Chapter Text
Cold. Bitter, harsh cold.
For several months, that was all Adam knew. Death was impossible for him- when his limbs stiffened and his heart froze, he knew it wasn’t permanent- in a few hours he’d blink awake, claw his way out of the snow, and keep walking. His thoughts were about Victor.
Mr. Victor Frankenstein, the college dropout that managed to bring life to what once was dead. The man who retreated at the sight of his own creation and spent his years hunting down the abomination that should never have taken a breath. The man that... despite everything, Adam couldn’t bring himself to hate, even when his cruel creator faced the death he deserved.
It was a funny thing, wasn’t it? That devotion that one feels to their parents. Adam never understood why someone who was so badly mistreated by their family would ever feel sympathy. Even now, as he felt sympathy for Victor, he didn’t know why he felt so protective of his master’s corpse, or why he went out of his way to find a little place to properly bury his body. He wondered if this type of loyalty would ever be researched further by humans.
His heart stopped again- how many times has he fallen? It must have been a few dozen by now. He didn’t gasp anymore when he woke up, not like the first few times. He’d grown used to that sharp feeling of his heart restarting. Besides, gasping might make him breathe in a thick piece of packed snow and make him die for another few hours.
So, he crawled out of the snow and kept walking.
There was nothing to keep him company- nothing but snow and cold.
Heat. Smothering, boisterous heat.
Oh, how Edward loved that burning warmth that grew in his belly with each swig of ale he swallowed. It loosened his mouth, widened his grin, and left him with no choice but to be jolly. He didn’t even care about getting tossed out of the tavern because he’d whacked the bartender with his walking-stick for refusing to give him another drink, or picked a fight with some random lad, or joined in on a skirmish that was already happening.
Bloody noses and hangovers were better than listening to Henry.
Apparently, that slimy bastard was still pissed about him destroying the salts. Old Henry was always talking crap- about how Edward was the “evil half” of him, or that Henry was embezzling cash “for the sake of scientific progress,” or that those shady businessmen that he was always making deals with “were proper gentlemen,” and that he “made a grave mistake in trapping me within the confines of your mind.”
Ugh, why did Henry have to be so eloquent? It always made Edward feel disgusted with himself over the whole fake-suicide incident, made him wonder if he really did make a mistake when he burned those salts, if his hatred for Henry made him see things more biased. Was he the bad half all along? Was he just clinging to this impossible idea of morality to keep himself afloat in London?
...What even was evil? What defines evil? Does he fit that description? Does Henry fit that description? Were they both evil? Neither evil? Was one more evil than the other?
Was he even technically a real person, or just the result of a messed-up science experiment?
He liked playing drinking games, too! Sometimes he’d challenge someone big and burly and bet he could drink more ale than them. Then people started throwing down money, and that meant when he won, he got extra money to spend on drinks. It was great!
He couldn’t remember a better time than tonight.
He didn’t want to remember a better time than tonight.