The voice is what alerts him first, truly.
As the man speaks, and pulls bangs down- it hits him like a cannonball to the chest.
Orlov takes his glasses off his face and wipes them down with a corner of his shirt, placing them back on his hawkish nose to squint through the lenses.
Hurriedly, he brushes past Daniil to close the door- revealing that some time in Daniil’s absence, the professor had installed a wooden bar behind the door. He snaps it into place and tugs on it a few times to ensure its security, before turning back to his former student.
In much quieter, but excited tones, he speaks, “My boy, you were declared a traitor first and dead second-”
Orlov places his hands on Daniil’s shoulders- to test if he were truly there or not, and when his physical senses confirm the visual and auditory, he pulls the Bachelor in for a quick and firm hug.
“I’m so, very glad to see that you are not dead. I know the real traitor- that Telman!”
He shakes his head and releases Daniil, pacing slowly about the barren room, hands creeping into his pockets.
“I’m sorry about what happened, my boy. The world wasn’t ready for your Thanatica, it seems. I was devastated to hear about it, and… well, made a scene that made me rather unpopular with the Powers That Be- or rather, the Powers that Were.”
He sighs, “But… what happened, my boy? You look like you’ve seen Hell, swam the River Phlegethon, and fought your way past Cerberus to make it back to the living…”
An expression of concern washes over his entire being, before he hurriedly scrambles to the kitchen, murmuring, “Tea… tea… we can sit and chat- ah, where’s that blasted kettle…?”
He laughs out of a stressed excitement that there was still something so familiar as Orlov cleaning his glasses to lean on in times of true darkness. Orlov grabs his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. It’s returned. He takes that moment to bury his face into the old man’s lapel and sigh. Yes, of course it’s him, disgraced academic, and enemy of the state itself.
Orlov lets him go to balance back on his feet with a gentle pat to both arms.
“What on Earth is on your door... No. The world wasn’t ready for Thanatica, but I claim that it won’t ever be ready for Thanatica, damn it all. No matter what I do, if I would not be at the head of Thanatica, her research would be justification for the eugenics movements of each decade... Telman just proved that.”
He shakes his head, moving after him to the kitchen and searching for the kettle in its usual place, finding it on its hook and more weathered over the years. He misses Andrey, as he often does when memories crop up.
“It’s a long story. A shorter version of it, there is a bacterial plague I have been fighting in the Steppe, more deadly and ruthless than any Yersina bug. It’s a consequence of valiant effort. God, I tried, but it spread anyways.”
He opens the tap of Orlov’s waterline and fills the kettle for him, minding placing it on the stove himself.
“Soon, I won’t be labeled a traitor anymore. Neither will the Stamatins. They are alive, can you believe it...?”
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annaxmalina
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