Work Text:
“We need to fix.. Whatever that is.” She had said, waving a hand at his morphed features. He had laughed, then, because even for her sharp words, the person behind them was still smiling. Though at him, or the thrill of a new project, he couldn’t tell. Vampires, he had thought, do not love. They are incapable. And yet.. Something about her wit had sat just perfectly in his palms, where love should be; the warmth of a beating heart cast aside for centuries of wisdom and immense intellect.
He had let her lead him to her studio, but his glances at her sterile labs had wandered to the back of her head, as she had talked about some science or other. For all his fascination for science, he did not listen to a word, except for the way her voice swooped and swung, like the trill of a hummingbird, or an intake of breath. A breath he felt inclined to take, even though he had no biological need, one to take simply for the pleasure of the cold in his lungs.
“Well, then. What are you thinking?” Viv inquired, clipboard wedged into her side. How long have I been sitting here?
“Honestly? I’d like to be acceptable.” He had replied, with the hopelessness that a child has once they just want to go home.
“I think we can make that work.”
Sat opposite him, perched on a countertop, she had almost seemed impossible. Like reaching for the moon to pluck it from the cosmos, or to stare into the expanse of space and pinpoint that yes, that’s us, right there. Or like walking outside, and feeling the warmth of the sun that was stripped away with their humanity, feeling the warmth of another, whose skin is as cold as yours. As he had watched her work, perfect porcelain hands stained with graphite, and balanced face smudged with smiles, she had been impossibly beautiful. A terrible reminder of Vanya, that stab in his lifeless heart that screamed to let no one in.
On her fifth try, she flipped her paper over, happy with the proportions this time; and it was just as he thought it would be. A spitting mirror image of his father in his youth, of the man he wanted so desperately to be.
“What do you think? It shouldn’t be too difficult, I mean, except for the jawli-” She said, until she looked up from her sketch to find her canvas stained with tears. Blood red streaks that trailed down his monstrous cheeks and were like cracks through his skin, sewn with muscles. Tears that he had not realised he was shedding, eyes locked to the page.
“It’s perfect, Viv.” He had sputtered, wiping a clawed hand across his eyes.
“Careful with those, alright? I don’t need you tearing out your eyes just before I work on them.” Viv warned, taking a handkerchief from her front pocket, and pushing it into his hands as she turned to her tools. “Now, I don't usually work for free, but for a friend? I can make up a loophole, I’m sure.” she teased over her shoulder.
“1913.” Arthur said, just quiet enough that he could convince himself he’d never said it at all.
“What?”
“1913, that’s when I.. turned.” his mind had fought for him to stop, letting her in will only end up worse.
“1852. I remember it like it was yesterday, but.. Hazy. like that yesterday is stuck behind a wall.” she replied, staring firmly into her scalpels on the desk. “I was so small, so helpless.”
“It’s funny, I think all of us felt that way.”
“I hope not, I hope that at least some of us wanted this.”
“What did you do? To get here, at least.”
“Medicine. Before i was this, I wanted to be a heart surgeon, to help people, you know? I was twenty-three.” she whispered, “Now.. I make people look like Edward fucking Twilight.”
“You still could, Viv, Help people.”
“How? Who would want a vampire to be their surgeon?” she whirled to look back at him, red streaks of tears matching his as she walked with hands full of equipment.
“If my surgeon could do half as good a job as you, I’d be the luckiest patient alive.”
“Well, I guess you’re twice as lucky.” Sad eyes broke with a sniffle and laugh, “Close your eyes, alright?”
Each dull sting that drove across his face felt as though her fingertips had placed it there, moulding his muscles to the measurements on her page. He could almost see it, her bleached hand working methodically, the way she would chew her lip the way she had when sketching. Until that warmth was withdrawn, leaving its pining chill in its wake.
“There, a job well done, I’d say.” she announced, permitting him to open his eyes.
After the stinging whiteness of her lab, there he was. The spit of Michael Bennett, at least from the photos in their old family room. His jawline smaller than it had been, and eyes that fit his face, for once.
“A job executed perfectly, Viv.” he concurred.
“Vivienne.” she breathed, if he knows my hopes and dreams, he might as well know my name.
“Vivienne? Is that what you’d like me to call you?”
“You can, but not around anyone else, alright? Reputation is a powerful thing in L.A. It was my grandmother's name, but Vex always thought we needed to sound.. Intimidating, so Viv it was.”
“Well, for the record, I think it’s a beautiful name.” He responded, restored grey eyes peering into her red irises.
“Thank you, Arthur.” she said, examining her work, “You know, I think there’s something that my work is missing.”
“Oh, Okay. i can sit back down if you need me t-” his sentence cut off from her lips on his, oblivious to her hint. Involuntarily, he felt his skin warm beneath her affection, life forced back into his cells. Her fingers tangled between his, and for once, Arthur felt as though the impossible was within reach, it had been just there, the whole time, waiting to fall into his hand the moment he outstretched it. And if this is what the impossible feels like, he did not even want to be conceivable, if it meant he could be impossible with her. If he could cheer on the sideline as she became Dr. Vivienne Weylin he would have started cheering decades ago. As her face pulled far enough back to see in detail, he did not regret a thing that led him here.
She pushed a rectangle of metal into his hand, screen on and flashing, with a single entry into the contacts.
“Don’t be a stranger, stranger.”
He could not have been a stranger if he tried. If the world was against him, he would not turn his back on it, because that world was her.