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For most of the town it begins with the arrival of Emma Swan. For Victor, it begins with a question.
"Why do you do what she says?" The man leaning against his doorframe is made of expensive clothes and smoky eyes. Whale can't tell if his lips are pursed or if they're just naturally that plump and inviting.
"Regina?" It's not as if he could be talking about anyone else, but the question slips out anyway. The man rolls his eyes. There's something familiar enough about him that Whale isn't alarmed by his presence, which is actually kind of alarming in and of itself if he thinks about it too much so he doesn't. "Why do you think? She's dangerous. She ruins lives on a whim. She could destroy me." It's not something that's supposed to be voiced, but everyone knows. What would be the point of power, after all, if people didn't know you had it?
The man is quiet for a very long time. His eyes, a chilly shade of blue, bore into Whale like icepicks. "She already has."
There's something honest hiding under those words. It scares him. "Who are you?" Whale half rises from his chair, the wheels spinning as he pushes back from his desk.
"That's my business." The man whirls on a heel, careless grace in every line of movement. He lifts a hand, a dismissive gesture or a wave or both. "Better question: Who are you?" Whale is indignant, and more shaken than he's willing to admit even to himself.
"I'm-" He stops, the man has already turned into the hall. He hurries forward to look out, but the hospital is silent as the grave.
No one calls him by his first name. No one asks about it either. He's been on dates, he's slept with people, he's lived in this town for... as long as he can remember. His whole life, probably.
He feels like he doesn't know anyone. Faces he's seen every day for years, people whose names he speaks just as often, and when he looks at them it's always with an odd feeling of disconnection. As if he's seeing them for the first time.
God, he's so tired.
"So have you figured it out yet?" Whale freezes midstride, because that voice is familiar. It's that man, same clothes, same intense piercing gaze, same air of invested disinterest. Different setting though, he lounges over the park bench as if it were a velvet chaise, right arm resting on a propped up knee.
"You again." Whale frowns and turns to face him properly and doesn't know why.
"Me again." The man parrots, tilting his head jauntily. A smile appears like light flashing off the blade of a knife. It vanishes just as quickly. "But who are you?"
"Dr. Whale." Dr. Whale says flatly, there are few enough doctors in town that this man should know him, if he's been here for any length of time at all. And he must have been. A newcomer would cause a stir.
"Dr. What Whale?"
"Sorry?"
"You do have a first name, don't you?" The man's chin lowers, his expression goes blank and yet there's something expectant in the way he stares. Whale doesn't like it.
"Of course I do." He snaps, not in the mood for games, he doesn't like games, or does he? No, he decides, he doesn't. Not this sort.
"Well?" The man is smiling again, "Let's hear it."
"Why should I tell you? I don't even know you." Why is he getting so defensive about this? It's just a name. He'd given it to plenty of strangers in the past, that was how people stopped being strangers. But something about this man unnerves him, and he can't quite bring himself to answer.
"That's true," The man says slowly, there's something about his tone that makes Whale want to take the words back though. Something sad, and the man looks away and Whale knows the ache of loneliness too well not to recognize it when he sees it.
"Walk with me." His mouth says without consulting his brain, and the look the man gives him is so startled, so wide-eyed deer in headlights that for a second Whale doesn't know which of them is more lost. The man springs to his feet without a word, quick as a rabbit and twice as lithe, and he takes short steps with his long legs until he stands at Whale's side. He isn't small but he is shorter than the impression he gives, up close and standing, though the heels on his boots put him even with Whale as far as height goes. He stands on the balls of his feet and watches with silent attention, saying nothing until Whale realizes that he's waiting for him to start walking. So he does.
They walk. They do not speak. People pass them on the street without a second glance, people he's passed and spoken to and even treated and it still takes him a moment to place every face. When they reach the hospital Whale hesitates, wondering if the man will follow him in, wondering if he should tell him not to. He glances over at him and meets a steady crystal blue gaze.
"Jefferson." The man says.
"What?" Whale replies intelligently.
"Me." Jefferson says, his red lips twitching into a smirk. He spins on his heel, just like the first time they met, and suddenly Whale isn't sure when that was. His long coat fans out behind him gloriously, and Jefferson strides away.
That evening, Whale goes home and stares into a bottle of whiskey and sees Jefferson's pale blue eyes.
It isn't as if it's the first time he's felt attraction to another man. He tends to prefer women though, which is a blessing for so many reasons. The problem is really that it isn't a mere matter of physical attraction, which he knows how to deal with, or even romantic interest, which he doesn't but at least understands. It's that something else entirely is both drawing him to Jefferson and making him want to pull away and he has no name for it at all.
"Well if it isn't the good doctor," Jefferson looks like he feels, expensive clothes in disarray and brown curls flopping into his only partially focused eyes. When he smiles this time it's wide as the cheshire cat and even more unhinged. He has an arm slung around a lamp post as if it's an old friend, and that's probably the only reason he's still on his feet. Whale really doesn't need this after a 48 hour shift. Whale really doesn't need this at all, ever.
"You need to go home," He enunciates clearly, "And so do I." He attempts to walk straight past and quite nearly makes it before Jefferson launches himself from the lamp post, veers wildly through space, and latches onto Whale like a lifeline in a stormy sea. He smells like a bar.
"Take me home with you," Jefferson manages to slur without sibilants, and Whale is uncomfortably close to doing as he's told. How many times is it now that he's tried to fill the void with sex? How many times has it failed to do so, or worse, actually worked but only for a day or two? He doesn't want it anymore, he isn't sure he ever did, but he keeps going after it anyway. His attention is drawn to pretty people and Jefferson is very pretty and very close. And very drunk. Whale pushes him off and he goes stumbling away and turns it into a whirling dizzying dance. Then he throws up, mostly in the grass, a little on the sidewalk. Afterwards by some miracle he doesn't fall over, but he is swaying threateningly.
Whale resigns himself to a few more hours of postponed sleep, and goes to steady him. He makes Jefferson stand more or less still and digs his wallet out so he can find the man's address. Once he does it's a long, long walk beyond the edges of town to the mansion half swallowed by the line of the forest. He patiently pries Jefferson's keys from his shaking hands, and pushes him through the door as soon as it's unlocked. The house is clean and richly furnished, but about as lively as a cemetery. It's the most beautiful prison Whale has ever seen, and he leaves Jefferson laying on his couch humming something off-tune.
The walk to his own home feels even longer, and his bed is cold at the end of it but still soft. He's asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Whale dreams in monochrome.
Sometimes when he wakes the sight of the world startles him, so bright, so vivid, so alive. Eventually though the details all fade, like a picture left out in the sun, and he forgets his wonder until the next time he sleeps and wakes. Sleeps and wakes.
Tonight he stands in an empty tower room. There are ghosts all around him, not of people but of objects. Lightning flashes without thunder and the shadows in the corners coalesce into a shape. An elegant man with dark hair and a long coat that trails smoke as he walks, heels tapping against the cobbled floor to the beat of Victor's heart.
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," Jefferson says, and his eyes are endless blue. Blue in a world of black and white and silver. "Art sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore-Tell me what thy lordly name is?" He walks around Victor in circles so he has to turn to keep watching him.
Victor opens his mouth and says, "Nevermore."
Whale wakes up with such an intense feeling of loss that it's all he can do to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling. By the time he gets up and starts his morning routine, the dream isn't even a flicker of a memory. It isn't anything at all.
He does not see Jefferson for a very long time. He does not encounter him in the street, or find him standing in the hospital halls, or lounging on a park bench in the morning. He does not go looking for the mansion on the edge of the woods.
Whale goes to work, and then he goes home, except for the times where he goes to Granny's or the liquor store instead. He goes on the same first date five times and every time it goes badly because he can't stop staring at anyone, everyone else. His eyes wander as often as his thoughts. He walks through a haze of grey and stares at every bit of color he sees.
The old tower clock starts telling time again. There's a new sheriff in town, literally, and everything starts to change. Life starts to move, and it feels like waking up from an indefinite hibernation. Slowly, painstakingly, the haze is lifting. He laughs and means it for the first time since he can't remember when, but as sweet as Mary Margaret is in his arms, he knows she's thinking of another man. (And so is he.) He sends her flowers anyway, but she doesn't call again and he doesn't really want her to.
Jefferson walks, limps actually, straight into the ER and he has a concussion and a broken wrist and he still manages to charm the nurses in five minutes flat. Whale runs the x-rays himself, and sets the splint as well, and when he tries to ask how it happened Jefferson laughs and says a princess kicked him out a window.
"Right," Whale says dubiously, and tilts Jefferson's head back to check the dilation of those baby blues. "So that's what you've been doing since I saw you last? Antagonizing princesses?"
"Yes and no," Jefferson says on a sigh. The laughter is gone from his voice now, leaving his tone tired and empty. His pupils shrink under the penlight. Whale nods and makes a note of it. "That's what I've been doing the past few weeks. For the ten years before that I sat in my mansion and went even more mad than I already was."
"Ten years," It's Whale's turn to laugh, though he isn't sure he gets the joke. "It has been a while, but that's stretching it don't you think?"
"No." Jefferson says flatly. "We haven't spoken in ten years. Not since the night you found me drunk and left me on my sofa. I can take a hint, you know." With a start Whale realizes Jefferson is embarrassed about that night. Maybe that's why he stopped popping up in his life.
"Oh," Whale breathes. He half wonders if he should apologize, but quickly shakes the notion from his head. Jefferson had been drunk out of his mind, surely he didn't really take offense. "But that wasn't ten years ago, it was only... only..." He finds suddenly that he has no idea when it was. No sense at all of how much time has passed, but it couldn't have been... not more than a year, surely? Was it a few weeks? A few months? All he can say for certain is that it was before Emma Swan came to town.
"Ten years," Jefferson insists, laying back against the hospital bed, "Approximately." For all Whale knows, it might as well have been. He shakes his head again, feeling strange, and turns to leave the room and the concussed madman behind. A tug on his coat stops him, and he glances down to find that Jefferson has a deathgrip on his sleeve. "Look at me." Whale looks. Jefferson's face is pale and his hair is a mess and his lips are parted ever so slightly. They glisten in the harsh hospital lighting, recently licked.
Whale kisses him. It's a moment of weakness that turns into several moments of weakness when Jefferson kisses back with a fierce desperation, pressing their lips together with near bruising force and sending an electric tingle running down Whale's spine. In a single movement he pulls back and pushes Jefferson gently but firmly away, gasping raggedly for breath. He doesn't need a penlight to see his pupils dilate now. "I was beginning to think you weren't interested," Jefferson laughs dizzily, though his amusement turns into a wince and he leans his head back. Automatically Whale's gaze follows the line of his throat.
"What is that?" The question is poorly phrased, Whale knows a scar when he sees one. Jefferson's head curls forward again, dropping down until he's staring at the floor. His hands tug his scarf back into place, higher, shoulders hunched like a child huddling from the imaginary monsters under the bed.
"Bad luck and worse choices, reminder and regret." The cryptic answer hovers in the air between them, and Whale hasn't the heart to press for more. After another moment of silence, he looks up again. The crystal blue in his eyes has darkened to a stormy ocean. "I am alone in the world, my dear doctor, and it is entirely my own fault."
Whale has no idea what to say to that, so all he says is, "I'm sorry." Jefferson nods once, grimaces, and slowly leans back into the hospital pillows.
"Yeah. Me too." He replies. His eyes slide shut, and his breathing becomes steady. Once he's certain Jefferson is asleep, Whale goes to do his rounds. When he returns the room is empty, and he doesn't feel any surprise. The nightmares get worse.
The curse breaks hard and fast.
The citizens are relieved, and then outraged, and then relieved again, followed by frightened, frustrated, tenuous, they run through the whole emotional spectrum in the space of a few days. Victor goes along with it all because mob mentality is easier than dealing with his own problems. Blaming Regina is easier than blaming himself, and diving into a bottle is easier than admitting he doesn't know what to do. Several times he thinks he'll go find Jefferson, who must have known, somehow he had known the whole time- but the furthest he gets is the empty driveway of that lavish mansion and then he turns back and ends up in the bar or on the floor of his office.
Eventually, Jefferson finds him.
"Hello, Doctor," The hatter leans against the frame of Victor's office door. He isn't smiling. Victor stares at him and doesn't get out of his chair, not because he's drunk though. He's gotten better about that, since Ruby saved his life. Not completely better but... well, less awful, anyway. "Haven't seen you around."
Victor wants to answer. He just isn't certain how to explain that he wishes he was still cursed, because he doesn't want to know who he is, he doesn't want these memories. And yet at the same time he feels trapped, stuck in this world where he doesn't belong and cannot right the wrongs he committed, and how is he supposed to go and face the man he may be some kind of in love with when he can't even face himself? "Sorry." He manages finally, and winces because that's more than a little pathetic. Jefferson stares at him for a few seconds, blue eyes assessing with a single-minded intensity.
"I understand you're working through something, but I haven't actually got all day." He announces, "My daughter gets out of school at three." Something about the blunt practicality of his tone startles a laugh out of Victor, and Jefferson straightens up and moves towards him. "I'm tired of making the wrong decisions, so I'm going to give this just one go. It's your choice. Tell me to leave now, or kiss me and we'll figure the rest out later."
The "What?" dies on Victor's tongue, unspoken. He stares up at Jefferson, lips parted, mouth dry. Jefferson meets his gaze evenly, and in those pale blue eyes Victor sees everything he needs to. In a single, fluid motion he surges to his feet, grabs Jefferson by the lapels of that ridiculous coat, and kisses him as though it's the only thing in the world worth doing.
"Good fucking choice." Jefferson gasps when they, briefly, break apart. For the first time in a long time, Victor feels he may not be cursed.