Work Text:
He walked.
He walked not quite knowing where, or what to do, clutching the bundle to his chest in a halfhearted attempted to shield it from the icy wind.
Victor was dead.
Victor was dead and he was alone.
He staggered at the thought, fighting the rising sob in his throat, the sting of unshed tears.
Victor, of all people, deserved none of these. After all, how can such a man be mourned? A man- no, a boy, who thought himself worthy enough to bestow life upon the dead, only to abandon his creation at the moment of it’s birth. A coward who recoiled with horror at the very thing he created, a fiend who would deny his wretch any sense of compassion, or understanding, or companionship. A monster who allowed himself the luxuries of friendship and love, all the while denying his creation these same sensations.
A fool who would venture to the ends of the earth in a fruitless chase, even if it meant his own death.
No, Victor Frankenstein did not deserve to be mourned.
And yet his maker, the young man he had come to hate with such passion and fury lay dead in his arms, curled against his chest. Far too thin and far too pale. Brown curls dirtied with grey, much too young, whipping at his gaunt face.
He looked so small.
When he had taken Victor from the ship, he was taken aback by how light he was. He had picked him up as if he weighed no more than a child, still limp and warm with fever, finding himself afraid that the body would break apart in his rough hands, or dissipate like smoke or melt through his fingers and seep into the worn floorboards of the cramped cabin.
Yet nothing happened.
He was so used to his creator flinching away from his touch or sight, that having him so still and silent made him uneasy.
Even now, marching onward into the icy darkness, he half expected Victor to let out a sudden shout, to scream, to push himself away from the hand-me-down body that held him, only to tumble into the snow, all spitfire and curses.
But the body remained silent.
Victor was dead.
Victor was dead and he was alone.
A sudden flicker above caught his eye.
Raising his head, he let out sudden ragged breath and had to steady himself to keep from openly weeping right then and there.
The sky was alive.
Hues of green and white and purple painted the sky, dancing like a river of smoke, ebbing and flowing. It was like nothing he’d ever seen.
The world was a cruel place, full of cruel men, yet it still held beauty, even for a being such as him. A sunrise or sunset. Clouds that touched the tops of mountains. Freshly fallen snow. These were the only grandeurs his retched form was allowed.
Now, looking upwards at such a display of splendour, he could not help but feel his sunken cheeks dampen with tears, awash with awe.
'Nordlichter', comes the muffled voice in his arms. ‘Northern lights.’
He looked down, slowly. Fearfully.
Victor stared back at him – no past him, into the sky. His eyes, usually so sharp, were bleary and unfocused. His hollow face held the ghost of a smile on his cracked lips.
Gently, ever so gently, he sits down, holding Victor like one would a newborn child.
Tender and soft and so, so afraid.
He doesn't know what to do.
Victor doesn’t seem to notice him, his gaze having lost its signature scowl.
After a moment, he too returns his gaze upward.
What a pair they were. Two living corpses, sharing the silence and solitude, staring up in reverence at the untouchable heavens. This was probably the closest either would get to them. At this point, he figured they were both damned, with too many sins between them to count. That is, he wondered, if a body without a soul could be damned at all.
'Es tut mir leid', comes the voice again, barely a whisper. ‘I'm sorry.’
It breaks halfway through, and Victor starts weakly sobbing, his body curling inward, holding onto his creation like a drowning man, hand fisted into the tattered garments of his shirt.
He stares down at the bundle in his arms, yellowed eyes wide. Overwhelmed.
Victor had never willingly touched him before. Never reached out without meaning to harm.
He doesn't know what to do.
'Sie verdienen besser', Victor hiccups into his shirt, voice nearly dying on the wind. ‘You deserved better.’
The feeling of hot tears trailing his face surprises him. They fall onto his scared chest, landing in Victor’s hair, freezing like stars amongst the dark curls.
The boy was too late, as usual.
Victor had always been a being of hindsight, always regretting his actions when the damage had already been done.
It was as if a thick fog shrouded his path, blinding him from any foreseeable dangers. Yet, as if driven on by an unexplainable folly, he always ran forward.
Blindly. Stupidly.
Doomed to eventual destruction.
Fated to fall.
Holding his creator’s fading body, he understood this.
In some sad way, he knew that there was no other path for him, for them, than this. No one in this wide, cruel, beautiful world that could ever comprehend them in the terrible way they did each other.
This fog had swallowed them both.
Suddenly he wishes things were different.
Suddenly the whimpers stop.
Suddenly he’s left alone with the lights in the sky and a corpse in his arms.
Victor was dead.
Victor was dead and he was truly alone.