were a leper. Thomas looked at Anastas's pale face, distorted by internal torment, and that timid, bright feeling that had just been ready to bloom in his chest crumbled to dust, leaving behind only a sharp, aching emptiness.
Thomas, deafened by this sudden change, turned around. His fingers fell on the iron latch, intending to leave this room immediately.
But he didn't manage to turn the handle.
Anastas suddenly and confidently grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around, and, without letting him recover, covered his lips with his own again.
Thomas's first instinctive impulse was to push the man away. Hurt and wounded pride demanded protection from a new shock, and he even slightly raised his hands, resting them against Anastas's chest. But this time everything was different. The kiss was not furious and rough. It was deep, languid, and sensual, and Thomas found himself absolutely unarmed. His fingers, ready to push away, clenched on the fabric of the other's frock coat. He simply couldn't force himself to pull away, once again realizing his weakness before Anastas.
Anastas really had cooled down. The first, mad wave of panic and anger had subsided, leaving behind only an irresistible need to understand himself. He no longer tried to tear the truth out by force; now Anastas wanted to be sure of his own feelings, to find the answer in Thomas.
Anastas deepened the kiss, softly but persistently penetrating Thomas's parted lips with his tongue. His arms confidently wrapped around his back, pressing him so tightly as if desiring to erase any boundaries between them. Anastas lifted him slightly, forcing him to lean completely on him.
Thomas no longer wanted to resist. Yielding to this gentle action, he raised his arms, and his palms rested on Anastas's neck, gliding over the skin and burying into the hair at the back of his head. A moment later, the youth felt the hardness of the door under his shoulder blades—Anastas had backed him up, completely depriving him of balance and avenues of retreat.
The silence of the room, which had seemed so oppressive until recently, was now filled with the sounds of their erratic, heavy breathing. Anastas, unable to pull away, slowly moved his kisses from the youth's lips to his cheekbones. His breath burned when his lips slid higher, ascending to the sensitive skin behind his ear. He kissed this fair, soft skin continuously, with a kind of starved trepidation, as if trying to erase the previously inflicted hurt with every touch.
Thomas threw his head back, closing his eyes. The world around had definitively lost its outlines. The youth was literally floating from the surging pleasure, dissolving. For all the years of their friendship, through all his secret, bitter fears, not even in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that this moment would ever truly become a reality.