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1 john 4:18
there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
The asylum has always unnerved him for reasons he doesn’t know how to comprehend. There is an ache in his bones as he looks from the paper in his hands to the buttons, carefully pressed into the electric box. William lay crouching behind him, carefully waiting with held breath: the Photographer has always been a pain to play against, but they know Miss Nightingale’s horrid little games. It has been a good trial— poor, sweet Emma Woods has been thrown to the chairs already, and Aesop wonders if the Master of the House has a sick satisfaction in putting him in this game with his lovers.
Patricia comes in hot, murmuring about how the Photographer had yet to see her, and she is even quieter when she tends to William’s wounds behind him. A shaky breath leaves Aesop as the door opens. William rises, and the shriek of his commanding voice telling them to “ RUN!” startles the Embalmer. Before his matte dress shoes can kick up enough dirt to bolt him through the door with an athlete’s fervor, he’s struck down.
Makeup box clatters in front of him, contents spilling down and out in front of him. William and Patricia stand before him, shocked and standing on the threshold between trial and manor. The Photographer antagonizes them to come closer, to save their lover: his grin is louder than any word. You will fall like he did.
“GO!” shouts Aesop, uncharacteristically loud, his doctor’s mask falling down and off of his face to showcase the bleeding open wound he’d picked up when the Photographer struck him to the ground. He grunts, pulled back by his ankle— the two in front of him want to reach out and help, but they know that they’ll lose their trial if more than one of them also falls to the Photographer’s wretched hands. “Go, PLEASE.”
Sickened and pale are the faces of the Forward and the Enchantress as they drag each other out of the trial and into the manor.
🙛
SLAM! goes the body of the Embalmer alongside the remains of the chair into the wall of the manor, and he stumbles forward as the vines release him from their grip. Groaning, his baritone voice echoes against the slight bit of courtyard that they’re allowed to have, and he lays in the dirt for a moment, praying to God that nobody sees him in such a state.
“Up we go, cher ,” coos one voice.
“Come on, big guy,” whispers another.
He’s embarrassed and angry as he rises to his feet, held in one arm by William and by Patricia in the other. Covering as much of his face as he can with his arms, he tries to hide his embarrassment and shame— he’s ugly, he’s ugly, he’s horrid, he’s a monster— as he’s brought into the manor. The offensive players know this part of the game by now: they take him into a shadowed corner and lick his wounds with Emily’s medkit.
As William sits off to the side, letting Patricia take the lead on bandaging up Aesop’s frail form, he can’t help but notice the giant gash in his lover’s face. Frowning, Patricia clears her throat, and when William looks up to meet her gaze, she has a damp washcloth in her hand, soaked with antiseptic. Aesop’s gloves are stained with blood, so William takes the initiative to gently wipe away at the blood and general grossness seeping from the wound. The Embalmer winces at the pressure and the sting of the cleaner, and as his lover recoils a bit for fear of hurting him, a simple smile is all it takes to soothe the worried man.
“M’sorry you took that hit for us, Aesop,” William sighs, leaning back on his heels before rising to his full height. He scrunches up Aesop’s silver hair into his hand happily, fingers scratching against the back of his neck for a minute— almost like he was petting the other, but not really. Patricia wraps the rest of Aesop’s wounds, unsure about what to do with his facial gash. She’s in the middle of processing and thinking about the appropriate care when the Embalmer’s gloved hands rise to raise the mask back up to where it was before, completely shrouding any evidence of the Photographer’s brutality.
“I am not,” he replies, British accent smooth and calm— almost uncharacteristic for someone as unraveled as the Embalmer in his current state. “I would do it a thousand times over to make up for the sacrifices that the two of you make for me every day.” He reaches out for them both— his sun, his moon, his love. When their hands meet his own, he smiles behind his mask, bringing them both close.
For them, he would die a hundred times over.
For them, he would reschedule their fated appointments.