Work Text:
Mornings for a postman always followed a set number of daily routines. He would wake up before everyone else, shining boots echoing on the streets paved with setts as he made his way towards the beige building of the post office where the metal banner of the curled horn hung proudly above the door. But that entrance was not for them. Postmen had to take a different route and look for a smaller door on the side of the building. Less grandiose, yet to Victor, every workday felt like he was sneaking in through a secret entrance nobody else could access.
Usually, the letters arrived much earlier, either at night or when the sun was only getting ready over the horizon, but by the time he arrived, they were already sorted, waiting in a small red box to help him determine the route for that day. Even now, when he closed his eyes, Victor could picture the streets, the way the first rays of the morning sun slowly crept their ways into town, lighting up the top and sides of buildings, their windows blinding him with their light. How he would quietly hurry to his destinations after he brought something fresh from the bakery.
That was his life. His past and the charred future he had left behind. His bell would never ring again, people would never open their doors to rush out of their homes when he had deliveries that required a signature. His heart still constricted painfully at the loss of his old life and the longing never seemed to leave him completely.
He took the invitation because he had nothing else to lose anymore. The pitch black void in his life was already devouring him from the inside taking more and more with each passing day. After all, what was a postman without his job? Just a bird without a flock to return to.
The sheets rustled as he tried to turn around, his legs accidentally bumping into the other person sleeping next to him. Raising his head towards the window he could see the light blue skies and the pink tint that got stronger the lower his sight travelled. Usually he started the day around this time, already walking down the street with a bag filled with letters, right before the so-called golden hour occured, the short timeframe when the sun itself could colour the world.
As he sat, pulling hias knees closer so he could lean on them with his arms, he watched as his room was slowly painted in orange hues.
Wick’s fur got so bright and shiny! And his yellowed letters were glowing in the morning light. He was no painter nor photographer, but even he could appreciate the tiny specks of beauty held by the world. He started moving again, carefully lifting the blanket this time so he wouldn’t accidentally pull on it.
The sun was already high enough so its light warmed his skin, creeping closer and closer to the person who was sleeping next to him. Victor’s gaze followed its track, eventually stopping at Edgar’s sleeping form. There was something about him that seemed distinctly like a prince at rest, yet compared to the pristine look he showed to everyone at the manor, the prince looked rather shabby today. His arms were hugging the pillow he brought with himself, while half of his face was buried into the fabric.
The red ribbon that kept his hair at bay was discarded and it was probably waiting for someone to dig it out from the labyrinth of blankets. However, its absence let Victor see Edgar at his most vulnerable state, when the walls he had built up with so much care temporarily crumbled. The painter’s chestnut coloured hair lacked its usual perfection, overnight it became sleep mussed and tangled, its ends each facing a different direction. A rare occurrence made even more beautiful when the sun finally reached his side on the bed, embracing Edgar’s body with a veil of light, painting his hair with golden hues. He was more beautiful than any of the paintings he had ever done, but Victor would be a fool to admit this openly. Edgar would probably call him shallow, a person too blind to appreciate real art, but if being shallow meant that he could appreciate the small wonders of their mornings, then so be it.
Tempted to steal a kiss, he thought about leaning close, gently pushing his lips against Edgar’s neck, slowly making his way up to his cheeks until he wakes up properly and pushes him away for bothering him. However, just as he vowed to stay put, his fingers carefully brushed the chestnut brown locks away from Edgar’s face, gently settling their ends on his shoulders. That seemed to rouse Edgar, because the next moment he opened his eyes, blinking as he slowly got used to the fact that morning came again.
“Why are you up?” he mumbled into his pillow, Victor couldn’t suppress the smile that forced its way forward.
“I’m always up early.”
“How disgusting,” Edgar groaned dramatically.
Edgar always held his nose high. Perfect looks paired with biting and well aimed nasty comments. It was as if he was fighting a war against the world around him where even a glimpse of weakness would lead him to ruin. So the idea that Edgar had opened his heart to him to the point he felt comfortable enough to look unsightly in his presence made Victor’s heart jump a little.
Linking an arm around Victor’s stomach, he tried to pull him back to bed, but as he tugged on the side of his pajamas the man just sat there like an unmovable wall, playing with the end of Edgar’s sleep mussed hair.
“Why don’t you just sleep like a normal person,” he mumbled as he buried his face into Victor’s shirt.
“Because I w... am a postman,” Victor quickly corrected himself mid-sentence. “I am used to this.”
Part of him expected Edgar to say out the truth he wanted to hide, but his reply was much sweeter, almost too gentle.
“You don’t have to work now, though. In fact, you didn’t have to work ever since we got stuck in this manor, you should just sleep.”
“I would miss the best part of the day,” Victor argued, but he didn’t give any explanations for his statement, leaving Edgar confused.
Feeling the gentle tugs on his hair, Edgar’s cogwheels started to whirr one thought leading to another as he tried to work out the puzzle he was given. Sometimes he hated the way Victor seemingly held back half the information he was supposed to give, unless he had a chance to write his thoughts down. But eventually something seemed to click in him.
It was the silence.
The manor never lacked tiny distracting noises, creaking floors and doors. Survivors bickering or laughing between its walls made sure that they never had a calm moment. But right now, no matter how hard Edgar tried to listen and eavesdrop on the manor’s daily life, all he could hear was the calming silence and Victor’s soft breathing and WIck stretching next to their bed with a high pitched whine.
He finally let go of Victor, pushing himself up from the bed as he sat next to him.
“Mornings are the best part of the day,” Victor told him, as if to confirm his thoughts. “And the kindest too. Even if you are alone, enveloped by silence, you don’t feel lonely.”
“Huh… Because people are about to wake up,” Edgar tried to finish and felt his heart skip when Victor actually nodded. “You should still come back to bed. It’s early.”
“I... was actually thinking about going out for a walk,” Victor admitted sheepishly, his cheeks turning bright red. “Maybe…”
The words refused to come to his lips, they stopped right after they were brought into his thoughts. Despite their closeness, he often found the smallest, most innocent requests the harder to word. Fidgeting, he started looking for his notebook, eyes following the route of his usual routine. He eventually spotted the red little book laying on his desk, far out of his reach. It seemed that Edgar sensed his distress because in the next moment, he leant against him.
“I wouldn’t mind doing some light studies,” the painter told him, gently laying his head in Victor’s shoulder sneaking one arm around the other’s hip after successfully suppressing a yawn.
“You wouldn’t?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” he answered, as he planted a quick kiss on Victor’s cheeks. Anyone else would have gotten a loud no as answer, but not Victor. “But if you keep asking it, I might change my mind so don’t overthink it and get dressed instead.”
Slowly climbing out of bed while Edgar tried to collect himself, Victor thought back on the old mornings. He still missed them dearly along with the sleeping town and his dearly beloved post office, yet he felt like he wouldn’t trade his current life to get back what he had lost in the fire. But in order to gain something invaluable, first he had to lose everything, feel the cold gazes as he tried to find his place in a town where his name was blacklisted on the list of job applicants.
As he looked at Edgar as he buttoned up his shirt, hair still tangled from the bed, he simply couldn’t chase away his smile. The strange warm feeling that was seemingly absent from his life until the arrival of a certain painter.
“If you keep staring at me like that, I might change my mind,” Edgar warned him, but Victor knew him enough already to know that it was nothing but weightless teasing. In reality, he was just as excited as Victor, if not more.
His feelings seemed to be infectious, pushing Victor to a strange realization. Maybe for the first time in years, he felt like he was finally crawling out of the murky abyss that kept pulling him deeper and deeper and ironically enough the person who helped him was a living contradiction. Wearing his thoughts on his sleeves, yet leaving plenty of secrets to himself. One step at a time, Victor was determined to learn more about him, uncovering the secrets concealed behind the wall of painful honesty.
For now, this goal seemed to be enough to keep him above the surface. The festering scar left by his naive mistakes was slowly healing without Edgar ever realizing how much he had helped him to overcome his own trials.
True, Victor no longer had the bronze bell; he couldn’t sneak in the small entrance anymore and his reputation was scorched by outside forces, but he was still a postman at heart.
As the two of them, hand in hand scurried through the empty halls of the Oletus manor with Wick in their wake he felt Edgar had not only given him back something he missed so dearly, but brought emotions that made the whole experience so much more sweeter and more exciting.
Once they escape, he might be able to turn over a new leaf and return to his old life but this time, but this time with Edgar Valden by his side.