Chapter Text
”William,” Henry’s voice is as calm as ever as the pair sit across from each other in the awkwardly dimmed lighting of Henry’s dining room. Henry’s face is barely visible, a shadow overtaking the half on the opposite side of the light. Dave is barely looking at him. The table they sit at has three chairs, previously meant for a family now no longer spoken of. William had mentioned it to Henry before, three chairs being odd for two people, but Henry had silenced him with a sharp look. For a man who seemed to not care at all for the deaths of his own family members, he never changed the house they lived in to accommodate for the newest occupant. The wooden chairs creak and shift from the passing of time, the material digging into William’s bones. Not enough fat on him, Henry had said once as he examined his body. That’s why everything feels like it’s digging into his bones. That’s why he bruises when Henry grabs him by the shoulder and moves him to the side so they look perfect for the photograph of them together being taken for the paper.
“Yes, Henry?” William answers, voice quiet in comparison to Henry’s. Henry had taught him to speak quieter— his voice had a way of bringing unwanted attention. He had a way of just naturally drawing in those around him. William thought of it like a compliment at first— who wouldn’t want to be able to draw in those around them with just a few words? The way Henry said it, though, made him think the opposite was true. The words were spat like poison, annoyed as he dealt with another mess caused by William’s loud mouth. At some point, however, Henry’s sharp tone stopped stinging as badly. William scrapes the metal of his fork across the porcelain of the plate in front of him, white pupils focused on the meat he’d barely taken a bite of.
“You know you need to eat,” Henry’s suggestion starts off as gentle as it usually does. A suggestion, something to motivate William to do what is being asked of him. Even if William is hesitant, if he isn’t sure about something— usually the suggestion with a look into the other’s eyes is enough to push him to do it. William frowns, glancing between Henry and the meat on his plate. Henry’s eyes are focused on William’s. He tries not to look back.
“I’m not very hungry,” William protests, feeling like a child. He felt like he was in the orphanage, dirt caked under his fingernails and torn clothing hanging off his frail body. His awkwardly long neck, as well as any other deformities attempting to be covered by bandages or cloth. He remembers shaking his head as the woman in charge tried to feed him what their excuse for dinner was. Stale bread, he remembered, and stew of sorts but he never knew what that mystery stew was. From the way he could remember its taste in his mouth, he wouldn’t be shocked if it was mostly piss. He watches how Henry’s face twists into something not unlike a grimace. His teeth were showing— it was something that could quickly be morphed into a kind smile if he chose, but it was a warning to William.
“William. A bit of meat isn’t going to hurt you. Do you expect me to specially cook you something every day that your sensitive gut can handle?”
A thousand reasons to snap back flash through William’s mind. It’d be easier to eat not missing so many organs, he thinks. It’d be nice if you took into consideration I’m not like you.
William sighs, stabbing the metal into the mystery meat provided for him. Henry never told him what this was— he remembered him explaining to him as a younger boy the different animals that humans ate. Of course, William knew vaguely of hamburgers and hotdogs, steaks and sushi, but he was far too uneducated at that point in his life to be sure of what came from where. Henry had explained to him that animals were slaughtered— pigs, cows, sheep, fish, deer, birds and more William couldn’t remember right now with his stomach cramping at the idea of eating this— and William had cried for an hour, distressed that someone could kill another creature to eat it. Henry had simply sat by, not offering comfort but instead logical explanations for William’s childish meltdown. Explaining hunting and gathering, cavemen and how animals are less than humans until William’s tears dried.
Since then, Henry had not explained to William what he was feeding him. The first days he was so thin and so scared he simply took anything given to him. He said please and thank you and called Henry sir and slept where ever was available to him in that circus tent. Sometimes that meant piles of hay— other nights it meant Henry’s room, sleeping alone in the large bed as Henry worked on something else throughout the night.
‘I’ll make you a star, Willy,’ Henry promised to him after his nightmares. After William cried over the terrifying trial against the lion tamer, the man who had murdered so many following the circus. Henry had found William after the trial had finished and specifically spoken to him, then brought him back to the circus. He told William details about the lion tamer’s murders that he hadn’t even heard in the court room. He told him just how it had been done, how that sick man had no taste and he had no idea what he was doing. William felt so grown up then, only about thirteen or fourteen, being told all the details of the adult case he had to sneak into to watch.
Of course, he’d had a nightmare that night. Henry explained to him how nightmares worked, or, his theories about them. About where he thought they came from in the brain, how removing a certain part of it could completely eliminate those nightmares. Henry was a doctor, and he was smart. He could talk for hours about his theories about the human mind and the body and how you could survive, or not, with certain parts removed. He’d point to the spot the organ was on William and he’d give him examples of what would happen if it was removed.
William remembered how once, he had asked Henry about the brain. He had connected the dots between the talks of meat and the talks of the human body and he had become curious about humans. Eating them. Henry seemed to find joy in explaining to William why he couldn’t eat a human’s brains, all the terrible things that would happen. He remembered the specific way Henry’s eyes lit up as he looked at William. That was the first time he had the idea to experiment on him.
William forces the meat into his mouth and starts to chew, teeth awkwardly hitting together as he tried to avoid the taste on his tongue. He didn’t know why he hated this, but whatever this one was, it was making him feel sick to eat. Henry’s eyes are still trained onto him, though, so he swallows. Then he stabs another piece. He puts it in his mouth.
Mouth still full, he asks, “What is this?”
Henry, standing up from the table and taking his emptied plate with him to the kitchen, doesn’t bother to tell William he isn’t getting an answer.
William isn’t shocked. He’s not even close to being surprised, he was really just asking the question to himself out loud. He shudders as he chews the next piece.
It isn’t that the food itself tastes bad, he reasons. He’s sure Henry is a good cook. When he makes anything that doesn’t involve flesh William is sure to clean the entire plate. He just can’t get the taste of their first experiment out of his mouth. He can’t get the taste to leave and every time he smells meat, every time he tastes it, it tastes like the cold spoon being pushed down his throat and Henry grabbing onto his nose to make him swallow. It tastes like something soft and squishy and stringy and waxy and weird. Something not right.
William gags and leans forward, clutching his stomach as nausea overtakes him at the memory of the way it went down his throat. He hears Henry turn on the water through the wall and he stands up, his awkwardly sized limbs struggling to balance through such a quick movement as he stumbles his way to the bathroom, slamming the door behind himself.
The next twenty or so minutes are well-rehearsed enough they barely stick in William’s mind. Collapse over the toilet, gasp for any kind of air as your throat closes either out of panic or your body rejecting whatever you’ve ingested this time. Vomit. A lot. All of the food you ate today, probably. Puke until you’re just curled up on the tile floor, dry heaving and drooling. Listen to the shuffling outside the door and feel your body lock up with terror because he’s outside and he did this to you just to listen to you suffer. Close your eyes.
William opened his eyes again another ten minutes later to the sound of three firm knocks on the door. Henry’s voice cuts through the wood and the ringing in William’s ears.
“You’ve been in there for twenty minutes,” Henry states. It isn’t a warning. It isn’t even laced with that vague way of threatening everyone around him Henry tends to speak with. It’s just a fact. William stands, dragging his feet as he turns the doorknob and looks down at Henry.
“Sorry,” his voice is hoarse. He feels exhausted, his legs shaking like he might collapse if he doesn’t find a place to rest in the next few seconds. Henry doesn’t give him a verbal answer, just starting to walk down the hallway to his own room. William follows, slower than he’d like to, unable to pull himself together. Henry opens the door and William drags himself to his side of their shared bed. Henry refused to give the only other bedroom up to him, keeping it constantly locked. For a while, William slept on the couch. Fifteen and sixteen were spent with a constantly sore back and neck. But now Henry had opened his room to William.
William had asked, “Isn’t this weird?” and Henry had shrugged him off. “Would you rather sleep on the couch?” William didn’t want to do that. The ache in his spine was enough evidence. So he curled up on the edge of the bed, watching as Henry slept next to him. His chest felt weird and warm and he felt so appreciated and happy to be in a bed, Henry’s bed, where it was warm and he had a blanket and his feet didn’t stick off the edge.
William laid down, barely able to keep his eyes open as Henry shuffled about next to him. He couldn’t be bothered to stay awake long enough to care what Henry was going to do. Even if he did, he owed it to Henry to be allowed to do as he wished. Sleep hit him like the crash of waves. His head was suddenly under, and he was no longer able to stay up.