Chapter Text
A watched pot does not boil. Indeed, the kettle is still cold. While the fire licks the copper warm, Henry places the dry teapot near the heat, the leaves within tepefying.
“Victor, would you like some tea? I’ve brought some from India. Double infusion. Think you can stomach some, old man?”
In a cot across the room, a small form resembling Victor Frankenstein trembles from under several blankets.
He’s thinner than he’s ever been. Some would say nothing but a silhouette. In reality, this is just the grief and the narcotics. Both devour soul and body without discrimination.
Victor’s chapped lips form the ghosts of words. “Yes, thank you. I’ll try.” His voice is croupy with thickened saliva and exhaustion.
The young doctor crosses the tiny room in two-and-a-half stretches of well-dressed pant leg. He squats down, palming the side of Victor’s head. A pained gaze falls upon the man before him. Henry’s scrutiny is half professional inspection and half the bitten lip and deep inhalation of a concerned friend.
Dear God he looks like one of the cadavers he’d be working on in his laboratory, Jekyll thinks. Skin like an insect’s husk, pale like an old bar of soap.
Poor Victor. Why didn’t you call on me sooner?
Smoothing over the damp curls on Victor’s forehead, Henry’s free hand pulls the wool higher and tugs it under his patient’s stubbled chin. That’s when Victor accidentally shifts, the rough of his thirsty mouth grazing Henry’s soft flesh. Henry gasps at the touch, a feeling of sudden emptiness taking over his fluttering stomach. It's as if a thousand moths have been released all at once and have taken flight within him.
Henry jerks to attention. What’s all this?
The doctor takes a large, savory breath with parted lips. Fights the sudden urge to place a damp kiss upon Victor’s pallid cheek.
What am I doing? He catches himself before he actually does it.
But Jesus now the seed of whatever this was has been planted.
Victor’s teeth chatter, bringing on a whole new wave of shivers, while Henry feels like he's boiling in his skin. Victor's red-rimmed eyes fly open in distress.
“Is it going to rain, Henry? Why such a wet chill to my bones?!”
Rain. While he was still pursuing his experiments, it was Victor’s obsession. Lightning, to be precise. The spark necessary to give life and the ability to harness it literally consumed Victor. He would open the window each morning and smell the air with pronounced sniffs and flared nostril. Victor would scrutinize the sky and wonder if the ashen color was a permanent part of London’s temperament or a sign of impending inclement weather.
That was then, of course. When he was still pursuing the dark art of reanimation. All his failings have taught him better now.
They are burned onto his heart lest he forget.
Pyrography for sinners.
Dr. Jekyll, shaken from his reverie, angles his head away. “Don’t think so, brother. The sky is clear. That’s still just the morphine withdrawal. Are you hungry, Victor? Is your appetite coming back? I can make you something if you can wait a few minutes for the tea to seep.”
Clearing his throat, Henry swallows hard and pats over covers what he surmises to be the cap of Victor’s bony knee.
Henry rises nervously, nearly knocking over a chair, and walks back to the stove.
Waiting. That word strikes a match in the pitch darkness for the ailing physician. More light on the who than the why or the when, though.
Victor has waited for many things. For many people. Some he doesn’t know will ever appear again.
I have about as much control over my sentiments as I do the weather, he concludes.
“What do you say, old boy? Can you stomach some mash?” Henry asks, his worn visage peeking over his shoulder. Victor isn’t paying attention. His glossy gaze is drawn past the chamber pot and the bucket, to the drawer near his bed. That’s where the revolver is wrapped in cloth.
It still smells like him. Like Ethan. Something left of his touch there, but more than anything there’s the scent. That is all Victor has of him now.
A cramp builds in his belly at the thought and he grimaces. The fourth day of his detox has begun. Victor doesn’t know if the craving is worse than the longing. For both the drug and for Ethan. Or is Ethan his new drug?!
Victor can live without morphine. He doesn’t think he can live without Ethan.
“Victor, the tea is ready,” says a voice. Victor loses sense of his surroundings. Henry stands by the door and something is happening with the kettle but it’s just fuzzy movements perceived from the corner of his strained eye.
Has he lost the plot? Henry wonders as he observes from afar. Victor blinks and sees someone who isn’t there. A silly grin paints itself on Victor’s glistening face.
Ethan. Dear Mr. Chandler. Oh the sweet longing. He hasn’t seen him in… too long.
Where is he?! Is he in London? Will he ever gaze upon his soft cocoa eyes again?
And yet again, aren’t we just the ever living ghosts of what once was?! Victor thinks as he smiles at nothing. It quickly fades as his skin prickles over with another convulsion.
Henry pretends to busy himself with the pouring. Maybe Victor’s fever has gone up again and he’s delusional. He makes a mental note to check when he carries the cup over.
There is a time machine in Victor’s mind and it takes him back. To the day they met. To the dark hair that fell to Ethan’s strong shoulders, just barely grazing the top of his frock. Honey eyes that wrinkled around the edges when he smiled. The accent that molded Victor’s sharp-cornered name into something soft as it rolled off his tongue “Docterrr Frankenstein...”
“FRANKENSTEIN!” Henry yells to no avail.
Victor’s fingers play with the scratchy blanket in his clutch.
When did he fall in love? What was it exactly that...
It was the little glint in Ethan’s eyes when they argued the first time, that is when Victor hated and loved him simultaneously. Who knows why it took him so long to understand what the light lurch in his stomach meant whenever Ethan entered a room. It was the farthest thing from disdain.
God, I wasted so much time, he decides.
Victor inhales with rib-expanding effort. He can almost taste it on his tongue, the desire. Now he is back in the basement. Knees weak. Why did he think Ethan smelled of tack oil and pistol powder when in reality, as he held him tight and steady that time he taught him to shoot, he scented deeply of spice and root?! Intoxicatingly so.
“Victor!” Henry’s had enough. He’s been standing over the bed with a trembling cup of hot beverage for 2 minutes.
“Not the time to be daydreaming doctor! Victor, you there old boy?”
Victor glances over to the source of the voice, blinking away the distraction and the photophobia. “Sorry, Henry. I lost myself in thought for a moment. Pardon me.”
Two dark brows meet completing a question mark. “Not all there, Victor. Old boy if I didn’t know better I’d say you were smitten with someone. I haven’t seen you smile in days.”
Rose is not blush enough to match Victor’s renewed cheek color. And if blind hope had a shade it’d be Dr. Jekyll’s flushed skin tone in this moment.
Swallowing the tea being served to him with a spoon, Victor rebukes the notion. “Don’t be absurd, Jekyll. You know I’m dedicated to the pursuit of science.”
The doctor clucks his tongue at his colleague. “Please. Man does not live on science alone, Victor.” I should know. “You’ve got your eye on some pretty young thing no doubt.”
The sigh that follows is louder than the suggestion itself.
Victor’s composition could match the color of the curtains. Pretty young thing indeed. Pretty and young...but no fragile thing. So far from it.
“Perhaps… but it’s hopeless. The person in question is ... overseas. Uncertain is their return. It would be absurd to assume anything, let alone that they might reciprocate my feelings lest they make their way back.”
The young chemist grins. Despite his own conflicted (and unexpected!) feelings, he can discern the depth of Victor’s. Whoever this person might be (and it doesn’t take a Scotland Yard detective to uncover it’s not Henry), he deserves happiness.
“Though you may suffer, it’s nice to see your soul has found an ember. Hold on to that, Victor. You never know when it will spark into a flame.”
Victor scoffs, more alive in expression than he’s been in weeks a contrast to his statements. “Were it so, Henry, one would need the kindling and flint. Hard to start a fire with only a lump of coal.”
Jekyll sits up, dropping the spoon into the liquid. “Whoever this person is, Victor, if you were brave enough to let him go… you’re brave enough to let him back in.”
The trembling has subsided. A bit of color is returning to Victor’s complexion and love has flooded his heart. Only one person could truly put the light back into his eyes and a skip back into his weary heart.
"Can you do me a favor, Henry?"
Jekyll straightens himself and gives a toss of the head. Anything for you, Victor. He means it. Anything.
“What can I do for you? Tell me.”
A softness creeps into Victor's voice, almost like it's been coated in raw honey. “Henry, can you find me Ethan Chandler?”