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The Baroness opens its doors to all, but Victor tries not to associate himself with the scene on principle.
If Paige weren’t so insistent on ‘getting him out of the house,’ then he’d never step foot past those imposing lobby doors.
Never mind the fact that he’s homeless, so he’s sort of always ‘out of the house.’ But Paige doesn’t need to know that. She worries about him enough as is. The last thing he needs is for her to offer him a room at her parents’ house out of pity.
He’s terrible at saying no to her, though, which is how he sometimes finds himself in The Baroness when Paige volunteers to read to its residents in the library.
Her books are something special. Enchanting is what they are, and she’s equally as engaging as the stories she tells.
So, with her best interests in mind, Victor attends, but by no means does he participate. He’s content to lurk in the darkest corner he can find that’s within audible range. The last thing he wants is to scare off the crowd, or be barred from entry for causing a ruckus.
Too many establishments have already banned him for life just for daring to exist. It’d be insulting if he didn’t fully empathize with their reasoning.
Thus far, Victor has evaded any negative attention. That’s not to say he’s been rendered completely invisible.
The Doorman— whose name is vehemently not Brian, just ‘The Doorman,’ according to Paige— is definitely aware of Victor’s whereabouts. They’ve made eye contact on more than one occasion. However, conversation has eluded them.
Until tonight.
Because the Doorman finally approaches him in his shady corner of the library and extends a greeting hand. A spotless white glove.
It’s rude not to return his half of the handshake, but it’d be even more rude to get it dirty.
Victor crosses his arms over his chest awkwardly, aware he’s under-dressed. If he weren’t so adamant on hiding, he’d stick out like a sore, rotting thumb.
“I don’t believe we’ve formally met,” says the Doorman, crossing his hands behind his back. “You’re Miss Paige’s acquaintance, Victor.”
“That’s me,” he mutters. He knows he’s wearing an unbecoming expression, but hiding his discomfort is somehow harder than hiding the pain.
“I’m the Doorman, at your service.”
“Yeah, I know.” He scratches at the seam on his throat. “Look, if you want me to leave, you don’t have to skirt around it. I get it. Just show me to the nearest exit and I’ll go.”
“Leave? Who said anything about leaving?” The Doorman rocks on his toes, grinning. “In fact, I’d prefer if you’d stayed! All guests are welcome in The Baroness.”
“Uh…”
“You’re here for the Maelstrom, aren’t you? There have been ‘weirder’ characters around lately, I assure you, including a Djinn, an anthropomorphic snake, and a Sandman, amongst others.” He gives Victor a once over. “You pass rather well for a human.”
“So do you,” Victor challenges, tracking the slight jump of the Doorman’s eyebrows. The scrutiny can go both ways.
“Ahah,” huffs the Doorman, eyes creasing. “Well, in that case, I hope you don’t mind me being blunt. You look weary.”
“That’s because I am.”
“What troubles you?”
“I’m a shambling mass of dead bodies. What doesn’t trouble me?”
“No wonder a bleeding heart like Paige’s is taken by your sorrow. You’re awfully pitiable. I bet she’d love to put you back together.”
“She’s… nice to me.” Victor squeezes himself tighter, static coursing through his bolts. “If the ritual is a bust, she said she’d help me find answers. That we could search for them together.”
“Answers regarding her missing brother.”
“Yeah.” Victor blinks. “You knew?”
“Of course. I pay close attention to all of my guests’ needs and wants. A listening ear learns more than the inquiring mouth.” He taps the aforementioned ear, then traces to his cheek, looking at the stitches on Victor’s. “If, after the ritual, any part of you should pop off, you should stop by The Baroness. Our house tailor is top-notch.”
“This place is a little fancy for someone like me.”
“The Baroness does not discriminate, my friend. In fact, why don’t you spend the night?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“So?” The Doorman shrugs. “Stay anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s how a business works.”
“What would you know about running a business?” he scoffs.
Victor snorts, “Touché.” Sighing, he then leans against the wall, skull knocking against it. A familiar pain. “Been a while since I’ve slept with a pillow.”
“Where do you usually sleep?”
“Alleyways.”
The Doorman quirks an eyebrow.
Irked by that judgmental arch, Victor attempts to save face, coughing up; “Or The Hideout, when it isn’t too crowded. So pretty much never. But Fern’s let me crash in the break room at his bar a few times.” He twiddles the knob at his neck, finding his gaze drawn anywhere that isn’t cyan, and utters, “I don’t have the same needs as real people.”
His body is always in agony; sleeping while standing up straight against a brick wall isn’t going to make it any worse.
“Ah, but what is life without indulging in wants?” Doorman coos, tapping a finger on Victor’s sternum, white cloth on unfeeling scar tissue. He leers, purring, “Have you yet attempted to truly live, Victor? Or have you been taking your existence for granted this whole time?”
“This whole time?” Victor knocks his hand away, gritting his teeth at the Doorman’s pleased smile. “How long do you think I’ve been alive?”
“Mm…” The Fledgling squints, his lips pulled taut around a wide, flat smile. “About three months,” he states— confidently, because somehow this asshole knows more than he has any right to.
The nosy bastard probably knows the answers to all of Victor’s questions, or could find them with a modicum of the effort Victor’s put into his one and only goal. His life's work— all three months of it— are just a speck of nothing in comparison to an otherworldly being.
“Fuck off,” Victor scoffs, fists curling. “The lives of humans might be insignificant to you, but they’re not to me. The people I’m made of, their lives…” He sucks in a breath, fighting the urge to wince at the irregular beating of his heart. “They were all unique, and I’m…” He stares at his mismatched palms. Their palms. “I’m not… really alive.”
“Aren’t you?” the Doorman asks, blinking curiously, returning the hand that was slapped to Victor’s sternum, choosing now to lie flat atop his heartbeat. His head cocks, lashes obscuring an ethereal glow. “You’re here, talking, breathing, thinking. Therefore you ‘am.’ Eh?” he chuckles, trailing off into an awkward silence soon after. “Er…” He then taps his chin. “Have you managed to read a book in the past three months of your fruitless journey?”
“I know who Descartes is,” Victor huffs. His face twists. “Although, I’m not sure how.”
Peachy. Just another reminder of how fucking bizarre the circumstances of his creation are.
“I don’t even know if I’m the one thinking,” he tells the undercover god, wrapping a barbed hand around his wrist above the glove, beneath the cuff of his sleeve.
There’s no temperature to his skin. That makes them a matching pair of abnormalities.
“I don’t own my brain. I don’t own my face. I don’t own this heart,” he emphasizes with a squeeze to the Doorman’s wrist, fastening the palm to his chest. “Am I someone who lost all memory of who they were, or am I a whole new person? So long as I can’t even consider myself alive, I don’t deserve to ‘indulge in my wants.’ They deserve to be honored for giving me this life before I can start living it.”
“I disagree,” the Doorman mutters. His eyes haven’t left the vivisection scar since Victor began spieling. “Unless you’re simply too incompetent to multi-task, then I believe you can seek the answers you desire while simultaneously fulfilling your… bodily wants.”
The Doorman leans forward on his toes, whispering, “Would they feel honored to know you’ve been neglecting the well-being of their borrowed parts?” His fingers slither to Victor’s jaw, ghosting a stitched corner of his lips. He declares, “You’ll offend no one by accepting the aid of others.”
“Is that what you’re offering me? Aid?”
Victor almost laughs. He doesn’t buy it for a second. But the Doorman doesn’t budge, piercing him with an immovable gaze.
“I am offering you a room at The Baroness, Victor.”
The use of his name sends a small jolt down his spine— figuratively, not literally.
Well, maybe literally, too.
“If I agree to spend a night in your hotel, will you leave me alone?”
“Goodness no!” the Doorman laughs, landing on his heels to throw his head back and bellow. He shakes his head fervently, wiping away nonexistent tears. When he next speaks, his voice is distorted by fondness; “I’ve barely had a taste of you, my dear cadaver. Besides,“ he snorts. “You’ll never want to sleep on the streets again after I’ve serviced you.”
Victor grimaces at the way his heart skips a beat. Usually when his pulse misses its cue, it’s due to heart failure. But this kind of irregularity is… not unpleasant. And that’s bounds above his average pain threshold.
“If my opinion is worth anything,” the Doorman lilts, swiveling on his heels, “you’ve shown more compassion in one conversation than most mortals I’ve checked into the hotel have shown in decades.”
“So?” Victor grunts, unused to praise— and from a deity, no less.
“Empathy is by far the most intriguing trait I’ve observed in humans. Such a burdensome strength, often your biggest obstacle to glory. Truly fascinating!”
Winking, he twirls his key ring and strides off in the direction of the lobby.
Frowning, yet oddly not put out, Victor follows.
Despite the appeal of complementary room service, clean water, and freshly fluffed pillows, Victor doesn’t spend his next evening at The Baroness.
Stubbornly, he manages to roam three nights on the streets of Manhattan before dragging his reluctant feet back to the damn hotel.
I’m not neglecting their well-being, he thinks to himself for the umpteenth time in the last seventy-two hours. It doesn’t feel like any less of a lie than every utterance before it.
In dedicating his life to discovering the truth of his parts’ owners, he’d forgotten to take care of himself along the way. Or, rather, it wasn’t something he considered a priority before the Doorman spelled it out for him.
How is he going to honor the people he’s made of if he can’t even keep their limbs intact long enough to return them? Or bury them?
Or… whatever comes after learning the truth.
Peering into Victor’s brain, one could find a void of thought in the spaces reserved for his past and the future.
While seeking the truth of his origin, he has refused to consider what comes after his questions are answered.
The present is already painful enough; Victor isn’t going to self-inflict any more mental torture by acknowledging the cliff he’s running towards at full speed.
The fall might be a relief, anyway.
“Ah, Victor!” greets a chipper Doorman pushing past the hotel lobby doors. Like usual, his hair is perfectly coiffed and his cheeks are rosy, but there’s something especially peppy in his posture tonight.
That Victor even noticed the subtle difference is a concern in and of itself, but he ignores his inner musings in favor of twitching the fingers by his hip. An aborted wave in lieu of his own verbal greeting.
Luckily, the Doorman is unflappable in the face of Victor’s social ineptitude and saves him the embarrassment of groveling for another free room.
“Good evening, my friend,” he beams, ushering Victor off the curb and into the lobby with a hand to the small of his back, applying delicate pressure to his spine’s stitches. He is led in the direction of the library, which is the second most familiar amenity to Victor in The Baroness, ranking only under the front desk.
“Are you here for Miss Paige’s book reading? The age demographic of tonight’s story is mostly composed of teenagers. I’m afraid you missed last night’s adult reading of a popular new dark novella. Or…” The Doorman begins to snicker, “Perhaps you’d be more interested in next week’s curriculum? There will be picture books. It’s no Descartes, of course, but even a kindergarten reading level is quite advanced for a three month old—!“
“I’ll pass,” Victor sighs. Although, it was a pretty funny jab. He chews his bottom lip to smother a smirk. “Thank you for the offer.”
The Doorman looks positively cheesed by his response. Fucking creep.
“Shall I accompany you to your room?” he asks.
“Uh, actually, I was wondering about something you mentioned before.” He scratches at the loose stitches on his throat, too uncomfortable to feel bashful. “The house tailor. You said they’re good at their job, right? That they could fix me up? I’d like to take you up on that offer, if it’s still…”
Considering the grin that is splitting the Doorman’s face, Victor will assume the offer is still available.
“Of course,” the Doorman practically gasps, exuberant. “I will accompany you to your room with haste, then!”
“That’s not— necessary. I mean, thanks, but I know my way around by now.”
“Nonsense.” The Doorman shoves Victor forward, causing him to stumble onto their new path. “How am I going to stitch you up if we aren’t in the same room?”
Victor groans, “You’re the house tailor,” but finds his footsteps are bouncier in light of the revelation. Almost as if he’s… giddy? Or, at least, sowing the seeds of what might someday become a positive emotion.
Tonight’s room in The Baroness is on the seventh floor. Doorman blabbers about lucky numbers and superstition on the elevator ride up, but Victor is too concerned with keeping his head on his shoulders to give the Fledgling his full attention.
Obtaining a needle and heavy duty thread isn’t exactly easy when you don’t have a job. And getting a job without owning a shirt isn’t a walk in the park, either. Hell, finding a shirt that fits over giant metal bolts is the most difficult feat of them all.
Victor typically just makes do with what he can scrounge up on the streets, but he has a nagging suspicion that lacing fishing wire through his flesh doesn’t count as caring for its well-being. Nor does using a borrowed staple gun.
If spending a second night at The Baroness means getting stitches that will last him more than a couple weeks, then he’ll endure a few hours in the hands of an unpredictable Patron larping as a bellhop. Feels like a fair trade.
The Doorman opens the door for him, bowing, not a single twitch to that pleased smile of his.
Inside, Victor can immediately tell this room is an upgrade compared to his previous stay. The room is a suite, housing a kitchen, a king’s sized bed, and space. Lots of space to inhabit and just exist in. No reason to constantly be looking over one’s shoulder.
There are no windows, but Victor can manage without a bit of natural light. He toes his heavy boots off by the door and shuffles towards the bed, eyebrows rising in surprise.
Atop the duvet is a first aid kit with an impressive addition of sewing tools.
“Where the hell did this come from?”
“Who knows? Chalk it up to coincidence,” the Doorman shrugs, suspiciously aloof as he settles beside Victor. “Why don’t I run you a bath first? Loosening those bulging muscles of yours might make our tailoring session a bit less painful.” He eyes Victor’s shoulder. “You’d do well to scrub off all that grime, too.”
“I don’t exactly mix well with water.”
The Doorman nudges open the master bathroom’s door and waves him inside. It’s larger than any bathroom Victor’s been in, excluding public establishments. The Baroness may as well be a resort.
There are even bottles of embalming fluid lining the shelves.
Wait, what?
“Did you have this entire room prepared just for me?” Victor hisses, bristling, but the Doorman blocks his exit with a polite nod.
“It is my job to serve The Baroness’s loyal guests to the utmost of my ability.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Victor nearly whines, distressed for reasons he can’t even put a voice to. “You’re wasting your time trying to coddle me. I’m not a fucking pet project.” Although that’s kind of exactly what he is. “I’m not your pet project,” he corrects himself, but loses some of that initial flame to resignation.
The Doorman pushes off the door frame and grabs Victor’s left hand, raising it between their chests.
“Let’s get you unraveled. The barbs will rust otherwise.”
“I can’t remove this,” Victor sighs, tugging weakly and going nowhere. “It helps to conduct the electricity in my body. Without it, I’d be seizing up every few seconds in an attempt not to singe the shower curtains.”
“Curtains and barbed wire can be easily replaced.”
Victor’s chin is tilted under the weight of a mirthful smirk. He asks, “You’re not going to charge me for damages?”
“I’m offering you complementary amenities; tear down the walls if it pleases you, it makes no difference to me,” he chuckles, then yanks off the barbs embedded in Victor’s palm.
A smaller relief than a drop of rain in the desert.
Still, it’s a start.
Victor holds his arm straight while the Doorman meticulously unwraps, not even flinching when the static nips at his gloved fingers. In fact, he giggles under his breath at every shock, as if he couldn’t get any creepier.
After the barbed wire is spooled into a loose circle around the Doorman’s wrist, he loops a finger through a clasp on Victor’s waistband and tugs.
“Do you need my help removing these, too?” he teases.
“Are you flirting with me?” Victor asks incredulously.
Infernus has already told him time and time again that Victor is pretty obtuse when it comes to picking up signals, as evidenced by the entire week he went without realizing Paige wasn’t just fawning over his physique in the nerdy, researcher kind of way.
Being ogled through attraction rather than disgust confuses him more than it bothers him, so he hasn’t rejected her advances. She wouldn’t want to pursue anything further with him if she actually knew him, anyway. Which is to say, if she knew that there was nothing to him beyond a name he found scribbled on the lab notes beside the table he considers his birthplace.
If anyone finds him physically attractive, it’s because they’re seeing someone else— the person he’s wearing.
Yet, when those glowing blue eyes stare into his own, Victor feels more exposed than ever. Like he’s being seen. Him. Victor.
He doesn’t know if he’ll reject the Doorman’s advances either, if push comes to shove, but for an entirely different reason he really doesn’t want to acknowledge.
“I’m only playing with you,” Doorman chirps, pushing his knuckle into Victor’s hip to walk him backwards. The back of his knees hit the tub.
Although the door is closed and there’s nowhere else to go with the other man’s grip on his pants, Victor doesn’t feel particularly trapped. He’s never had this sort of attention placed upon him before; blatant curiosity with a purity devoid of the typical revulsion.
His boundaries are being tested, but the lines were never really established in the first place. He doesn’t know where he’s supposed to start and someone else ends.
“Are you going to let me shower, or what?” Victor begins to unzip his fly, clicking his tongue. “My head is going to fall off if I’m not stitched up soon and I’m not in the mood for fighting motion sickness, so if you wouldn’t mind?”
The Doorman relents, finally, and slinks back towards the exit, blindly grabbing the doorknob behind him with abnormal precision.
“Take your time, my friend,” he says before slipping out.
Victor, his fly still halfway unzipped, stares at the closed door and chews his bottom lip far longer than necessary. The Doorman did tell him to take his time, though, so he doesn’t feel particularly guilty about it.
Victor can count the amount of showers he’s had on his fingers. When you’re a walking corpse, you don’t exactly sweat or emit a body odor— besides the faint stench of decay. But that’s not something he can wash away with soap, even the fancy kind that the Doorman’s stocked this tub with.
The only use in taking a shower is to wash off the dirt and grime that comes from roaming the outdoors for days on end, and to tear the knots from his greasy hair with blunt fingers.
But then it rings in his head again, the reminder that he should be treating his body better since it doesn’t belong to him. It’s rude to return a borrowed item in a worse condition than when you got it. Even Victor knows that.
So he scrubs the dirt off every nook and crevice of his skin, lathering the seams and scars, digging dirt out of his chipped nails and— just like a mother would preach— washes behind his ears.
That’s a thing moms do, right? He’s certain that’s common knowledge.
Once the mirror has fogged over and he’s mostly dry, Victor braces himself for the part he doesn’t get to do often, but hates every time.
He presses his fingers into the incision on his neck and tugs loose the stitches on one side. They pop off easily, having been worn to a battered state already. Then, once a decently sized hole is created, he sticks the neck of the embalming fluid’s bottle into his throat and pours.
It’s never a pleasant experience.
Definitely not a standard practice, either, but Victor isn’t a scientist. He has a general understanding of most things, but is a master of none.
Should have named me Jack, he thinks with a grimace.
The empty bottle is placed on the sink. By now, the fog has lifted from the mirror, leaving Victor to stare into two people’s eyes, into a stranger’s face. He can never see himself.
Not in the way the Doorman can see him.
There’s a large pair of sweatpants where his own trunks once were. Victor has given up questioning the mysterious shit going on in this hotel, accepting that things just happen when the Doorman wants them to, so he puts on the sweatpants.
They’re soft.
He hasn’t worn anything soft before.
“Comfortable?” asks the man of the hour, peeking through the crack in the door.
Victor slips past him into the hotel room, one hand keeping his head atop his neck, the other flexing around open, empty pinpricks.
“Your pants are being cleaned. Your boots as well.” The Doorman’s eyes roam over his body, expression unreadable. “Do you own a shirt?”
“No.”
“Socks?”
“No.”
“Do you own anything?”
Victor sits on the edge of the bed, huffing, “No.”
“I suppose you’d have no place to store your belongings, regardless."
The Doorman removes his gloves and tucks them into his pocket. Victor can’t bring himself to look directly at his bare hands. There’s a prickling sensation crawling up his nape that might have been a blush in another life.
“I’ll replace the stitches on your neck first, if that’s alright.”
Victor grunts, gaze downcast, a hand clasped protectively over the source of decapitation. He’s forced to lift his gaze, though, when the Doorman knocks his thighs apart and stands between them, reaching for his neck.
“Don’t go shy on me now,” he tuts and peels Victor’s fingers off his skin.
Flesh on flesh.
Victor’s brain short circuits, and that’s not an exaggeration.
“Oh dear.” The Doorman swipes his hand, popping the rest of the stitches, and lifts Victor’s head from his body, bringing them face to face. “Hello,” he laughs, teeth bared. “Are you still with me, Victor?”
“Unfortunately,” he sighs, making an effort to blink both eyes simultaneously. “Decapitating me won’t be enough to turn the lights off.”
“What if I were to pulverize your brain into mush?”
“I dunno. Never tried it.”
“Do you want to try?” he asks, a little too excited.
“Not really, no.”
Victor’s arms twitch, hanging uselessly by his sides. If he tried a bit harder to conduct the electricity from his brain to his body, he might be able to grab himself, but he can’t be bothered to make the effort. The Doorman isn’t going to kill him; there’d be no point.
There are many reasons to fear this Fledgling God, but being slain by his hand is not one of them.
Not for Victor, at least.
“Your life is a bottomless vat of misery, and yet you have no desire to end it. That’s… interesting.”
“Gee, thanks.” He rolls his eyes. “I didn’t ask for an armchair psychologist. I’m here for the ‘house tailor.’ Am I going to get stitched up at any point tonight?”
“An immortal with no patience. The irony.” Doorman pouts, but abides by his complaint and returns Victor’s head to his body. “Hold that steady for me,” he instructs while preparing his sewing kit. “Do you have a preference for the color of the thread?”
“I’d prefer it didn’t stick out.”
“Neon green it is,” Doorman jokes, looping dark grey thread through a needle. Tongue stuck between his teeth, the bellhop grins and presents his tool. “Is this going to hurt you?” he asks, either hopeful or wary. Maybe both.
“Yeah,” Victor shrugs. “Everything hurts. So, yeah, but not really.”
The Doorman sighs and shakes his head fondly. “I adore an abundant use of contradictions in a sentence. A very human behavior.”
“You’re not even pretending to be human anymore, are you?”
“So long as you aren’t, then neither will I.” He places a hand atop Victor’s head of damp hair, leaning down to catch his eye. “Are you ready?”
“Been ready for hours,” he grumbles and presents his neck, like one would for a vampire.
Thank fuck the Doorman isn’t a vampire. Anything but that.
Not that their bites do anything to Victor, but it’s still pretty fucking annoying getting bitten, and then dealing with an angry vampire who complains about the lack of blood. They’re all so snobby.
He would say the first puncture is always the worst, but honestly? They’re equally painful. Never gets worse, never gets better. It’s the same thing every day, every stitch.
But… it’s not as tedious with someone else to do it for you, and someone so deft with their fingers at that.
“Where did you learn to sew?” Victor asks. He can count the freckles on the Doorman’s nose, but would rather not.
“Hmm. Just something one picks up when befriending all walks of life.”
“Befriending. Sure.”
“I can play the piano, too.”
“Good for you.”
Victor tries not to think about his fingers. The fingers on his throat. Touching his skin. Handling him with care, as if he’s capable of being broken.
“My left foot taps when I hear an accordion,” he blurts out.
“Oh?”
“There’s this guy in the subway who plays. I don’t really care for the sound, but my foot taps anyway. I don’t know how that works, so don’t ask.”
“Perhaps the muscle memories of your limbs influence your brain. Kidneys work similarly when transplanted.”
“If you say so.” Victor arches an eyebrow. “You like classical music, then?”
“Music.” The Doorman chuckles, lifting his face to briefly meet Victor’s gaze. “Sure I do.”
“When you say it like that it’s not very convincing.”
“I’m not trying to convince you of anything.”
“God, you’re annoying.”
“Not my na~ame,” he sings, wagging the needle like a conductor’s baton. “Speaking of folktales, you rather remind me of Christ. Has anyone brought that similarity to your attention?”
“What, because of the long hair?”
The Doorman shoots him a look. Victor offers a crooked, shit-eating grin.
“Nah,” he answers. “And why would they? I’m not a miracle; I’m a science experiment.”
“Doctors perform miracles all the time. Why can’t a mad scientist?”
“Don’t compare me to Jesus,” Victor groans. “Don’t assume my creator was a mad scientist, either. For all we know, they could have been a delightful scientist.”
“Yes, of course. Or a humanitarian with access to severed limbs who was well-studied in alchemy.” There’s a pointed jut of his chin in the direction of the symbols engraved in Victor’s skin. “Science and magic combined; a beholding accomplishment.”
The Doorman kneels behind him on the bed to continue sewing his nape. He taps one of the heavy bolts screwed to Victor’s shoulder, rattling his clavicle.
“You’d win the science fair by a landslide, Victor,” he says.
“The experiment doesn’t win; the creator does.”
“Not when the experiment is capable of accepting the trophy himself.” The Doorman pauses his work to drag a finger down the bumps of Victor’s spine, collecting his shivers in a greedy, cupped palm. He murmurs, “You’ve made this judge very happy tonight. Thank you.”
“You’re a judge now?”
“In the metaphor, yes. I must say, you’re rather boring, aren’t you?” He pinches Victor’s side. “Have some imagination, my friend. For goodness’ sake.”
“I’m imagining myself two hours from now when you’ve finished yapping my ear off and the room is blessedly quiet. How’s that for boring?”
“Utterly.”
The Doorman resumes standing between his legs once more, finishing the loop around Victor’s neck with a snip of his scissors. Proudly, he basks in the result of his completed task.
“Much better,” he states, rumbling from his chest. “Give it a whirl. It’s not too tight, is it?”
Victor traces the stitches and twists his neck, testing the pull of his skin, swallowing to bob his Adam’s apple. Nothing strains, and nothing shifts out of place. It’s perfect.
“Wonderful,” the Doorman beams, as if reading his thoughts. Or maybe his expression. Victor finds himself smiling and can’t quite school it. Doesn’t really want to.
“Thank you,” he mutters, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “That was the only one bothering me, so we can call it a night. You’ve probably got other work to do.”
“I am working. It’s my job to serve the guests.”
“The Baroness won’t mind that you’re serving a squatter? Instead of all the paying ones?”
“I’m not the only person who works here, Victor.”
Victor purses his lips. He sort of assumed otherwise, not having noticed any other uniformed workers in his past visits here. That probably says more about him than it does the quantity of their staff.
“Still, you don’t have to stick around for more. I can do the rest.” He holds an open hand out for the needle, but the Doorman is frozen in place, leering down at him.
“Do you want to do the rest by yourself?” he asks.
Victor works his jaw.
“Yeah.”
“If you’re going to lie, at least put some effort into it.”
“No one wants to sew themselves up, okay? But I want to inconvenience you even less, so give me the damn needle.”
“You’re not inconveniencing me. Stop assuming things you know nothing about,” the Doorman growls firmly, thrusting the needle at Victor’s eye, stopping a mere centimeter from his pupil. Despite his tone, he doesn’t look upset, just exasperated. Victor’s eyelashes brush the pointed end of the needle when he blinks.
The Doorman rests his fists on his hips, a foot tapping restlessly.
“Boring and annoying. You’re lucky you’re so…” The Doorman’s lips twist like he’s eaten a lemon. “You’re obnoxiously pitiful, Victor.”
“Thank you, again.” Victor scrunches his nose. “Sorry. Look, I’m not good company, okay? There’s a reason I spend most of my time alone.”
“And what is that reason?”
He sighs, elbows on his knees, and scrubs his face. There’s no obligation for him to bare his soul, so he won’t.
The Doorman isn’t deterred by his cold shoulder. He yanks a stitch loose from Victor’s right arm, forcing him upright.
To Victor’s credit, he doesn’t mope for long, letting the external pain flush out the inner turmoil.
The Doorman works in silence for a while after that. The only indication he’s not bothered is the slight upturn of his mouth on an otherwise empty mask. Victor mostly stares at the ceiling and wills his head to be empty, too.
They’re on the final seam of his torso when the Doorman finally speaks again.
“It’s been a hot minute since the novelty of humans was at its peak. Although, with the Maelstrom on the horizon, more and more intriguing figures have graced these streets, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A hot minute?” Victor snorts. “What’s that in God years? A millennium?”
“You are one of the more prominent figures to capture my attention, Victor. This world is brand new to you and yet you’re intimately familiar with it. You possess an innate understanding of the facets of a society thrust upon what should be a blank slate. Fascinating how that works,” the Doorman carries on, refusing to reward Victor’s own curiosity. He tugs the next stitch a little harder, a wordless reprimand.
Victor can’t be mad. Getting answers was never part of this exchange for him; the Doorman satiates his curiosity by playing with a new toy, and Victor is allowed to sleep on a real mattress. That’s all there is to it. Not the worst deal Victor’s made to rest somewhere safe overnight.
All things considered, the Doorman has been exceptionally accommodating to him, ulterior motives be damned. How could Victor fault him for inheriting the role of the experimenter when they’re so fundamentally imbalanced on the scale of cosmic significance?
The Doorman is a Fledgling God.
Victor isn’t even a person.
He should be so lucky to accept the Doorman’s company with gratitude.
Just as he’s about to utter his thanks, the Doorman blurts, “I can’t have you brooding under my watch. Where are my manners?”
“Sorry,” Victor reacts instinctively, which only vexes the Doorman further.
“Do you have any hobbies?”
“What?”
The Doorman snips his knotted thread and waves his scissors around, ranting, “There must be something you’ve taken an interest in besides hunting for answers. Do you like sports? Film? Painting? We’ve already established you don’t read.”
“Hey, I can read,” he grunts.
“Not for leisure.”
The Doorman unspools his next cord of thread and hovers by Victor’s chin, a wordless ask. Nodding, Victor allows him to tilt his face so he can inspect the stitches on his cheek. A thumb runs over his bottom lip, high voltage from a single digit.
There are no fingerprints on either of their hands.
As the Doorman begins to pluck the stitches out of his mouth, he asks Victor, “Do you eat?”
“Sometimes. But I don’t feel hunger.”
“Do you like eating?”
“I guess?” He shrugs. “Hotdogs are okay. There’s a guy on Broadway with a cart who gives me two in exchange for— uh.” Victor purses his lips, suddenly aware of how close their faces are to each other. “I run errands for him, sometimes.”
“Performing labor for a non-essential pleasure. Hmm. Sounds to me like you enjoy eating after all.” Doorman shoots him a look, like a cat in the cream. “Should you ever desire cuisine a notch above street food, I implore you to find me here.”
“Are you offering me free food now? I don’t need your charity, man.”
“No? Then what is this?”
“Aid, not charity,” he parrots, rolling his eyes. “And don’t act like we’re not just using each other.”
“I’m not using you,” the Doorman states, frowning as he rises, removing his hands from Victor’s face. The loss of warmth is shocking; Victor hadn’t realized it was even there. That shouldn’t be possible.
“Then why are you doing this?” He gestures towards his new stitches, then the hotel room. “You consider me entertainment. I don’t mind that. Really. But you don’t have to pretend to be human— to care. I’m not offended.”
“Are you using me, Victor?” he asks, eyes wide. “How so?”
Victor squints, suddenly feeling pinned on his perch.
“You’re letting me stay here for free,” he says cautiously. “I’m using your kindness. Or— what you want me to perceive as kindness. Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
He steps backwards, and the room grows colder with every inch. Victor is inexplicably tugged forward, as though he were being led by pulled strings, and ends up tumbling into the Doorman’s space, backing him into the wall. His bright blue eyes shone through the heavily cast shadow.
Victor can feel the prickle of the Doorman’s breath on his collarbone, and tension fizzles between them in a current.
“Are you even capable of feeling human emotions?” he asks.
“Are you?”
To that, Victor’s chest clenches.
The Doorman smiles, brows furrowed. “Oh, Victor, you morose little thing.” He clasps Victor’s face, thumbnails threatening to pierce his lower eyelids. “I’ll admit I’m not offended by you, either. Your lack of faith in me is only a detriment to yourself.”
“Okay.” He snorts. “I don’t put my faith in gods.”
“What about people?” The Doorman’s hands wrap around his throat, smooth palms claiming the space atop his own handiwork. “Would you place any faith in a person?”
“Depends on the person.”
“I consider myself a person, too, you know.” The Doorman pulls him close, teeth grazing his jawbone as he speaks. “Have some faith in me.”
Shivering, Victor pushes the Doorman away by the hips, but fails to release him once they’re apart. They stare at one another, hands around each other’s throat and waist.
Swallowing is immensely difficult, and it has nothing to do with the slight pressure around his neck.
“What do you want from me?” Victor rasps.
“Just you,” the Doorman answers honestly. Endeared, he pats Victor’s forearms, prompting him to let go. “Your stitches are complete for the evening. I’d like to touch up your legs, too, at some point, but it’d be rude of me to keep you up when it’s gotten so late. You must be exhausted after enduring all that poking and prodding.”
He slides past Victor and returns to the bedside, packing away his kit. Then he’s looking up at Victor from the corner of his eye, his lip quirked like he’s telling a secret, but he doesn’t make another sound. A deafening implication.
“How late is it?” Victor asks, hearing his voice come from somewhere else. Or maybe it’s coming from his mouth like always but his ears have fallen off. Maybe he’s not in the room anymore. Maybe he’s no longer himself.
Perhaps the Doorman has a point about exhaustion.
“Late enough to warrant some shut-eye.”
He places the kit on the nightstand and brushes his hands on his thighs, then slips back into his gloves, aware that Victor is staring. It’s not something he cares to hide anymore.
Victor is still standing in the middle of the room, almost like he’s scared that the first step will be the pebble that avalanches into flattening what they’ve built together tonight. Whatever that is. The Doorman makes those steps for him, but there’s no destruction.
“If you need anything, please ring for me,” the Doorman tells him, slowing his gait in passing. He brushes a knuckle across Victor’s exposed hip where a finger was looped through his pants earlier.
Victor wonders if hunger is contagious.
“Good night, Victor.”
He swallows, trying to smile.
“Yeah,” he grunts, teeth gritting behind his lips. “Thanks.”
The Doorman smiles where Victor failed to, and then he’s gone. A closed door stands in his wake.