Chapter Text
An intern forgot to knock on the door. Gears looked at her. She was reading a piece of paper in her hand aloud:
“Doctor Gears, I am here to inform you that your assistant is sick.”
“Thank you. Any diagnosis.”
She turned the paper over:
“It says something about anomaly. Blood freezing in the veins, to be exact. I cannot really read the doctor’s handwriting in here, but it says something like fate?”
Gears got on his feet and grabbed the paper rather harshly.
“Fatal.”
“Doctor Gears, I will kindly have to ask you to stay away from the patient.”
“No one told me about his condition.”
“I believe that we have sent an intern.”
“That’s how you let me know? He is my assistant.”
“Yes. You will be assigned a new assitant after…”
Gears looked into the doctor’s eyes:
“After what?”
“You have read the note, doctor.”
“You cannot-”
“We cannot what?”
Gears didn’t know what to say. He had always been a calm man. But now, he was panicked. He knew what was coming. And he heard it calling: regret.
“Look, doctor,” the nurse softly spoke, “I understand.”
Gears nodded.
“Let me explain his condition. We believe that this is caused by his anomaly. He hasn’t been in any experiments or field duty recently, therefore we think that his anomaly determined his lifespan.”
“What is happening to him?”
“His blood is freezing slowly.”
“How are you treating him?”
“There is no way to treat him, I’m so sorry. We are doing our best to slow down the process. At first, we tried to warm him up. But that caused his skin to have burns, even up to second degree ones. We stopped that. Now he has IV hooked. It doesn’t stop the freezing but buys us some time until…”
“I understand. May I see him?”
“Doctor, you are heavily advised against-”
“Yes or no?”
“You may see him.”
Gears got up and opened the door.
There was Iceberg, laid on the hospital bed. His skin was paler than ever. He wasn’t moving. His slightly parted mouth was inhaling and exhaling deeply. He almost looked like a statue. If the ancient Greeks wanted to make a statue of a burning life that ends in ice, he would be the result. And Gears stared. He felt the cold Iceberg was radiating.
“His body temperature is below -20 degrees Celcius. It is getting lower and lower.”
Gears ignored it. He touched Iceberg’s hand.
“Do not approach the patient, doctor. He will hurt you too.”
Gears ignored it once again. His head was way too full of regret to listen to anyone else’s words. He felt regret already. He wished he could tell Iceberg that he liked him. He wished he could hold him. He wished he could just do something sooner. It’s odd how things end, and it is known that things end, but we never really remark upon anything.
Gears climbed on the hospital bed. The nurse’s mouth opened, but Gears shut any upcoming words up with a stern look. It was hard to fit on the bed, but he did anyway. He embraced Iceberg, mindful of his IV. He deeply exhaled, hoping to warm him even if just a little.
Iceberg opened his eyes. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He just smiled, just a little bit. He whispered hardly:
“Hey man. Welcome.”
And Gears cried. Two tears, yes. Just two tears, solely two tears. It was little for a normal human being, but for Gears… He was broken inside. He was broken outside. He was broken everywhere. He held Iceberg closer, the cold burning through his skin. He sighed sharply -the cold was hurting a lot. Just like knives. But he hugged him tighter.
Iceberg spoke again:
“The doctors want you out.”
Gears said nothing.
And Iceberg smiled again, wider this time. He knew that it was time. He knew that it was not preventable. He knew that it was impossible to stop it. He just smiled, just to calm Gears down.
“You know what, Charles?”
And Gears wished that he could call him “Julian” too.
“Yes?”
“Don’t let me go, man. Stay.”
Gears didn’t let him go. He stayed. Iceberg moved his head despite the tremendous pain. He leaned in. Gears touched his frozen cheeks. Iceberg pressed his lips on Gears’, breathing out. It felt like a winter’s breeze on Gears’ face. It felt like an icicle on Gears’ lips. It hurt, it burnt, it froze. But Gears didn’t care. He didn’t let him go. He stayed.
“Doctor.”
Gears didn’t move. He held the cold body even tighter.
“Doctor. It’s done. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”
And Gears looked at the face in front of him. Indescribable. Void. Something unnatural, existing as a law of the most natural. Something unusual, existing as the truth of the most usual.
The doctors and the nurses helped Gears on his feet. A nurse noticed that Gears’ skin had turned purple and even black at some parts.
“Doctor Gears, are you-”
Gears lost balance. No one managed to catch him. They could only pick him up and take him to another hospital bed.
“Frostbite,” said his file. “Frostbite”. A lonely word, compared to all the crazy causes of death that was written on his colleague’s death certificates.
Maybe it was something more than that. There was a high chance of his blood freezing too, but an autopsy was not permitted. They were afraid that it would affect the autopsy doctor, then the assistant, then the doctors, then the nurses… So they let it go.
The squad watched the tombstones. Iceberg’s grave had blue roses. Gears had black ones. They read them aloud, one by one.
They stood in front of Iceberg’s.
Clef read it first:
“You were a bastard but we loved you. Missed you already. Motherfucker.”
Kondraki was the next:
“We fucked many a shit up, having fun.”
Rights:
“Farewell to the cookie monster.”
Glass:
“You were special to me, buddy.”
Bright:
“You can’t leave us like that, fucker. Don’t make me cry now…”
Strelnikov:
“Will light a Molotov for you.”
Gerald:
“You’d joke that I’d get you killed. Neither of us imagined that. Fare-ye-well, man.”
Then they stood in front of Gears’:
Clef:
“Never thought that you’d die. Spend time with your lover.”
Kondraki:
“To eternity, good man. Be happy.”
Rights:
“May the love in you warm you up.”
Glass:
“I hope you are able to smile as much as you’d like.”
Bright:
“If my necklace wasn’t a curse, I’d like you to be in it and live forever happily.”
Strelnikov:
“A true leader, a true commander, a real man. Thank you, sir.”
Gerald:
“I wish you were me, so that you’d stay. But you’d hurt. But we hurt too now, without you.”
Their own “Memento Mori”s winked at them as they looked around aimlessly. But none of the engravings stood out as much as Gears' and Iceberg's.
Seven personnel. Seven personnel in lab coats. Seven personnel in lab coats, in a silent graveyard.
They watered the roses and went back to work. After all, that’s how things were. That's all they could do.