Chapter Text
I never thought of myself as a desperate or a naive man, that very much changed the march of 1849.
To make myself clear, at the time I was the most ordinary man imaginable. I was never particularly skilled at anything, nor did I ever contribute anything useful to the world. But I understood that not everyone is meant to accomplish great things, and I never wished to. Some might say I achieved something simply by being born into a wealthy family and beginning medical school. My father was a doctor and insisted I become one as well, while my mother had been a wealthy actress. So yes, you could say I was lucky. That luck ran out quickly during my second year of medical school.
One day, near the end of March, I sat in class watching the weather beyond the windows. London looked exactly as one would expect—rain, fog, and a drafty wind that tugged at people’s coats and sent their hair fluttering wildly. I was among the first to arrive at the lecture hall, as always. I preferred being early; it spared me the stares that followed whenever I entered a crowded room. It also allowed me to choose where I sat.
That morning I chose the first row right by the window so I could watch the rain and the people trying to escape it. I ran a hand through my brown hair, checking whether the wind and rain had ruined it. Of course they had. Every morning I slicked it back carefully with pomade, and every morning London weather curled it back into disorder.
"Great, just great." I muttered under my breath.
I still had half an hour before the lecture began, so I stood, leaving my belongings behind, and headed for the lavatories. As I pushed open the heavy double doors, my heart nearly stopped.
A man stood behind them trying to reach out and open them which was unattainable for him because he was balancing an impossible stack of books, papers, and God knows what else. Yet none of that caught my attention. It was his appearence.
He had long black hair, though faint silver had already begun creeping through at the roots, most visible near his temples where the strands caught the weak grey light from the windows. It fell nearly to the middle of his back and had clearly once been brushed properly, though the weather had ruined that effort entirely. Damp curls clung awkwardly to his throat and forehead, while shorter strands floated around his face in complete disarray.
His eyes were the palest blue that was probably humanly posible, and they fixed themselves upon me there was something within them I could not properly name to anyone who has not seen them. They were framed by a pair of silver pince-nez glasses that were hooked behind his ear with a subtle chain.
His face itself was narrow and exhausted-looking, all sharp angles and hollow shadows. His cheekbones were severe enough to cast faint hollows beneath them, and there were delicate lines gathered at the corners of his eyes which suggested either age or constant exhaustion. Perhaps both.
His nose was long and sharp, slightly crooked near the bridge as though it might once have been broken years ago and left to heal improperly. Beneath it sat thin lips, pale and perpetually parted, not out of confusion but necessity. He could not fully close them around his teeth. They were crooked and overcrowded, as though four or five too many had been forced carelessly into his mouth. Some leaned inward while others twisted outward at strange angles, pale and uneven like old tombstones in an ancient neglected graveyard, jutting in every direction except the proper one. They should have made him hideous. By all reasonable logic, they should have repulsed me entirely. Instead I found myself staring at them shamelessly, wondering how his voice formed around them, wondering how they would feel against skin
He was terribly thin too, not frail exactly, but stretched long and narrow. He was only just tall enough for his forehead to sit near the height of my lips. His white shirt was neatly starched despite the rain, the collar slightly too high against his throat. Over it he wore a black waistcoat embroidered with delicate dark patterns that only became visible when the light struck them correctly. Black trousers fell neatly over polished shoes with narrow pointed toes and thin heels
Most people would have called him unattractive. The teeth, the wrinkles gathering around his eyes, the gauntness of his face, there was certainly no shortage of flaws to notice. Yet I found myself drawn not to the things that made him unpleasant, but to the things that made him singular. And somehow, even his flaws made him beautiful.
Without a word I opened the door for him to enter, like I was under the influence of the sweetest drug. He dipped his head in thanks and murmured something so softly I almost missed it entirely. In that moment, I forgot all about my ruined hair, the rain, and the wind that continued to howl outside.
"Do you need help with that, sir?" I asked, gesturing toward the towering stack in his arms. He just nodded and extended his arms. I quickly took most of the books and papers, trying to lighten the burden as much as I could.
He crossed the lecture hall and made his way to the desk at the front of the room, placing the few papers I had left him onto its surface. The moment I set down the rest of his belongings beside them, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a small toffee sweet.
"For your help." His voice was noticeably slurred, his tounge struggling to move against the overcrowded teeth.
I accepted the candy. It had softened slightly from the warmth of his pocket, sticky against my fingers. The gesture felt strangely childish, I was twenty years old, after all, and yet I found myself unable to resist the sweetness of it. I unwrapped the toffee and placed it into my mouth, smiling at him.
“I am Mort Dent,” he said while fixing his hair behind his ear. “The new professor.”
For reasons I could not explain, that pleased me more than it should have.
“I am Arthur Loyd,” I answered quickly, nearly tripping over the words in my haste.
"You’re a rather eager young man, Arthur," he said while leafing through one of the books he had brought.
"Only polite, I would say." At least, that had been my intention. In truth, his voice alone had made me so strangely excited that my throat went dry, and I could feel my mouth pulling itself into an idiotic smile. The professor noticed it too, a quiet chuckle escaped him as he continued sorting through his papers. Then, the other students had begun filing into the lecture hall, though I barely noticed them. In that moment, the world could have collapsed around me and I still would not have taken my eyes off him. “Arthur,” he said gently, glancing toward the growing crowd, “you should probably take your seat.” I nodded at once. The staring was becoming awkward, even if I had no desire for it to end. I returned slowly to my place beside the window, where my friend Henry was already seated. He looked at me as though I were the strangest thing he had encountered all morning. I merely smiled and avoided his gaze. The sticky wrapper from the toffee remained crumpled in my hand
"That man, is he the new professor?" he asked, attempting to coax life back into his dip pen.
I just nodded, The toffee had begun melting against my teeth, sticking them together unpleasantly..
“He’s rather difficult to look at, isn’t he?” Henry whispered with a crooked grin. “Bit of an eyesore, if I’m honest.”
My head snapped toward him. "And you’re hard to listen to. That accent of yours makes my ears bleed." I hissed at him. The insult would have sounded sharper had the caramel not nearly glued my mouth shut. Henry only rolled his eyes, amusement lingering across his tan “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed those teeth of his,” he muttered. He hardly looks qualified to teach medicine."
"You hardly look qualified to study it, yet here you are."
He just shook his head again. "You should be on my side. What exactly did he do to win you over so quickly?"
I opened my mouth to answer, yet nothing sensible came to me. What had he done? Very little, truly.
He had held books in his arms. He had thanked me softly for opening a door. He had given me a sweet from the pocket of his waistcoat like one might calm a child. None of it should have mattered as much as it did.
And yet it did.
I could still picture every detail of him with painful clarity. The pale blue of his eyes. The strange slant of his teeth when he spoke. The silver beginning to creep through the roots of his dark hair. Even his voice lingered unpleasantly deep inside me, fast and slurred but gentle all at once.
I hated how much I wanted to hear it again.
It made no sense to me. Men like Mort Dent were not supposed to be desirable. Not according to anyone I had ever known. He was too old, too thin, too peculiar-looking. If another student had described him to me before this morning, I might have laughed alongside them.
But standing near him felt like coming near a burning fire after standing out in the cold for so long
I wondered what his hands would feel like.
The thought arrived so suddenly that it nearly made me choke
I quickly lowered my gaze to the desk, heat rising sharply into my face. If Henry noticed my embarrassment, he mercifully said nothing.
I had known beautiful women before. Women with soft curls pinned neatly beneath silk ribbons, women who smelled of rosewater and powder and smiled at me, woman who had soft curves, my eyes lingered on. I had admired them in the ordinary way any young man should. In a sexual one, not romantic. None of them had ever unsettled me like this. None of them had ever made me feel as though my entire body had turned traitor. “He gave me a sweet,” I muttered at last. Even to my own ears, it sounded pathetic.
After the lecture ended I tried to pack my stuff up as slowly as I could, gazing every other second at mr. Dent. Everything about him was perfect. From the fly away hairs that stuck out from his head down to the heels he wore that made a loud clicking sound on the wooden floor that was everywhere in our university.
Henry was waiting for me to gather all my belongings and to finally go back to our dormitories, but having to depart from this angel of a man would be like torture for me, even if just for a few minutes and God knew when I would see him again.
When we finally approached the front of the hall, I stopped beside him and gathered every fragment of courage I possessed.
"If I could ask you professor" I began, "what subjects will you be teaching?" Because our university was fairly small it was standard that most teachers thaught more then just one subject.
"Pathology and anatomy, mostly,” he replied. “And occasionally I take a few students with me to the country hospital for practical lessons. The same arrangement as the professor before me."
I stepped slightly closer, unable to resist studying those pale blue eyes again. Up close, he smelled faintly of myrrh, old fabric, and antiseptic. A scent oddly reminiscent of old churches.
I nodded and in a shaky voice replied: "A-and if I would be interested in the practical lessons?"
Somewhere behind me, Henry muttered impatiently about returning to the dormitories, but I ignored him completely.
"Well, I normally only take students from the third year onward,” Mort said thoughtfully. “But if you remain under my supervision, I suppose I could make an exception next time. And your friend? Would he be interested?"
"Henry? I doubt it" The truth was more selfish than that. I wanted Mort entirely to myself. “I’ll write your name down, then,” he said, reaching for a sheet of paper. “I believe the administration mentioned the fourth of April.”
"I would be accompanying him to the country hospital. The thought alone sent my mind racing. The older students would separate to work on their own, but I would remain with him, if only because I was younger and less experienced. Only then did I realize I was still nodding. Mort watched me with faint amusement dancing in his pale eyes. “I shall see you Thursday, then,” he said softly.
When I arrived at my dorm Henry was already there sitting on his bed, hunched over a book.
"Latin?" I said, trying to sound as casual as I could.
Henry just hummed in response.
"What about that creep?" He said, opening up a diffrent conversation.
"What makes you think he's a creep?"
"Look at him Arthur," he paused and chuckled "well, you did that a lot today."
I squeezed the candy wrapper thighter in my hand.
"Seriously what do you mind about him that much? He's like every other professor, maybe even younger than them."
"The hair, the teeth, the shoes, the lisp. I sat in the first row and all I heard was my pen on paper and your sighs." Henry replied.
"Its not a lisp, he probably just has an accent." I knew that wasnt the truth.
"Whatever it is it makes him sound like he's chewing on his own tounge"
I turned away from him before he could see the irritation rising into my face. Rain tapped softly against the dormitory windows while somewhere farther down the corridor a group of students shouted over a card game.
"You're rather bothered by him for a man you met just this morning."
"And you are strangely fond of him."
None of us said anything for too long, I knew Henry was right and he knew it too.
"Arthur, whatever you think of that man," Henry muttered turning a page in the book in his lap "he looks like craweled out of the morgue."
I laughed far too quickly. "You are being dramatic."
"And you are being strange."
Henry finally looked up from his book then, his dark brows drawing together slightly. We had known each other long enough that he could usually tell when something was wrong with me, and unfortunately for me, something was very wrong indeed.
"You can't seriously like the man"
Those words struck me more then they should have. I started to unbutton my brown waistcoat, simply to avoid looking into Henry's eyes. "Dont be absurd." I said simply, trying to avoid to this conversation to bloom into me confessing something I did not want to admit even to myself
I sat down heavily at my desk and pretended to busy myself with sorting through loose papers, though in truth I could still smell myrrh lingering faintly in the back of my mind. Even now, hours later, I could picture the shape of Mort Dent's hands as he arranged his books upon the lectern. Long fingers. Ink stains near the knuckles. Veins visible beneath pale skin.
I sighed
"You are sighing again," Henry observed.
"I am not."
"You are."
I pressed both hands over my face. "Please go back to your Latin."
"For your sake, I hope this little fascination fades before Thursday."
Thursday.
The word alone sent something unpleasantly warm through my chest.
It was monday, just few more days until I would see Mort Dent again. And yet it felt like an entire season that needed to pass.
I began to undress and change into my night shirt to study in something more comfortable.
I tried to focus on the books so hard but my mind always drifted back to the man no matter how firmly I dragged it elsewhere. I thought of the way his hair had fallen over his shoulders when he bent to arrange his papers. The strange sharpness of his pale eyes. The slurred softness of his voice.
Worst of all were those teeth, I wondered if he minded them, if he got teased for them, how they would feel against my tounge running over them.
By the time the lamps were extinguished and Henry had begun softly snoring on the bed across from mine, I found myself lying awake staring into darkness while rain whispered against the dormitory windows.
It was ridiculous.
I had known the man less than a day.
But even when I tried to close my eyes and will myself to go to sleep all I saw was him. Standing in the doorway with damp hair clinging to his skin like spilled ink.
At some point near dawn I finally drifted into uneasy sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep offered no relief whatsoever. My dream was a vague and a feverish one, the kind you remember but cant fully recall it afterwards and yet it was enough to leave a lingering sense of shame in my chest. I remembered only fragments of it. Mort standing impossibly close to me, his long fingers wrapped around my wrist, him whispering sweet praise in my ears, that slurred velvet voice of his while the anatomy theatre stretched dark and empty around us.
Even in the dream I remember feeling horribly aware of him.
The warmth of his hand around mine.
One of his hands loosened from my wrist and moved slowly upward, fingertips grazing the front of my shirt with unbearable care before beginning to undo the buttons one by one. His knuckles brushed against my chest through the thin fabric beneath and I felt my breath catch embarrassingly fast. "Such a handsome young man you are," he whispered. The slurred softness of his voice sent heat through me so suddenly it almost hurt. I remember staring at his mouth. At the strange slant of his crooked teeth behind parted lips. Even in the dream I knew I should have been repulsed by them. Instead I wanted them closer. His hand slid beneath my loosened collar then, fingertips ghosting slowly along the side of my throat. I shivered hard enough for him to notice. A quiet sound escaped him at that. A soft barely noticable whimper "Sensitive thing," he murmured. Then his head dipped lower. Damp strands of black hair brushed against my cheek before I felt the faint scrape of crooked teeth against the side of my neck followed immediately by the warmth of his mouth. The sensation shot through me sharply enough that a hot sense of arousal settled somewhere deep in my lower body. Arousal that I have not felt even when sleeping with the most beautiful woman and here I was only dreaming And then-
I woke abruptly.
For several long moments I remained completely motionless beneath the blankets, staring up at the ceiling while my pulse hammered violently inside my throat.
Worse still, heat still lingered low in my body like the remnants of fever.
I pressed a trembling hand over my face.
I stood up and made my way towards the table in our dorm. My shaky hand grabbed the glass of water that was nearly two days old. The sun was already rising slowly and light began to pour into the room.
I hadn't even noticed that I have woken Henry up. My eyes only settled on him once he sat up and began to rub one of his eyes. I tried to look away, to make it seem like it was a simple need for water that woke me up.
Henry slowly opened his eyes and grinned.
It was like he knew.
Not the dream itself, surely. Not the shameful details of it. Yet there was something deeply unpleasant about the knowing amusement written across his face.
"You look dreadful," Henry muttered, voice still thick with sleep.
"I slept poorly."
"Did you dream about him?
"What?"
"The professor," he said plainly
"I have not."
Henry simply rolled his eyes at me at first, though the amusement on his face slowly faded into something more serious. He sat up properly then, one arm resting across his knee as he watched me in the growing morning light.
"Arthur," he said quietly, "if you truly do like him like that, you can tell me. Just... do not tell anyone else."
The room suddenly felt much colder.
Outside, carriage wheels rattled faintly over wet London streets while pale sunlight crept weakly through the dormitory windows, illuminating dust drifting through the air between us.
"You know what would happen."
I did.
Prison, if one was unfortunate enough. Doctors forcing prayers and disgust down your throat if one was merely considered salvageable. Men dragged quietly out of universities. Families pretending sons had died from illness rather than shame.
And all for something I still did not fully understand myself.
Something I had never been before.
Or perhaps something I had always been and simply never had reason to notice until now.
My stomach twisted violently.
I looked away before Henry could read anything from my face. All the joy and thrilling bliss I felt from my dream was suddently gone.
"I do not like him like that," I muttered, though my voice lacked any real conviction. "Do not be ridiculous."
Henry nodded. "Yeah, I know. Just teasing you." he added but his voice lacked all its non serious tone.
I rubbed my face with my hands and sighed. The light began to hit the room more with each passing second but I could not will myself to put my clothes on or get ready for my lectures. It felt like if I anyone saw me they would know what I dreamed of, like it was written on my forehead.
I drank the rest of the stale water and went back to bed. I pulled the cover over my face and hopped I would never have to remove it and come back to fhe reality of this cruel world.
I could never tell anyone what I feel, mostly not Mort. I didn’t even want to think about him or about what I felt. But how could a person as weak as me, meet someone this incredibly beautiful and then forget all about them like their blue eyes have not burned themselves into mine, like every word he spoke to me hadnt clung to my skin like a smell you forbid yourself to wash off.
I had no idea how long I lay there afterward. The bedsheets felt like the only shelter left in a world that suddenly seemed eager to cure me of something I had never consciously chosen to become.
I eventually fell asleep again, this time dreamlessly.
When I finally woke again, pale afternoon light had already begun spilling through the dormitory windows. Judging by the silence beyond the corridor, I had missed every lecture.
"I'll just say I had a fever." Considering the state of my body, it was not entirely untrue.
Then I forced myself upright, pulled my sleeping shirt off.
I stood up from my bed, pulled my underpants off too and began to dress myself into something I could present to the public in. A white shirt, beige slacks a brown vest with gold buttons and black polished shoes.
A thin layer of stubble shadowed my jaw and upper lip. My eyes looked reddened and exhausted from lack of sleep, while sweat had left my brown hair greasy enough that it held the slicked-back shape without pomade.
My stomach twisted unpleasantly. Hunger, I assumed. I had barely eaten in nearly a day.
The corridors were unusually quiet, occupied only by scattered students bent over books or hurrying toward late lectures. One young man glanced up at me briefly as I passed. Concern flickered immediately across his face.
Not like Mort's eyes.
Mort's eyes were too pale to read properly.
The thought alone made heat creep unpleasantly back into my chest.
When I finally stepped beyond the university grounds and into the city streets, it felt as though I could breathe again. London stretched before me grey and crowded beneath a cloudy sky, carriage wheels rattling loudly across wet stone while voices swelled together into one endless blur of noise.
The streets were full and crowded so I assumed it was well past lunch. I recognised a few faces from university and acknowledged them with brief nods as I walked. Near the corner of a narrow alley stood a small group of women dressed in silk and cheap lace, their painted smiles directed toward passing men.
one of them caught sight of me immediately.
She looked young, perhaps near my own age, with dark curls pinned loosely atop her head and soft pink lips curved into a playful smile. Her dusty rose dress clung tightly enough to reveal the softness of her figure beneath it. When her eyes met mine, she smiled wider and blew me a kiss.
I recognised her vaguely from previous visits to the brothel Henry favoured.
Sometimes I had accompanied him there.
The girls were always beautiful in the expected ways. Soft bodies. Sweet perfume. Warm laughter. This one smelled strongly of overripe fruit and rosewater, the sort of scent designed to make men linger.
And once, it might have worked upon me.
Now all I could think about were pale eyes, crooked teeth and inky hair.
My stomach lurched violently.
I shook my head because I felt my fever rising and I thought if I opened my mouth I would vomit my stomach out.
I ignored her look and basicly ran to the bakery I was heading to. It sat near the edge of the market district, warm golden light spilling invitingly from its windows despite the gloomy weather outside. My uncle owned it and had for nearly twenty years. Most of my happier childhood memories existed somewhere inside those walls. He was more of a father to me than my own had ever been.
I stormed in throught the door. "Arthur!" my uncle exclaimed immediately, brightening the moment he saw me. Words poured from him so quickly they blurred together into meaningless noise against the pounding inside my skull. I barely heard any of it. He handed me the same pastry I ordered every visit, though the mere sight of food made nausea rise sharply into my throat.
Then he said the one thing capable of making it worse.
"I received a letter from your mother," he said casually. "She says she expects you home by Thursday. Something about-"
Thursday.
Suddently the room started to spin with me
I barely managed to stumble back outside before my stomach lurched and tighted, making me double over. A bitter taste rose into my mouth. I grabbed the wall of the nearest building. I began retching violently. Tears streamed down my face. My vomit hit the groud with a wet sound. A group of older men pass me and give me disgusted look.
When the sickness finally passed, I remained bent over for several long moments, one trembling hand braced against the wet brick wall beside me. Sweat clung unpleasantly to the back of my neck beneath my collar, and my stomach still cramped hard enough to make breathing uncomfortable. Tears burned at the corners of my eyes from the force of retching. I wiped my mouth shakily with the back of my hand and groaned softly, pressing my forehead against the cold brick. Ever since meeting Mort Dent, everything inside me had begun unraveling. I attended lectures. I flirted politely with women. I studied anatomy and drank with friends and slept peacefully at night without dreaming about another man's mouth against my throat. A group of older men in expensive clothes passed by me, each gave me a look of barely hidden disgust. "Drunkard." one of them hissed at me. I wished it was just a drink. My mind spiraled back to thursday. Suddently I really wished I had a drink. Thursday either meant expectations. Marriage prospects. Respectability. The future my parents had imagined for me since childhood. Or it could mean Mort Dent. I looked at my uncles shop, he would walk out any second now, looking for me, worried dead probably. I took a deep breath, straightened my back and began pacing down the narrow street. Right when I turned the corner I heard the bell of the bakery and my uncle's voice shouting my name. I took a pretty long way back to the university just because the last thing I wished for was to be back there again.
When I finally got back to my room I saw Henry already sitting there. He was sitting on the bed a bottle of liqour in his hand and a text book in the other one.
His eyes widened when he saw me, I was pale, wet and greasy hair, the stubble, and dark circles under my eyes.
"Arthur?"
"I am not feeling well."
"Is it beceause of the-"
"No." Yes.
He handed me a bottle. I raised it to my lips and took atleast five large sips. My eyebrows knotted together. Wine.
"I really cant belive you drink wine Henry."
"You're just picky." He replied with a chuckle.
I smiled. The nausea was suddently gone and all that remained was the feverish hottness.
I sat down onto his bed next to him and leaned back.
"You know how I am supposed to have a practical lesson with mister Dent this thursday? Well all of a sudden mother wants me back home."
"So you would rather spend a in some dusty hospital in some shithole with that creature rather then spend a lovely day with your stupidly rich parents?"
I had no strenght to protest. I simply nodded in response.
He handed me the bottle again. I despised wine, but that night I drank nearly half of it without complaint. Eventually, I told Henry everything. The trip to the bakery, the beautiful girl, the letter from my mother, and most of all the vomiting.
"You are truly gone for him," he muttered at last before taking the bottle back for himself.
"I am not gone for anyone."
"You skipped lectures, wandered around London looking like a dying poet, and vomited in an alley because your mother asked you to come home instead of spending a day with him."
"When you phrase it like that, it sounds strange."
Henry stayed quiet, letting me talk my mind out.
"I dont understand it. I have known beautiful people before. Properly beautiful people."
"And?"
"And none of them ever made me throw up in a narrow street."
Henry snorted. "That might be the strangest measurement for romance I have ever heard."
"I am serious."
"I know."
The bottle returned to my hands.
"I think about him constantly," I confessed into the dim room. "His voice. His hands. Even those bloody awful teeth."
"Christ, Arthur."
I looked at Henry, I could see a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"I need you to understand how insane you sound right now."
Despite myself, I smiled into the neck of the bottle.
We finished the bottle too soon. Warmth had spread sluggishly through my limbs. My fever no longer felt sharp and unbearable. Everything around me seemed softer somehow. Blurred pleasantly at the edges.
Henry had long since abandoned his textbook beside him.
"So what is it?"
I looked at him blankly.
"What is what?"
"What do you even like about him?"
The answer arrived too quickly. "Everyrhing."
Henry bursed out into laughter at that. It wasnt like he was laughing at me but simply at my helpless situation.
Despite myself, I began laughing too.
Perhaps it was the wine.
Perhaps exhaustion had finally shattered whatever remained of my dignity.
Either way, I could not seem to stop.