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“I don’t see how any of that is my problem.”
“Not your problem?” Victor laughed, swinging his glass around with one hand, sending droplets of alcohol splattering onto the bar table. Draco would have his hands full, cleaning up after them later. “Dear Vincent, you’re the one who suggested it in the first place. Don’t you remember?”
Don’t you remember?
A low voice, a wide smile, shadows almost writhing behind them.
Mr. Edgeworth. Don’t you remember?
“Vincent?” He distantly heard glass slamming on a table, felt hands grip him by his shoulders as he fell forward — was he falling?
Somewhere in the back of his head was a muted drone, a voice repeating no and ERROR and something isn’t right .
“I— what?”
“Vincent?” Victor was in front of him now, holding him up with an expression of pure panic. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s… nothing. Just a headache.” Vincent stood up, only to stagger and fall right back into Victor’s arms. “I’ll retire for the night.”
“I’ll walk you to your room.”
“Victor, if you’re just going to use this as an excuse to—” he faltered again, tripping over his feet.
“Don’t be silly.” Victor looped a steady arm around his waist. “You clearly need help, Vincent.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but almost fell again, only held up by Victor’s arms. He put an arm around Victor’s shoulders in defeat. “Fine.”
Victor had fallen asleep at his bedside.
He’d insisted on staying to take care of Vincent in case his wooziness returned, and—
He sighed. If Vincent was going to sleep here anyway, he may as well be comfortable doing it.
Taking care not to disturb his sleep, Vincent picked him up and tucked Victor in beside him, a feat made much easier through his new body. At least that was one benefit to all of this.
Vincent lay back down, turned to face Victor’s sleeping form. It was far from the first time they’d shared a bed — Victor crawled into his bed more often than not. And while Vincent always made sure to keep to himself, Victor had no such qualms. He’d wake up in the morning splayed across the bed like a starfish, an arm (and often a leg) draped over Vincent, with absolutely no remorse. One would almost think he was doing it on purpose, with how often it happened.
His face was softer in sleep.
It wasn’t as if Victor was particularly stern when he was awake, but there was a softness to his cheeks, the slope of his jaw, in the light flutter of his eyelashes, the rise and fall of his chest. It had been a while since Vincent had seen him like this. While Victor was always fairly jovial, there was a restraint in his body now, a steel in his eyes that never quite seemed to vanish, no matter how hard he laughed. Victor was a spring, coiled tight, and one day he would burst.
Vincent could pinpoint the moment it had happened. The moment everything had changed.
Before. After.
He rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling.
Most things in their lives now could be described in the same way.
Before. After.
It was hard to fall asleep now. To succumb to darkness, to an empty void, too much of a reminder of months spent drifting in a state of semi-consciousness.
He hated the dreams, too. Even the objectively pleasant ones — few as they were — only served to remind him of exactly what he had lost.
Before. After.
He hadn’t had insomnia while working for Myers — though he did often stay up late at night for work, he’d never had trouble falling asleep once he finally finished whatever work he had been preoccupied with.
Now, though— now, he had to drive himself to exhaustion, first.
His thoughts were loud — he hated being alone because of it, because his thoughts would have free reign, when all he seemed capable of thinking about was—
Sometimes the drive to forget simply outweighed the desire for clarity. That was why he still drank, indulged in alcohol even if he hated being drunk. He’d called it Victor’s vice, but that wasn’t entirely accurate. It was his, too.
The resulting hangovers were almost something to look forward to. At least with the splitting pain as a distraction, he wouldn’t be able to think himself into these downward spirals.
Even so, he hadn’t drunk enough tonight to warrant a headache. He didn’t know where this sudden bout of light-headedness had come from.
The voice at the back of his head was still droning on, even when he finally drifted off.
It happened again.
Sometimes he would simply walk into the wrong room. Sometimes he would be speaking to Draco, only to completely lose track of what he had been saying. Sometimes he’d talk about an event that no one else seemed to remember. Sometimes Victor would be telling him a joke about their college days, only for him to realise that—
He didn’t remember any of it.
Some pieces were there. But others were fragmented, riddled with holes that he couldn’t quite explain. He could remember their cat. Her mannerisms, her favourite brand of cat food.
He couldn’t remember her name.
She’d liked sitting at the windowsill on sunny days. She’d liked batting her toys under his bed and meowing at him until he retrieved them. She’d liked waiting specifically until Victor was in the room to brush past him disdainfully and sit on Vincent’s lap instead — she’d always preferred him to Victor, a fact that he had been inordinately pleased about.
And he couldn’t remember her name.
A man in a blue suit, mouth stretched into a grin.
Don’t you remember, Mr. Edgeworth?
He woke up with a gasp, almost throwing himself out of his bed entirely.
Victor shifted beside him, still asleep, a frown marring his face at the sudden disturbance. Vincent took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm his thoughts, before slipping out of bed, carefully moving Victor’s arms off of him.
He didn’t want to disturb Victor. At least one of them should be getting some rest.
He made his way to the bathroom, locked the door and sunk to the floor against it.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to shout and curse and rip his insides out with his bare hands, bear witness to the evidence of his inhumanity.
But Victor was asleep in the next room.
His breathing was ragged, but — why? Why did he even need to breathe? Why build him in the image of a human when he so clearly wasn’t, not anymore?
He pressed a finger to his neck, right where his pulse was supposed to be. Where his pulse used to be, Before.
There was nothing there.
Was he Vincent? No, he was but a frozen snapshot of the man’s life, a moment in time perfectly preserved. These thoughts weren’t his. These feelings weren’t his. This life wasn’t his.
Everyone he knew would grow and change around him, and he would remain stagnant.
He was as much Vincent as a photograph was. A copy, a sham, a metal husk playacting at humanity.
The holes in his — Vincent’s — memory were proof enough of this, errors made from an unsuccessful port, or the result of deliberate tampering — a desire to see what, exactly, he would become with his mind so scattered by interference.
Knowing Myers—
No. He couldn’t trust his thoughts. How much had they tampered with? How much had they changed? He couldn’t trust his memory, his mind. Even his feelings were suspect — every part of him had been changed in the experiment, and no part of him was truly his own.
No part of him was truly Vincent. Vincent was dead now, nothing more than a memory in the minds of the people who had known him, once. He was but an impostor taking Vincent’s place.
And Victor—
Victor deserved so much better than this shell.
Better .
He was better than Before, in the objective sense. Enhanced. Stronger, faster, but what use was any of that when he was missing all the parts of himself that mattered? When he was but a fragment of a person, a fractured reflection?
Vincent had been whole.
How could he ever hope to compare?
He wasn’t Vincent. He would never be the Vincent that had walked into Myers, blind. He would never be the Vincent that had lain in Victor’s arms and kissed him and thought that everything would be alright, that the world was their oyster and they only had to go out and conquer it.
That Vincent had died in the crash. This was the simulacrum that had walked out in Vincent’s place, blood on his hands and a cavity in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.
He was not Vincent. But he would try to be — for Victor, who had hoarded every scrap of hope with all the desperation of a man drowning, who had—
“Vincent? Are you in there?”
The door opened behind him, and he almost tumbled back into Victor’s legs. Victor, who was blinking blearily down at him, hair mussed and clothes dishevelled.
Vincent smiled almost instinctively at the sight of him. “Yes, Victor?”
“What’re you doing there? It’s late.” Victor yawned, extending an arm to pull Vincent to his feet. “Come back to bed.”
"Yeah," he whispered, still holding onto Victor's hand. “I will.”