Chapter Text
Maybe things aren’t supposed to work out if you’re pushing for them to always remain the same. Perhaps, one should take a different approach, or even not approach it at all. But, at the end of the day, who knows what’s right, really? Winning isn’t guaranteed, even if you cheat.
He thought he might cheat.
The winter is freezing cold.
Victor was warned before he arrived, of course— “Mind the winter! Terrible of them to send you at this time of year,” the poet called, offering him a wave before he disappeared back into the alleyway and they parted. He did heed the warning, without a doubt, but to be told something is so much different from experiencing it.
It’s not constantly bitter, though. Victor doesn’t find the frost always nips at his nose, he didn’t even find he needed to wear a coat once he settled into the train. He was travelling on investigation; nothing major. He needed to interview a woman in connection to a victim's potential enemies; they were siblings, and according to letters found in his home, in close contact on the regular. They didn’t have many leads, nor were they stacked with cases, so Victor Grantz was officially on a train in the Russian winter to pursue what could really end up being a wild goose chase. He couldn’t be sure how it’d turn out.
Evidently, he had to refocus his attention in an intermission of his original investigation.
He sits in his small room in one of the long stay residency cars, an extension of the conductors quarters for people who were a bit higher in status, or were here for reasons that didn’t boil down to common peasants travel. The moonlight streams through the window, the curtains not properly closed as he liked being able to see outside no matter the time of day. He’s going through a file, idly, trying to keep his mind off of the fact he’s been force fed more than he can chew.
He wasn’t really seeking out the responsibility. The conductor, however, bit it off himself, and he didn’t seem to be choking on it the way Victor was.
The man was cold. He was charming, however, with his constantly half-lidded eyes and a smile that rarely genuinely reached them. His voice was soothing, well practiced, a strong accent when communicating with Victor in the only language they could hold genuine conversation in, and an authoritative tone in his own. The sheriff supposed you needed that kind of voice to be in charge of anything, let alone a train, but it simply added itself into the bullet point list Victor kept in his head of things he liked about Andrew. A lot of them, honestly, were things that plenty of others had no problem expressing a major distaste for.
The lady’s companion didn’t like him. The ambassador didn’t talk much, but seemed indifferent. The boy certainly had some interesting things to say about him. Overall, Victor got mixed reviews in his interviews, but certainly not anything that would suggest he committed a crime. Just that he was weird. And he was weird, as charming as Victor found him.
But, maybe he was biased towards him. He’d hate to admit it, with the possibility it could interfere with his honest investigative skills and efforts to solve the case, but it was hard not to be. Andrew had been very hospitable towards him since they met, for whatever reason, moreso than he was for most of the other people hanging around the train. Everyone here was long passage— the murder had occurred between a stop dropping people off, and a separate one to pick others up. He didn’t know why. He thought it would make the most logical sense for them to drop off and pick up passengers at the same time, but he had no right to pry and prod at a system he didn’t entirely grasp. He wasn’t a train guy.
At the very least, it kept him busy. He only had until they hit Smolensk— lest someone else take the case completely out of his hands, instead of verifying his research. Although, the time before they would hit their next stop would be inevitably prolonged. According to anyone with at least some knowledge of the vehicle, the heavy snowfall that bordered on a flurried storm would stop the train at some point, if it didn’t cease entirely in the next half an hour. From what Victor could see out of his window, it didn’t seem to be lessening any time soon.
He turns from the window, trying to focus back on his files. He had a particular way of organizing them all, always ordering them from least to most likely in his stacks, with the former on the top and the latter on the bottom. The lady’s companion was currently at the top of his stack, as he had pulled one from the middle absentmindedly to brush up on the evidence for. As the sheriff combs his hands through his hair, huffing out a sigh and staring intently at the same words he’s read a million times now, he hears a knock at the door.
A final tap against the paper echoes throughout the room amongst the sound of the vicious wind outside of the train car, and Victor rises to walk over to the door and open it, offering up a soft smile and a wave, voice ringing softly, “Good evening.”
“Drink,” Is the only prominent response he receives before Andrew steps into the room himself, holding a mug above his head in order to not spill it and the other clutched to his chest, placing one on the desk and taking a sip from the remaining one. He sighs into the cup as if he’s exhausted, but Victor knew he tended to look tired whenever he wasn’t going out of his way to please the occupants.
“Oh, thank you…” He closes the door himself, looking to Andrew and gesturing to his bed for the conductor to sit, which he does. Victor reaches for the mug on the desk to see what it is, and smiles gently before he takes a sip. Just a tea. Cooled enough to drink, but not with an excess of milk or sugar to cool it down. He wondered when Andrew made them.
“The snow’s—…” Andrew trails off, as if unsure of how to proceed, “Snowstorm. Trains can’t run in this weather. Pierson’s no help, and the engineer on shift’s at the next stop… It’s stopped. Probably couldn’t hear it over the wind.”
Victor blinks. Huh, he supposed so. He couldn’t hear much over the wind, when it came to outside, and he strolls to sit next to Andrew on the bed, frowning, “Oh, geez. And the culprit’s—“
“Yes, on the train.”
“And we’re stopped?”
“Yes, the train is stopped.”
The sheriff takes in a breath. In a way, he was curious as to why nothing had happened to him. Was it because the murderer had no interest in furthering the mess they were all in? Would it have given more evidence for different investigators to look at? So far, he’d noted that the whole thing felt so targeted. The Grand Duke really would be the type of person to have extremely specific enemies, but the entire cast of suspects were quick to point the finger at the first person who they could think of. Either way, he didn’t really feel safe. There was no guarantee he was going to get out of here unscathed, and in fact, most would presume the opposite made a lot more sense.
“… Is that stressful?” He finally asks, looking to Andrew with concern, “I-I can’t… I can’t imagine how hard it must be. Uhm, to keep things in running order. Amongst… everything else.”
He laughs, lightly, shaking his head and waving a hand, “What, you think I can’t do my own job?”
“Your job, Mr Kreiss, is not to keep everyone in order with a corpse lying still in a compartment in which people are supposed to sleep. Even if it were; you must admit, you can be stressed by these high profile situations,” Victor’s voice sounds a lot more firm, confident in his words. He stammers and stumbles less than he normally would. The reassurance was more important than his own slew of insecurities.
“… Alright,” The conductor puts his hands up defensively, fingers still curled around the handle of the coffee mug just enough to keep it held, “Okay. Yes, I get it. But you can’t seriously be that concerned.”
Victor nods his head, as if to confirm he was that concerned, and it wasn’t as if he was going out of his way to feel anxieties on everyone else’s behalf. He was an empath by nature. He takes a sip from his tea, looking to Andrew as he watches him speak again.
“Why would you be?”
“Why would I not be?”
As the sheriff pulls the cup away from his mouth, he allows it to settle in his lap, with both hands curled around it. He liked the warmth. Beyond the heat of the cup, and the way the tea warms his throat, it was starting to grow colder. He usually resigned to his bed around this time; there was no reason to be awake this late, besides paranoia, and it was much warmer huddled under the covers in the winter's bitter night than it was hovering around his room doing nothing productive.
The conductor doesn’t respond to him for a moment. He looks almost taken aback, before he scoffs, “I’m fine. I don’t need your worry. I’m capable. Don’t belittle me.”
“I’m not—…” Victor blinks, before he watches Andrew avert his gaze and swallow. The man readjusts his hat, almost as if to tuck it over his face and use his hand to obscure it with the action, and Victor breathes out a gentle sigh. He wasn’t actually irritated. He just didn’t know how to take it.
“Thank you for the tea,” The sheriff restarts the conversational topic after a beat. He stares down at the liquid for a moment, waiting for Andrew to regain himself, and he glances back up when the man lets a huff out of his nose.
“It’s freezing out,” He responds, coolly, “I didn’t think you’d be used to the temperature.”
“Oh, I’m not, really… B-but, I hope to be, eventually. And, uhm, if I’m not… well, I won’t be here forever!” Victor lets out a nervous laugh, careful not to shift the hot cup in his lap too much.
Andrew doesn’t say anything. He merely takes a long sip of his own, before he puts the now empty mug on the floor, and fumbles for his pocket. From it, he removes a package of cigarettes, voice low, “Do you mind?”
He asked every time. Probably out of courtesy, maybe to make himself look considerate for selfish reasons. The sheriff wasn’t sure.
Victor shakes his head, and he watches as Andrew takes one out of the dwindling group of them and slips the rest into his pocket. After a moment of searching, he pulls a lighter out, and lifts the smoke to his mouth as he flickers the lighter until a flame forms, pressing it to the cigarette until it lights. He tucks the lighter back into his pocket, rising to his feet and wandering to the window before he takes a drag. He looks as if he considers opening it to blow the smoke outside, but as the wind roars and the snow coats the window, he opts against it, instead gently exhaling against it. He turns to look at Victor over his shoulder, sighing out.
“Are you alright?”
“Huh?” Victor asks, eyebrows lightly furrowed. He shifts his feet against the floor, once again carefully readjusting the mug in his lap, looking up to the man curiously.
“Are you alright?” Andrew repeats, before he takes another drag of the cigarette between his fingers, “Must make you a bit nervous to be stopped on the train with the killer, considering you’re the one looking into it. No need to be scared, though… room’s under my personal surveillance.”
Victor considers this, for a moment, and it leads him to answers for several questions he’d been mulling over for the past few days. That explained why Andrew was so aware of his schedule. He never knocked when he was sleeping, and he never interrupted an interview. He always came quickly when the bell rang; quicker than the testimonies of others would attest. It couldn’t all be explained away by his job title on its own.
Although, he must admit they have a complex relationship. It was mostly fleeting touches and lingering stares, with reluctance to push for much more in a concrete sense. Andrew would kiss him on the way out of the door, and Victor always opened it for him to come in. The sheriff found it difficult to balance his need to be fair and unbiased with his overwhelming desire for love and companionship, and Andrew seemed to find that difficult to understand or acknowledge. There was no fixing it, really. All he could do was hold him at an arm's length until some moment of weakness, and wish that things were different. Subconsciously, he leans into it always, but he’d never admit that if you asked. He’d feel too guilty.
So, maybe that’s why he didn’t want to answer such a simple question. It almost seemed like leaning too far into deepening the potential intimacy.
“Just tired. A bit cold, still,” Victor finally answers, offering Andrew a soft smile. As if trying to remedy the problem himself, he takes another long sip of the tea resting in his lap. It was slowly disappearing. He wasn’t sure when he’d finish it, but he supposed it depended on how many lulls there were in the conversation.
Somewhat haphazardly, the conductor takes a step forward and tosses Victor his coat, without a word further. He never wore it, anyway. It was there in case he needed to, suddenly, or maybe even just to make himself look more serious and professional. Victor made a lot of observations about Andrew, but he tried to refrain from asking too many questions. If he delved too far into his personal life, he felt as if he’d have no excuses for his attachment. It’d just become obvious. So, Victor asks the questions he’s supposed to ask, and he guesses at most everything else.
As he readjusts the coat on his own shoulders, he takes in a breath. He tried to limit his movements to stop it from falling off his frame.
“Thank you—”
“You don’t have to go, you know.”
It felt like they had this conversation every second night. Victor preferred to call it a conversation because it captured both the side of it being a discussion, and an argument. That all seemed to depend on the emotional height of the people involved. Usually, it lasted all of ten exchanges back and forth, then one of them would insist that they drop it because the other one wasn’t listening to what they were saying. You could never civilly level with someone when you had opposite opinions on something so important. Your own always felt more important than theirs, more valid and more based in facts, the better idea. Theirs sometimes felt like a personal attack.
Victor had made the comment about
not being here forever
earlier to try and snuff the flame out before the fire began. It proved fruitless in the end, but he did put his foot forward with trying. He lets out a soft sigh and shakes his head, readjusting the coat around his shoulders, “Don’t be silly, Andrew. I’ve got obligations.”
“Forget about them, then,” He replies, as if it was an obvious answer, “Do you seriously think there’s anything for you there?”
“How do you know there’s not?” Victor furrows his eyebrows, before he shakes his head and takes another sip of the tea. He gulps the remainder of it down, and places the mug down on the floor in front of him, as if he’s trying to forget he had received it in the first place. Being so well taken care of made him feel so guilty, especially when it was his own doing that it wouldn’t last forever.
“You don’t even consider it, you just say no,” Andrew waves a hand dismissively, shaking his head and taking another drag of his cigarette, “You’ve got more time to think about it, now. Pray you will, but not sure if you care that much.”
Victor looks dumbfounded for a moment, completely backed into a corner. He huffs lightly, but it wasn’t very hard to make him compliant, “I do care, Andrew. I’ll think about it— but I doubt that answer is going to change any time soon.”
“Would you come back, then? If you go?” He asks, cocking his head to the side slightly. Another drag of his cigarette, longer this time, before he finally stubs it out on the windowsill, tucking it into his pocket.
The more he hung around—and the more Victor allowed him to hang around—the more obvious things became. The very light lingering scent of nicotine in Victor’s couchette, the subtle hint of Andrew’s cologne on his clothes, the hovering around and the hushed conversations in public places. He watches Andrew lean back against the wall, his hands tucked in his pockets, his eyes relaxed and his eyebrows slightly raised. Depending on his answer, Victor knew he would furrow them once more quickly.
“... I don’t know,” He says, honestly. He didn’t know. And he hated to lie.
“Could you consider that?” Andrew asks, eyebrows furrowed just as predicted. A frown plays on his lips. His expression isn’t quite upset, but it verges.
“Maybe,” Victor sighs out, now wrapping his arms around himself absentmindedly for comfort, rubbing his arms with his fingers, “Unless there’s something waiting for me. I don’t know, maybe there is. We can’t… be sure of anything, can we?”
“Maybe you can’t. I’m sure of most things.”
Victor huffs, closing his eyes and shaking his head, before he looks back up at Andrew, “That’s not what I meant. You know that.”
“We’re not people who get nice things , Victor. I don’t think you realize this isn’t just going to fall in your lap again,” Andrew gestures with one hand, rolling his eyes as he shakes his head and stands up straight, stepping away from the wall, “If you want to fuck up all your opportunities, be my guest. But this is mine, too. What, do you think I just— people don’t like me, Victor. And you don’t love me enough.”
Ever the pessimist, and always as dramatic as he could justify being about it.
Victor swallows, knitting his eyebrows together as he fixes his own posture, relaxing his shoulders back to straighten them as he folds his hands in his lap, “I-I never said—”
“You don’t need to say everything. You don’t need to write it, either. You’re not the only person who observes the things people do,” The conductor waves a hand dismissively, taking another few strides forward to relocate himself next to the desk.
“... Right.”
A silence falls over the room. Victor stares down at his lap with his breath bated, held in his throat, and Andrew drums his fingers against the desk. The tapping of his foot is heard next, as if impatient, but Victor didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for.
“So come back, won’t you?” He asks, finally looking over, head tilted down and face blank, “I’ll fix whatever problems there are that stop it. You don’t even have to do anything but be here. And if you don’t want to stay, then don’t. But don’t act like it’s impossible.”
Maybe Victor thought it was too good to be true. Maybe he
knew
it was too good to be true, and watered it all down to feign some sort of innocent naivety. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was so hesitant and unwilling in the first place— surely this was something he wanted, wasn’t it? It had to be. What made him hold back from all of it?
It was probably insecurity. That was where most of his problems came from. He thought it impossible someone could genuinely like him that much; Andrew had to have some idealized version of him in his head that would come crashing down if they spent too much time with each other, and Victor said too much, or did too much, or gave too much or too little. There was a lot more to worry about than there was to look forward to, and while he was usually an optimist, something about uprooting completely for someone so irate felt dangerous. He probably just wasn’t used to being loved in any capacity. It felt too real. It’s hard to transition from romanticizing everything you see to having it laid out in front of you. Naturally, it feels like fantasy. That’s what it always has been.
“... Okay,” He sighs out, looking up at Andrew in turn.
The conductor offers him his usual smile; almost sleazy in nature, an odd half grin with relaxed eyes that stared right through you. He thought that’s why he didn’t tend to smile for guests. It’d probably turn a few of them off, but he’d always been fond of it. It wasn’t rehearsed, or practiced to look pretty. It was perfectly inexperienced, totally flawed, and almost… terrible. But, Victor liked it.
“Good to know, darling,” He whispers, before he strides forward to collect the mugs off of the floor, leaning to catch Victor’s mouth in a kiss before he stands up properly. Victor doesn’t fail to return it, and he rises to his own feet as he pulls Andrew’s coat off of his shoulders.
As he reaches to place it on the conductor’s frame again, Andrew steps out of the way and shakes his head, “No, keep it. I’ll get it when I need it.”
He didn’t ever seem to need it. Victor huffs out of his nose as he folds it over his arm, no interest in trying to fight him to take it back. He’d drop it off at his bedroom when he felt he had the opportunity, or pawn it off on him when he was tired. He wasn’t sure.
“Goodnight,” Andrew calls, from the door, one mug tucked under his arm so he can open it, “Promise you’ll see me.”
“I promise. Goodnight,” Victor replies, sluggishly dragging himself over to his desk. Andrew offers him another grin before he steps out, closing the door behind him.
The sheriff moves the files off of one another reluctantly, sighing out and shaking his head at himself as he opens the one on the bottom of the pile, gently lifting the pages up to grab the one tucked into the middle. His cursive is neat, careful, and his tired eyes register the writing at the top before he crumbles the paper up into a ball, placing it into the waste bin and pushing his chair back in once he’s done. He closes the file, and places Andrew’s on top of everyone else's.
Maybe nothing came without consequences.
Victor should simply stop questioning the complex circumstances of it all. Was it really in such poor taste to be selfish to be loved, and to wish for that to continue? It couldn't all be selfish, could it?