Chapter Text
The knowledge that Justine- sweet and caring Justine was gone, called a murderess; it cursed him. He knew not the true assassin of his lovely brother and that knowledge would haunt him forevermore. Just as his search for- for his disgusting creature.
Gods, the creature he had created. The hideous wretch. How could one be so unnatural even after he had sought the best parts? He tried, wanting something beautiful but those beautiful pieces sewn together made something so horrific and disturbing that the mere memory still made cold sweat crawl up his back. The demon he had made- had lost and set upon the world without a thought aside from terror.
He had run.
At that first reach, that humongous figure looming over his bed, watery eyes staring at him like from the skull of a dead man. It had been a dead man just the night before. But- Gods, when that unnatural creature reached for him he could do nothing but run. He had never been a fighter, that was Henry. It only made sense that his fight or flight would turn so immediately to flight. That hand reaching for him- that hand he had painstakingly sewn together.
He knew not where the- his creature was. Even as he wallowed, staring at the endless sky and valleys. He spread his arms, closing his eyes against the sun, the cool wind. His heart ached with misery, the memory of his darling little brother- now in the bosom of their late mother.
Victor covered his face, a slave to the tears that spilled once again. Would he that his tears could fill a sea. He shuddered, gasping sobs leaving his lips like a parent despairing their dying child. Here on this desolate mountain he could shout at the sky, curse the heavens for taking another person of his heart from him.
His mother, his darling little brother, his nanny Justine unjustly accused.
When drained of tears, he fell to his knees, exhaustion weighing him down. His grief like the world upon Atlas's back. Yet his own back was not nearly so strong nor broad. He was being crushed under its weight- drowning in the sea of tears he'd made. Why- why?! Why take his brother! His brother who was still but a child growing within the loving arms of Father, Elizabeth, Henry, and now late Justine. He could not bear it!
A large figure in the distance pulled him from his misery, and his aching heart threatened to stall. That figure-. That far- far too large figure traversed the distance between them as if the distance were mere feet and not yards upon yards.
He knew who it was who approached him so rapidly. The sun revealed that disgusting face and his stomach twisted with fear- terror. His legs ached to run once again, to never gaze upon that haunting visage. Yet he forced himself still. That was the creature- his creature. While disgust still welled inside him, threatening him with bile, he kept it all down. He had to.
"...My Creature." Victor spoke, clenching his trembling hands. The Creature froze, as if not expecting the address.
"You- You claim me, Creator?" The Creature spoke- spoke! Victor swallowed hard, his heart a drum in his chest, one that threatened to break.
"...I do. You are- mine, by creation. My hands chose and sewed each part of your figure. Are you not mine?"
"Yet you disparaged me, did you not?! You were not there when I woke!" The Creature said in a loud and broken voice, the sound strange and both pleasant yet unpleasant. The hulking figure came closer to him, making him feel as small as a child against a monster.
Why had he made his creature so very large?
"I had- and I regretted. My Creature, I searched for you." Victor said. He had, after dear Henry healed him from his deadly sickness. He'd listened for any word of such a monstrous figure but there had been nothing. Victor steeled himself and reached out, up. The wretched Creature stared, refusing to blink. His hand could not reach across the vast difference of their heights yet Victor did not let his hand fall.
Then, after such a long while, the Creature began to lean down and Victor slowly slid his hand against that monstrous face. The disgusting patchwork of scars brushed against his hand and a sound burst from the Creature, startling him. Even he knew not how he kept his hand against sallow skin yet he did. The Creature was crying, great heaving sobs as it pressed into his warm touch.
"My Creator, my Maker!" The Creature wailed in his rough voice, "So wretched a creature am I! I have never felt such a warm and kind touch!"
Disgust still roiled in his stomach but sympathy also made its home in his bosom. Victor took a deep breath, trying not to react with horrific disgust and instead, raised his other hand. He held his creature's face, his hands, already slender -a surgeon's hands-, looked even more so against the yellowed skin of his creation.
"I- I apologize. This is what I should have given upon your awakening. Yet I am human and it is the folly of man to make mistakes... Will you forgive me?"
The Creature sobbed harder and vastly larger hands covered his own. Those tears slid over his skin and down his wrists, leaving what felt like burning trails in their wake. Then the Creature moved and Victor could not stop his flinch but the Creature either did not notice or paid no heed as the monster wrapped steel-like arms around him. He was pulled into a hug, one he could not escape from.
Nausea turned his stomach at the coldness seeping through his clothing, but he was naught but determined. Victor breathed to calm his heart but the smell of his creature consumed his senses. The smell of heavy musk and something of the forest. The thick scent made him dizzy but he slowly curled his arms the best he could. The motion reminded him so dearly of his departed mother. So kind a woman was she that he had the idea she would look past the wretched visage of his creature. Would she not hug the foul thing? Victor was sure and- he tried. He splayed his hands over his creature's broad back and slowly rubbed.
"My creature-." Victor began and felt the great shudder wrack through the Creature's body.
"Oh Creator! My Creator! I came to ask- to reason with you a bride! A creature as wretched as I so that I may not be so alone! Yet here- my maker! You show me the kindness, the warmth I so craved!" The Creature cried, his hold tightening.
Victor gasped, his thin fingers curling against his creature's back. It was hard to breathe and Victor feared his creature ending his life just from this.
"You claim me as your creature and I am! I am your wretched creature! So maker- my creator! Do not abandon me again. Do not deprive me of this sweet warmth! To know it now- I fear becoming beastly. A true monster if I shall lose it! My heart which had been made for kindness and love had only been allowed hate and rage from the cruel hands of man!" His Creature said in a rush and Victor felt both cold and indignant in the same turn.
How could other humans disparage his creation? As hideous as his creature was, he was still made by himself. A man brought to life from the dead! Yet cold tried to grip his spine. If he were to run again as his legs still ached to do- would his creature truly become his monster? He did not want to lose more people of his heart and- should not his creature as well be in that lot? He had made his creature, spent months and months, single-mindedly making his creature. It was for the betterment of mankind, to give reason and possibility to beat back death for his fellow man but-...
He sighed.
"I will not, I swear." Victor quietly swore, "I wish- I wish to give you care as I should have. What life have you led, my Creature?"
"Pity your poor, wretched creature! The world has been unkind for these two years." The Creature shuddered again then pulled back only just.
It allowed Victor to see his creature's ghastly visage once more. Bile threatened. Horror locked his jaw. He forced it all down once again, calling upon the image of his dearest mother and- sweet Elizabeth. Would she not also show kindness? She was faint of heart when it came to such things yet she was so determined as well. Victor's eyes fluttered shut but then he forced himself to look. To become numb to the horrifying face that was his creature.
"Will you listen to my tale, my Creator? Know of the years I spent away from you?"
Victor nodded and he expected to be released from his Creature's hold. To be set upon the ground so they may speak as gentlemen. Instead, a high sound left his lips as he was raised higher and carried like a babe to a hovel of a home with no one inside. A Shepard's Hut upon the mountain they were on. The creature too easily moved with him in his hold, even when needing to use a singular arm. Victor fought to keep his breathing steady at the sight and feel of such strength, but faltered when- when his creature sat. His creature continued to hold him, his back pressed tight to a cold chest. Those supernaturally strong arms still like steel bands. At once, Victor felt a child again, sitting upon his father's lap. Heat flushed his cheeks.
"This-! This is not proper-!" He tried to say, already struggling against that inescapable grip. A grip which tightened again, yanking him against the creature's broad torso. He gasped at the cold then again as his legs fell on either side of his creature's thick thigh. More heat rushed to his face. He was much too old to be sitting upon anyone's lap in such a way!
"Do not deny me, Creator." His Creature entreated, "Allow your poor, wretched creature this elusive warmth he had been forever denied."
Compassion made its home in his bosom once more and Victor swallowed down his argument. He supposed this was hardly different from a parent comforting their child- even if the positions were switched. Yet his creature was far- far too large to treat as a begging child. Victor took another breath and counted his small blessing that at least he could not see the horror of his creature. Slowly, he placed his hand upon his creature's stitched one. That hand turned, linking their fingers together so quickly. Victor twitched, trying not to tremble- both from embarrassment and unease. He felt the breath of his creature as the made man bent to see their entwined hands. He heard the shuddering breath as if the creature were seconds from sobbing once more. Victor counted his blessings again when that didn't come to pass. Instead, his creature spoke into his ear with that deep and strange voice.
Victor learned of the months his creature spent alone. The forest, the cold, the spring. The accidental fear his creature inspired, how he learned of his horrific visage so different from the common man. He learned of the family with the blind father. The hope his creature had to join them but had acted far too hastily.
The creature's story ended after he was shot post saving a small child from a rushing river. Victor felt his aching heart stutter and tried to turn. To see the wound his creature surely still had.
"Where?!" Victor near shouted, his free hand going to his creature's chest. He kept his eyes from his creature's face, feeling for a bullet instead. He thought he found it when his creature groaned deeply, but then the hand that refused to release his own, moved. That arm trapped him again and the creature's other hand grasped his well meaning one. The creature pressed his warm hand harder to stiff skin stretched over stiffer muscle- as covered as it was by shoddy cloth.
"Maker- my maker. My kind creator. Do you pity your wretched creature? Do you-."
"Hush." Victor begged in his own way, "...Yes. There is pity in my heart but not just. There is sympathy, compassion, and- awe."
"My Creator...?"
"You have seen some of the best that comes with humanity withheld from you. You have endured pain and rejection yet- yet you have not exacted revenge against man even as anger filled you. That is more than some can claim." The memory of his lovely little brother crossed his mind and tears flooded his eyes like unstoppable rain.
"Gods-!" Victor sobbed, trying to pull his hands away to hide his face. His creature would not let him. The made man wiped his errant tears instead and Victor took a shuddering breath. He shook his head and haltingly explained.
"My- My little brother. My darling William was taken from me, from us. Not only that but our dearest nanny Justine was unjustly accused and put to death. All because an assassin was cruel enough to end a child!" Victor's voice broke and he bowed his head to hide. His creature did not make him look up again and he was grateful- grateful! Yet the emotion stayed even with its absurdity. He felt the shake in his creature's hold and thought that maybe his creature empathized with him as well.
"There is such a deep anger in me at the thought of my darling little brother's assassin." Victor confessed, wanting, in a way, for his creature to see just how kind a thing he was despite so many misfortunes -despite not being guided as he should have been-, "My soul screams to hunt the murderer down and end their existence. To set fire to them as that fire burns me to my core. I know myself- even if I have never enacted violence upon another before. Given the chance, I would enact my revenge. Yet you- you have done no such thing." Victor tried and succeeded in giving his hideous creature a trembling smile. Then he tried to change the subject from the deep ache in his heart.
"Now- you said you were shot. Where? I must examine it." Victor entreated, subconsciously using the same tone he would for his dear Henry. He hears the way his creature's breath labors and thinks it is for the kindness he is showing. Or maybe his creature is still in pain and had been hiding it all along.
His creature moved slowly, lifting his shirt to reveal the long expanse of stitched and yellowed skin. It turned his stomach but Victor saw the bullet wound fully healed. He blinked in wonder, fingertips touching the scarred skin.
"I am healed, my Creator."
"Incredible..." Victor murmured and did not see the hunger that had been growing in the creature's watery gaze. The hunger that threatened him in ways he wasn't expecting from a creature he'd created. His thumb delicately brushed the scar and his lips parted to speak but a gasp left him instead as his creature gripped his waist. Just one hand spanned half already and when the other joined, his entire waist was held in his creature's grasp. Victor's face flushed again. He was not a big man, never had been, but no one had ever held him in such a way before.
"You view me in such a way, Creator? Am I truly- in your eyes?" The Creature's voice shook and that engulfing grip raised. His creature's hands too easily spanned his rib cage, just under the jut of his chest. He had a queer thought that his creature's hands were like a corset, squeezing and framing him as it would a woman's body. He cleared his throat, oddly flustered.
"It is- You are. Your existence is... incredible." Victor admitted, forcing his mouth to move. He would grant this mercy, speak the truth without shrinking in fear for his creature's unnaturalness. His creature was incredible, the fact that his creature lived- moved, breathed, thought. It was a miracle. Victor looked up, forcing himself to keep his gaze upon that unsettling face.
"You are a miracle, a life made from death. You are proof that we humans can beat death." Even as horror still filled him for his singular hand in making his creature. It was, in a way, the proof Victor had tried so hard to bring to light. He had wanted to help his fellow man. Just- his thoughts never went past his hopeful success.
There was a deep sob and Victor jerked, unknowing of what to do as thick tears spilled down his creature's eerie face. Then those arms pulled him again, wrapping around him twice over as his creature's face found a new home in the junction of his neck and shoulder. Quickly, his neck and shoulder began to wet. Part of him shriveled, wishing to shove himself away. The, thankfully, larger part of himself wanted to- help. Slowly, Victor raised his hand and placed it upon his creature's head. He felt the hitching breath against his neck and swallowed hard. He closed his eyes and began to stroke his creature's head.
"S-Shhh. What do you cry for now, My Creature?" Victor asked, only stuttering a little, "Are you unhappy-?"
"No!" The creature near shouted, frantic and so loud, "Anything but! Creator- My Creator, there is warmth in my chest and heat in my stomach. This- I have hardly felt happiness but should these feelings not be of joy? My maker, you bring me these rampant emotions I never want to part from!"
Those stitched hands moved and Victor swore that his body was being caressed. Large hands felt up his sides and back. One hand settled on the back of his head, far too large to just grasp his neck. Yet thick fingers curled anyway and a shiver ran up his spine at the firm grip. He felt completely caught- a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.
"You swore you would not abandon me. Hold true to your word, My Maker! Be your wretched creature's craved companion!"