Chapter Text
Munich is cold.
This is the first thing on Victor’s mind as he wakes.
The second is that he should have worn more than just his boxers to bed.
He closes his eyes against the gray light coming in through the window. His room is white, almost blindingly so, and although the light is dim, it reflects off every surface. He pulls the plush duvet up over his head, conserving what heat is left where he had been lying, and dreads having to get up and go to work.
Still, Victor manages to do so. When he can’t stand the boredom of lying there fully awake, he pushes the duvet off to the other side of the bed and swings around so that he is upright, his feet firmly on the cold concrete of the floor. He shivers and debates taking the overly-luxurious high thread count sheet with him, but ultimately leaves it on the bed; he does so hate to have messy sheets when there is no one to share them with.
Once his eyes have cleared properly, he stands, stretching his arms up toward the ceiling, then turns his hips to either side. He slides his feet into a pair of ridiculously large slippers, then heads to the kitchen.
The flat he’s been provided with is nice. He hadn’t had a chance to give it a thorough once-over; his flight had been delayed considerably, and he’d arrived in Munich a full five hours later than he was supposed to. Once he’d been directed toward the flat, he’d only had enough presence of mind to strip and collapse onto the bed.
But, now, he is able to look around. The kitchen, also sparklingly white, is equipped with state-of-the-art utensils. The brushed aluminum of the refrigerator and stove add no color. Victor almost wishes they were pink or green, just so he won’t have to look at boring old white for the next six months.
There is a basket on the table in the living area, filled with food, wine, and other essentials. There is also a card attached, but Victor does not read it. He knows who the basket is from. Among other things is a box of tea bags, and Victor takes these out and starts boiling water in the (white) kettle provided.
Also on the table is a newspaper, The London Times. It is folded in half and face-down; the only reason Victor knows it is the Times is because of the title at the bottom of the front page. He does not flip it over. Instead, the kettle whistles, and Victor pours himself a (again, white) cup of tea.
One sugar, a splash of cream. He stands in the kitchen, savoring the taste. It is his favorite brand, and he is once again thankful that he has friends in the business who take notice.
There is a television just above the dining table. He sits down in the chair in front of it, turning so that he can face it as he turns it on with the remote. Luckily, it is plugged in and works fine. The channel it’s been left on is the nature channel, and Victor chuckles at the thought of some criminal mastermind watching cute kittens and puppies.
He flips the channel to the news which, surprisingly, is not in German. In fact, the anchors appear to be those from BBC News in London. He pays little mind to it, listening with one ear as he inspects the rest of the items in the gift basket. Biscuits, popcorn, ammo, sweets. He opens a sleeve of biscuits and eats one or two, then turns back around toward the television with his tea.
The headline is bold and covers the entire lower half of the screen, but he does not read it. The sports anchor is interrupted as a light flashes at the bottom of the screen, indicating that something new has come up. This, Victor pays attention to.
“Breaking news. The self-proclaimed consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes—“
Victor smiles.
“—Is dead. He committed suicide by jumping from the roof of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital—“
The television fades into silence. The hum from the refrigerator is gone. The teacup in Victor’s hand falls to the ground and breaks against the concrete, spilling the tea all over the floor, but making no sound. The only thing Victor can hear is the blood pumping through his ears.
And still the world turns. The anchors keep speaking words he can’t hear, showing video footage of a stretcher, then a body bag, and ultimately a coroner’s car. There is an interview with a man; his name and the words “friend of the deceased” are at the bottom of the screen. After his interview, the shot returns to the anchor, and a story about a heroic dog begins.
Victor doesn’t see this. He falls to his knees long before the dog story, before the interview, before the video footage. The tea has slowly spread out so far that it touches his leg, his feet, but he doesn’t feel it. The cold of the concrete is nonexistent against his skin. His hands rest limply on his thighs, palms up and cupped. His mouth is a small O, his eyes half-lidded, and it is several seconds before he buries his face in his hands, leaning over so far that his hair brushes against his knees.
He does not cry. There aren’t any tears left for him to cry even if he wanted to. He is empty, broken, straight down to his soul. The void in his chest swallows him whole, and the steady pulse of blood passing through his ears is all he can hear. It is amplified; it becomes so loud that his eardrums might burst from the sound, and he puts his hands over them to shut it out, to make it stop, but it keeps pounding, and there’s nothing he can do, and he’d rather be dead, because if he were dead at least he wouldn’t have to feel any of this—
But then it stops. Victor hears the television, not his pulse, and he can feel the wetness of cold tea on his leg and the discomfort of the floor against his knees.
Still, he kneels, his hands holding his face, crying dry tears.