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The library looks just as it had before the wedding. Most of the furniture has been wrapped up, or covered with canvas, and everything lies under a fine layer of dust. There’s a hush in the air, unbroken by William’s steps on the plush carpet. The crypt, with its candles and mattresses and blankets, feels less like a grave.
The only sign of life are meandering trails in the dust, from section to section. Victor must have been searching for a particular subject, but whether he’d found it, William can’t tell. Lacking anything else to do, he follows the most well-worn track.
He’s led to their father’s desk. It’s an old, grand piece of furniture, carved of dark wood and festooned with curling garlands. It is also currently covered in piles of paper. William inches closer, mindful of the sunlight streaking in through the windows, and plucks one up.
It’s a letter from their solicitor, informing Victor of his status as inheritor of William’s will. All very well and good on the surface. However, until his brother wakes up, there’s no way of knowing if Victor has actually handled anything. After being almost burnt to a crisp, William’s loathe to trust the man with his life, much less his finances.
And besides. He remembers that offhand comment about eviction notices.
William goes for another of the papers. A second letter, again from the solicitor, this time about debt collectors. To his dismay, it’s dated fairly recently.
“Oh, Victor, no,” William groans, and perches on the shadowed corner of the desk to start going through the piles in earnest.
Halfway through, he gropes for and eventually finds a working pen. This requires notes. And tallies. And sums, dear God, is Victor not tracking any of his expenses?
“This is a travesty,” William tells the empty library, and sets to work undoing–at least a portion of–his brother’s mistakes.
~
Victor comes awake luxuriously slowly. The bed feels softer, the midday sunlight more sparkling. Even his leg isn’t aching as badly as it usually does. For a moment, he entertains the thought of just rolling over and going back to sleep.
His stomach quickly disabuses him of the notion, growling louder even than Adam.
Stretching, Victor pulls himself to sitting. Automatically, he gropes for his cane. When it fails to meet his questing fingers, he turns his head, frowning. For some reason, the thing’s not propped where he usually puts it. It’s still well within arm’s reach, but instead of being wedged into the corner between mattress and side table, it’s been laid across the sheets.
“Odd,” he mutters to himself, and grabs for it. His shirt crumples strangely across his chest with the movement, and looking down, Victor sees a wash of rusty brown.
Blood, he realizes. With a start, a clap of realization: his blood.
Good God, he’d let the thing feed on him, he thinks in horror. He’d–-he’d stroked its hair, even, like a mother nursing a babe, and worse-–for a moment he’d believed that he’d been holding William-–
It’s a cruel, cruel deception, and Victor hates the things wearing his beloveds’ faces for it. But, he reminds himself, it’s like hating the wolves for hunting deer. As far as he can tell, the creatures are simply acting on their natures. He had been the one to forget himself and let the monster in. Oh, yes, he’d thought he could kill it–-but hadn’t he also, for just one moment, wanted to embrace his brother again?
“Stupid!” Snarling, Victor pounds at his hated stump. “You sentimental fool!”
The sunlight seems a mockery, now. His stomach growls again. He has half a mind to starve himself as punishment for disrespecting William’s memory.
But, no–-a glance at the clock reveals that it’s almost one. Adam will be taking lunch and hoping for company. They’ve been dining together near every day, and each time his creation is pathetically happy to see him. As foul as Victor’s mood has become, he at least owes the other an excuse.
Even having taken months to get used to a lack of leg, it still surprises Victor how much longer everything takes when missing a limb. Just crossing the room to wrestle himself into clean clothes is an effort. He’s sweating by the time he limps down the stairs, cursing the manor’s many steps the whole time.
At least he’s headed for the small dining room, originally intended for just family, rather than the grand hall that his father favored. It’s a relief to throw himself into a chair and know, for once, that his father’s ass never graced the seat. Adam, already sitting, gives him a tentative smile, and Victor tries to arrange his face into something less dour.
“Adam,” he begins, striving for apologetic, “I won’t be joining you for long–-"
“I already brought up the food,” Adam interrupts, pushing Victor’s plate closer. “You should eat something.”
“I’m not hungry,” Victor–-well, doesn’t quite lie. His stomach is still growling, but he has no appetite.
“Please,” and Adam has no right to have such large, wet eyes. Victor made him with normal-sized eyes, he was sure of it, and yet it’s like looking at a sad hound. In defeat, he picks up his fork.
Adam’s smile turns triumphant, though he tries to hide it behind his napkin. Rolling his eyes, Victor begins to eat. For a long stretch of minutes, the only sound is the clink of silverware on plates. The housekeeper-cook (a woman whose name Victor can’t be bothered to remember) is no French chef, but the food is passable.
Victor doesn’t know what alerts him to the other presence in the room. There’s no sound, no footfalls or the creak of the door opening. Adam doesn’t lift his head from his plate. But the hairs on the back of Victor’s neck rise, and his stomach churns with dread, and he realizes-–
–-he let it in.
And it never left.
“Victor,” it says, sounding so much like William it hurts, and he must look, but he can’t bear to turn around.
Adam raises his head while Victor is still staring fixedly into the middle distance. “You’re here!” he says, voice lilting up in delight instead of horror, as if he’s spotted a friend at a party. “Come join us for lunch.”
“Adam,” Victor manages through a suddenly-tight throat. His hands tighten on the cutlery. “Adam, don’t invite it-–”
“It?” Adam has the audacity to look offended on the thing’s behalf. “Victor, it’s just William.”
“Are you back on about that?” the thing says, and Victor hardens his heart against the hurt in its voice.
Now there are footsteps, click-clacking against the wood floor, and the creature minces its way between puddles of sunlight to stand as close to the table as it can. Victor can’t help but stare; last night, it had been backlit by the moon in a dim room, but now he can see it clearly. He wishes he couldn’t, for the mark of William’s death is stark across its forehead.
Reflexively, Victor glances down, away, and now he is studying the thing’s feet and trouser hems. “You won’t even look at me?” it asks, and its legs are muddy up to the knees. William, fastidious since birth, used to cry when his hands were sticky.
This is not his brother.
“It’s your brother,” Adam says, plaintive, and Victor wants to tear at his hair, wants to scream his denial. It’s not Adam’s fault, he tells himself to keep from reaching across the table and shaking his creation until some sense falls out. Adam never knew William, truly. Not like Victor did.
He tries to keep his voice level, reasonable, when he says to Adam, “You’ve been deceived.”
Adam simply looks at him, hard, almost like Elizabeth would study an insect. But she never had pity in her eyes when she inspected her specimens. The thing in William’s skin looks, too, lips pursing just like William’s would in thought.
“He is blind,” Adam finally murmurs, and slumps back into his chair.
“Hm.” The thing looks down at its papers, frowns harder. “Whatever he is, he’s also in debt. Victor, all these letters–have you replied to the solicitor at all?”
It’s just so–-so William, that Victor almost wants to forget the muddy pants and the ragged hems and the eyes sparkling silver. Instead, he spits, “That’s not your business.”
It has the temerity to roll its eyes. “You’re the inheritor of my will. That makes it my business.”
“You’re glaring at me,” Victor points out. “William didn’t do that.”
“William,” the thing snaps, “glared at all sorts of people, mostly junior fellows at the firm. You were just lucky, and that’s run out. Now, you’re going to sit and listen.”
On the topic of luck, Victor can agree-–he’s about to be lectured on finances by a monster, and his own creation is nodding along. But sit obediently like a dog? He goes to haul himself out of the chair, and suddenly the thing is at his side, hand clamped on his shoulder.
It doesn’t hurt, but it does feel immovable. Victor tries, anyway, and almost pulls a muscle in the process.
“Sit,” it says, and all of William is subsumed under that same implacability it showed last night. Silver eyes hard, it pushes, and with an unmanly squeak Victor finds himself seated once more. He opens his mouth to protest, but it’s already ignoring him, speaking over his head to Adam, “You should listen, too. If the debt collectors come in person, you’ll both be in danger.”
“Hyperbole,” Victor interjects.
“Common sense,” it replies. Stepping away, it shuffles the papers fussily, and all of a sudden William is back, peering at him over the top of the stack. Its voice turns wheedling, pleading, “Come now, Victor, this is important.”
Blood stains its forehead. His shoulder stings. If this is truly what it wants–to simply talk about money–there’s no point in fighting against indulging its inanities. Victor slumps in his chair and gestures imperiously. “Fine. Get on with it.”
It brightens, and for a moment, Victor can almost look past the cut-glass edges of its face to see little William, bringing him a rock or a frog or a leaf. “Excellent! Let’s start here…”
Victor tries–-he truly does-–to maintain the quivering awareness of the rabbit before the fox. There is a monster in his house; he should remain alert. Aware. Ready to move, at a moment’s notice. At the very least, he could be planning his next move. He has garlic growing in the nursery, more research to comb through-–something, surely, he could be doing.
The sheer mundanity of it all defeats him.
Whether or not it’s William, the thing truly, honestly believes that the finances of the Frankenstein estate are worth talking about. It shows them its tallies, its sums, its suggestions on what to sell and how to invest and all the little tricks to turn away a debt collector.
It’s maddeningly boring, and Victor says so.
“It may be boring, but it’s necessary,” William replies, tapping a line of sums.
Groaning, Victor runs his hands through his hair. His stump aches, even though he’s been sitting this whole time. “Can’t I just have you do it?” he asks, and realizes too late that he’s forgotten it’s not his brother he’s talking to.
It chews absentmindedly on its pen, and Victor tries not to notice the flash of fangs. “I suppose I can draft the letters for you. You’ll have to send them, though.”
At least this way, his nuisance will make itself useful. “Wonderful. Perfect.” Victor pushes himself up, and this time it lets him, though it stares at his legs like it’s worried he’ll fall over. He decides not to wonder why it should care in the first place, and begins the process of stumping out of the room. “I’m going to lie down.”
“Do you need help on the stairs?” Adam asks.
“I’m fine,” Victor throws over his shoulder, trying not to sound too ungrateful. “You... ask it how to do arithmetic, or something.”
“Him,” Adam stresses.
“Yes, fine, him,” and Victor shoulders the door open. He’s moving too fast, but can’t bring himself to care. Of course, that’s the moment his cane catches on the rug and he overbalances, realizes sinkingly that he’s about to fall–-
–-finds himself caught, bundled up against a slight chest. Not Adam, his body immediately knows, for his creation is broader and taller again by half. The not-William, instead, cool and steady.
“Careful,” it says, and Victor snarls, wrenches himself free.
“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, even as his body remembers its waist between his thighs and its soft hair under his fingers. “Don’t–-”
It huffs out a sigh, reaches out and straightens his shirt with one hard jerk. “I should have let you fall,” it tells him, and leaves him to the stairs.