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The intention had not been to settle down in a decrepit mansion on an island in the Baltic Sea but alas, after what he’d been through for the past several years, he’d have taken anything. Hell, if death was an option for him, he’d have taken that in a heartbeat except he couldn’t. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t die at all, so he wouldn’t. He had to keep going. Eventually, he’d have to leave that mansion behind so he’d do his best not to get too attached to it’s falling ceilings and weak floors. For now, though, it was home. Home for him, and home for three others.With the power that he obtained, he knew that he’d need protection so before he officially moved in to the mansion, he hired a set of three. An accountant, a bodyguard, and a doctor. All different within their own right who shared two aspects. They could not remember a single aspect of their lives before they stepped foot on to that island, and they would swear their loyalty, their finances and their personalities to their boss. To none other than the man who named himself Kurt. With a name like that, it was common enough to blend in with the background. He’d done his research. He knew it was German. He knew that it was a common name in Germany, where he lived off the coast of. It was his safest bet. He couldn’t risk anything, especially when it came down to the diminishing of his life.He hired Gisela last, having found her in her element within the elements of Germany. He needed someone to protect the experiments he was creating. He needed someone to protect him while he developed these scientific breakthroughs. He needed someone to keep the products of the lab safe while making sure the target on Kurt’s back didn’t get any larger. She was already within Germany, for that was where she was born and grew up, so transporting her to the island was no issue. She was already there. He met her at a lumberyard when he went to collect firewood. She just so happened to be there, and happened to be the best decision he’d ever met.He met Renata after her time in prison. An Italian flower, Kurt could never forget the look in her eyes. They lacked the emerald glow they obtained now, as did the rest of her. She was a husk of her former self, a shell, perhaps. She was sunken in, tired, and distraught from the effects she’d undergone. She had turned to Kurt in time of desperation, and how could he say no to a girl like that? She was still young. She still had her whole life ahead of her. He’d help by giving her a job, setting her on a new path to life. She would never remember how they really met. He would remind her that he had hired her to help with his accounting. He wasn’t good with math, but she was. Not that it was truth. Hardly anything he spouted was the truth unless it came down to one specific person.Dimitri Kuznetsov was someone who Kurt had not intended to meet, but after being so sickly, so down in that alleyway, he was more than relieved to greet him in his life. The man, when they first met, was 27, though Kurt had dismissed him for 14. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t eaten properly for months and his vision was beginning to blur. No, he knew he couldn’t die but he could certainly feel the effects. Only when Dimitri got close enough did the gears click into place for Kurt. The gloves. The lab coat. He was a doctor, and a rush of relief ran over him.“Sir, are you alright?” Asked the doctor, who at the time remained nameless.Kurt swallowed down the water that was being pressed to his lips. “…I apologise—”“—do not. I’m a medical professional. I’m trained in recognising when someone is under the weather and you, sir, looked as if you were about to faint…were you?”“…I believe so.”The young doctor looked around. “Do you leave nearby?”“…do I?”“We are in a village of sorts, it appears. Is one of the houses yours?”“No,” Kurt said, the firmest word he’d mustered since the beginning of the encounter. Not that he could remember how the encounter began…God, he was turning into his ex wife. Not that they were legally divorced. Or legally married. “No, I do not live on this side of the sea.”“The sea?” The man tilted his head. “Are you Swiss?”“…Swiss?”“…Switzerland is on the opposite side of the Baltic Sea, if that is what you mean…We’re in Stralsund, Germany—”“Stralsund?!”“Sir,” The doctor said, keeping his voice tense. “Stay seated. If you move, you may faint, and that will do you no good. Keep drinking this water. We can talk while you’re sat.”“What on God’s name am I doing in Stralsund?!” From the pocket of the lab coat he was wearing, the doctor jotted something down. “Are you able to recall where you live?”“In a mansion on an island. I can only access it through boat.”“And it is nearby?”“It should be.”“Alright, sir. We are about fifteen minutes from the sea. Do you have anyone who can get you to your ho—”“—no.” The doctor blinked from his blunt force nature. “…alright then well, as a professional, I feel…not so comfortable in…how you say? Leave you on your own?” He stood up from where he was crouching, allowing Kurt to see his full height. 5’2, roughly. No wonder he looked like such a child. His true form would surely frighten him. The poor guy. Still, the doctor offered Kurt his hand. “Take this. We shall go together.”Knowing he shouldn’t be left alone in a state like that, the internal conflict began, starting with Kurt asking, “I know she sent you.”“…who?”“…my wife.”Kurt could see the confusion settle behind the doctor’s eyes. “Should we not get you back home to her?”“Absolutely not. And I never caught your name. Speak.”“…my name is Dimitri Kuznetsov, I-I am a doctor—”“Alright, Dimitri. Listen here.” He grabbed on to his hand, hauling himself up. As expected, he towered over him. At his grand height of 6’4, if it wasn’t for his face to scare him, then it would certainly be his height. “I feel as if I will faint. Most definitely, I shall get seasick. My boat is on the shore. You will have to row. If I find out you are a traitor and are working for her, I will rip the skeleton from your skin, plucking your ribcage apart bone by bone while ensuring you remain awake throughout the entire process. Do you understand?” Dimitri gulped. “Y-Yes sir—”“—good. Now walk.”Kurt tried to hate Dimitri. He tried desperately to hate him, but simply, he could not. When they got back to his mansion, Dimitri did not bother to comment on the state of the building. In fact, he allowed Kurt to lean all his weight on to him, despite Dimitri being more than a foot shorter than him. He practically dragged Kurt up to his bed, helping him inside and once he was comfortable (or as comfortable as he could be,) Dimitri began to nurse him back to health.He wanted to banish Dimitri from the mansion. He was from the East, much like his wife, so the trust was already at a minimal amount. With Dimitri, however, there was something there. Something different with how he acted. Something different with how he moved and spoke and lived. So, he kept Dimitri around.Vaguely, he remembered telling Dimitri to get out of his house once he was asleep, that he could use the spare boat to cross the sea. He also vaguely remembered Dimitri strongly against the point, but he was already half asleep by that point. When he woke, his fears were confirmed for Dimitri was there when his eyes fluttered open with what Dimitri called toast and another glass of water.“You should eat something,” He said with that sunshiny smile Kurt would eventually grow to treasure. “It will help with your spinning head.”Coming to terms with the situation, Kurt pushed himself to sit up. The shirt he was wearing was made of a finer material. Something silky, he could confirm, but the buttons were undone. He was wearing nothing but his undergarments, which had him side-eyeing the doctor.Dimitri dragged a chair he’d stolen from Kurt’s office down the hallway, pulling it up by his bedside. “You asked me to change you into something comfortable before you passed out. I obliged.”Kurt asked no more questions. He took the toast, he took the water, and he ate.Again, he asked Dimitri to leave. Again, Dimitri did not, saying, “I would rather stay an additional day or two. You were very sickly when I met you yesterday. As a doctor, I will remain until I find you fit to be left alone.”Another day passed and Dimitri stayed. Another day passed, and Kurt gave Dimitri access to the spare bedroom, one of the most put-together rooms that mansion had to offer. By the end of the week, Dimitri was wearing clothes Kurt somehow managed to find. Then, after a month, they were getting to know each other within closer boundaries.What wasn’t supposed to last a day managed to last an entire year, and that was when Kurt made the jump to ask Dimitri to stay there, on the island, with him permanently.Dimitri Kuznetsov became Kurt’s first paid staff member, even if it was just the two of them. He introduced Dimitri to the lab, allowing him to experiment to his hearts content. He allowed Dimitri to explore the mansion, and Kurt would answer any questions that would raise. It raised several flags for him. Giving Dimitri full reign of the mansion, he half expected for the questions to come sooner than later but they didn’t. They didn’t, until Renata joined their team at the mansion in all their broken glory. Then and there, Kurt knew he could no longer keep himself a secret. He needed to tell the truth.It was January, Kurt remembered, when he returned home to the mansion with Renata. She spent the majority of the time vomiting her guts up over the side of the boat. He put it down to the fact she had travelled north from Italy, so she hadn’t had the chance to experience the sea at its roughest, especially given she had just come out of prison. She was still green in the face when he escorted her up the pathway to the mansion.There, descending the staircase with a clipboard in hand, was his treasured doctor, babbling some nonsensical Russian to himself. Kurt, logically, went to call out to his colleague, but by that point, Renata was swaying again.She gripped on to Kurt’s arm as if her life was dependant on him holding her upright, before her face went green again. Kurt, as if on cue, reopened the front door, allowing Renata to vomit again in the grass.That drew Dimitri’s attention to the both of them. “Oh! Kurt, you are back.”“Fuuuuuck,” Renata groaned as she stood herself back up. “I’m so sorry—”“It isn’t a problem. As long as you don’t get it on the rug.” Kurt smiled up to the doctor on the stairs.“…you brought back a girl?”“There’s another guy here?” Renata asked, rubbing her eyes. “Oh, shoot, hi—”“Allow me to introduce you to our on site doctor. Dimitri, this is Renata. Our patient.” Dimitri blinked twice before nodding, descending from the stairs. “It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Renata…?”“Renata Ancelotti.”“The prisoner, okay. I am glad we are on the same page.” He extended a hand, shaking it when Renata took it. “Doctor Dimitri Kuznetsov. Please, allow me to go and get you some anti-nausea. Kurt, where should Renata’s room be?”“We shall put Renata on the couch for now until your room is ready, if that’s okay with you, Renata?”She waved a hand dismissively. “As long as I ain’t sitting up then…yeah.”“Alright. Allow me to take you,” Dimitri said, taking Renata from Kurt. “And while you’re here, Kurt…may I speak with you upstairs once Renata is settled?”“Of course,” he said, despite the fact a pit dropped into his stomach. “I shall see you in my study.”Half an hour later, there was a gentle knock on Kurt’s door, and his eyes looked up from his papers momentarily. “Yes?”Dimitri walked in, closing the door behind him. He walked over to Kurt’s desk, draping his arms over Kurt’s shoulders. “Renata is settled, Kurt.”“That’s good to know.”“Didn’t take too well to the waters?”“She’s been unsteady since she sat in the boat.”“…alright.”Having spent enough time with the man, he brought a hand up to lace with Dimitri’s while he wrote down an important note. “You’re holding back on something. Sit. Let’s talk.”There was hesitancy in the way Dimitri walked. There was hesitancy in the way he sat down. There was hesitancy in his tone when he asked, “What’s with the oak tree out the back of the house?”
Kurt stalled, gripping his pen tighter. “…how did you discover the oak tree?”“It looked…uncommon when I saw the other trees in the surrounding woodland. Do you…know about it? Why it is an oak tree?”“I would know of it’s significance, yes.”The two sat in silence while Dimitri waited for an answer, which he absolutely was not going to get. Not until Kurt heard him ask, “Are you going to tell me, or…?”Kurt set his pen down then, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “What is it you wish to know?”“…I wanted to know why there was an oak tree instead of another but…Kurt, you are acting suspicious—”“—Dimitri, under no circumstances must you go near that oak tree again. Do you understand me?”“Loud and clearly, I want to know why though—”“So you are asking for the truth?”“If that is what you are willing to confess then I will gladly take it.”Kurt pondered on the matter at hand for another few seconds, desperately trying to figure out the best way to explain why he’d chosen the oak tree specifically. He knew there was no going back after that. He knew it, but he could not risk seeing the hurt, fear and confusion on Dimitri’s face. For that reason, he gestured for Dimitri to move up the table to sit beside him rather than opposite. Once Dimitri was settled again, he turned to his partner, pushing his research away. “The last thing I want is to scare you, Dimitri. My dear Dimitri…”“…you’re scaring me now, though…what…what’s going on?”“…You’re smart enough. What do you think is going on?”“Kurt, I could not tell you. Not even in a million years. What I know is we have this new patient to perform some sort of…ritual-esque performance on and…Kurt, I don’t think we should do the procedure.”“I am not asking you to do it, Dimitri. I am telling you.”“But she could die. Paralysed, at the worst. We haven’t experimented on this enough to know that it’s safe—”“It’s either her or the remains of humanity. I can stop everything with just that one person—”“—what are you talking about, Kurt?!” “…Dimitri…I know how you…feel…towards me,” Kurt started off softly, not failing to notice the blush forming on the doctor’s pale skin. “Which is why I tell you this in true nature…my name is not Kurt, which is why there is no evidence as to my existence.”Dimitri’s eyes widened. “How-““You may be smart but I will forever be smarter than you. Do not forget, I’m aware of my own research. I’m aware of my own notes. I know you’ve been trying to identify me from the first week you were here.”The silence coming from Dimitri was deafening.“Today you get answers, for you asked for them.” He turned to face him properly, then. “Though I fear you will not like the answer.”“…is this to do with your wife?”“…partially.” He clasped his hands together. “Do not let this information leave this room. Understand?”“Loud and clear, sir.”“Good.” Casually, he leaned back, kicking his feet up on to the desk. “I am known throughout the lands of Poland, specifically, as an immortal fool. An accompanier to The Eastern Witch. I endorsed what she did. I helped her kill those children…all of those children…the way she pressed that knife into my hands to ensure that the last thing some of those kids heard was my name…if I was able to pass, I’d say that I don’t know how I live with myself knowing my name is the last thing they heard before their souls and bodies were consumed by her.” “…what’s so significant about your name?”He chuckled. “Because, Dimitri, my full name, and title, is Koschei the Deathless. I made a deal, allowing my soul to be split, and the item my soul is stored in is buried beneath that oak tree. It’s the one thing she craves the most.”“She?”“My wife. Technically. We never legally married, nor divorced. We use the title because…well, she’s unfortunately my soulmate which is why I turn to you to say this.” He took Dimitri’s hand. “She will eventually hunt me down and she will kill anyone in her way to get to me. My dear Dimitri, I shall never allow her to hurt you. If she lays a finger on you, there will be Hell to pay. I will not allow your blood to spread on my hands. Do you understand?”“…sort of I just-“ He tugged his hand away. “You can’t die?”“Not unless that object is destroyed.”“What object?”“If I say then you will search for it, and in the process, you’ll unwillingly destroy it.”“…but you’re immortal with that object in existence.”“Correct.”“And so is she, I take it.”He nodded. “Except she will pass naturally with time. I…will not.”“…is that why you rejected my advances?”That question was not one Kurt ever thought he’d hear Dimitri say. It was not on his agenda of questions to answer, catching him by surprise. “…hmm?”“…you…” Dimitri moved his chair closer, cupping Kurt’s face in his. “I know you, K-…”“Kurt. Using my title brings her closer to me.”“…Kurt…I know you, now. For months I’ve wondered what it is about me that you do not want…hell, it got to the point that you were rejecting me because I’m Russian—”“—Dimitri, no.” “It’s because you’re ageless. Because you’re endangered.” He stroked Kurt’s cheekbone with his thumb. “But tell me, Kurt. When was the last time you were loved? When was the last time she loved you?”Kurt struggled to reflect without going tense. “…she never loved me. She kept me hostage in her basement—”“—I wouldn’t hurt you like that.”“…I know you wouldn’t.”“Then may I ask you something?”“You know you can.”“Why won’t you let yourself be loved now?” Silence follow. Dimitri proceeded. “You will outlive me. That I know, and I have no idea how old you are but if we’re here right now, and she’s not hunting after you—”“—she’s always hunting after me—”“—then why not let me love you now? In the present?” He leaned in. “You can have me, Kurt. For no price other than to let me care for you when needed.”“…it’s dangerous.”“Everything is dangerous for me. I’m simply from the east and not from Russia because of it. Kurt…you can want me and have me to your heart’s content. I can be yours if you wish.”With a reassuring look into Dimitri’s beautiful brown eyes, Kurt moved his hand to Dimitri’s hip. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”“Then show me. Teach me your ways.”Kurt sealed the gap between them, placing a hand on the small of Dimitri’s back as he dipped him down, kissing him with a thirst he’d been dying to quench for years. Eventually, when they pulled away, Dimitri stared up at him with the most sunshine-y grin he’d ever known the man to occupy.“Yours?” He asked feebly.“…my Dimitri. My dear Dimitri,” Kurt reassured, helping him to sit. “I will ensure nothing is to happen to you. With me, you are safe.”Childishly, he giggled before collecting himself. “Um-Renata, she is asleep. Shall I go and set up her bed? In the spare room or—”“Give her space tonight, Dimitri, but yes. Do that.”“…space? But…it’s…my room too?”Kurt stood, gesturing for Dimitri to follow. “Tonight, you shall spend the night with me. In my quarters. Understood?”“…yes, Kurt.”“Good…now tend to our guest and begin to prepare the laboratory. We’ve got a big experiment ahead of us, dear. Get prepared.”