Archive of Our Own

The church burned surprisingly quickly despite the storm pelting down around them; lightning must have caught the roof in just the right place to catch in the weathered old shingles, the caches of dried birds' nests and abandoned bat roosts filling the eaves and attic with tinder. It wasn't the first time that Robert had seen a building burn, but it was the first time it had mattered.

Beside him, Dr. Fugue was uncharacteristically silent. The rain bounced in plinking droplets from the tombstones, puddling on the moss beneath them and soaking gradually up trailing, disheveled bandages. Uncertainty and worry curled out from beneath the numb shock that masked his feelings in fine, shimmering tendrils. Robert tried not to find them appealing; it was inappropriate, in a situation like this.

But it was, after all, his nature. Some things couldn't be changed. And the way Fugue's emotions shaded from confusion into despair was something he hadn't felt in a long, long time; something he'd savored deeply before and couldn't help repeating now even if he had wanted to try. The acceptance, the anticipation of someone waiting to die, who didn't quite fear what was coming. Robert soaked it up the way the ground took in the rain, until he was impossibly, somehow, almost sated.

Still Fugue said nothing; just stood there, insensible, watching his church burn until the last of the roof caved in with a crackling thump, bringing down part of a wall with it. He made a noise like the drawing of a breath which must have been all leftover mortal instinct. Confusion bloomed out from him in the aftermath.

Robert wasn't surprised that he'd stayed, though he couldn't say he wasn't pleased. He'd guessed something had gone drastically wrong the moment he woke up strapped to a lab table in a halfway different body, the first undead monster anyone had ever had the incredibly terrible idea to create-- and not only because he should have been dead. Fugue hadn't been there; he'd been in the next room over, fetching more supplies, but Robert had known exactly where he was, in a way he shouldn't have. He could have pointed straight to him, if his hands hadn't been tied, and not because of any lingering emotional drift; there had been a trace of shame, but nothing remarkable. It should have been impossible.

Everything about resurrecting him should have been impossible. No one else would have tried. But here they were, regardless, a monster and his human, and what tighter bond was there in the world?

"I'm not gone," Fugue said, half to himself, following it immediately with the somewhat more reasonable question "...but why?" He raised one hand to scratch at his head; his glove had snagged on something on the way out and torn, leaving a fascinating void beneath the gaping hole. Invisible, but terribly present.

He didn't know, then. Robert hadn't been sure. He'd suspected, from the way he'd acted, from the way he'd never been scared of Robert in the ways he might have been if he'd matched them on purpose for some godforsaken academic trial, or figured out at some later point what he'd accidentally done. It was interesting to know something that Fugue didn't; it made him want to try an experiment of his own. He slid down off the tombstone he'd climbed up onto and walked towards the far end of the cemetery, counting the steps as he went. The churchyard wasn't terribly large, but it was flat and even, aside from a few dead roots; there was nothing to slow him until he reached the rusty, broken fence.

Robert paused there, glancing back to see Fugue still deep in thought. He stepped through the open gate, and there was a slight tug somewhere inside him, both familiar and unfamiliar; the connection between them, yes, but more than that. Another step, and another, and the distance between stayed the same. Fugue floated backwards after him, inch by inch, far enough away that Robert couldn't quite make out his muttering.

It didn't appear that Fugue had noticed anything at all, which was... endearing, in a way, though perhaps it shouldn't have been; perhaps he ought to resent the way all the emotions had been subsumed into focus. Perhaps even one's nature could change, in the end.

Robert kept walking, until he'd towed him just beyond the border of the fence; until thunder growled, low in the distance now, and Fugue looked up-- and then looked again, spinning around in such overwhelming shock that Robert felt it through each inch of his body, limning each scars where he'd been welded back together, driving the smug little remark he'd half-prepared clean out of his head.

Doctor Fugue's gaze settled on him, at last, and the shock dulled to tolerable levels, replaced by--something, a jangled mess that faded out of Robert's senses. "Robert--?" Fugue said, and ah, that was it: wonder, interest. An astounding lack of negativity. A mystifying lack of wariness. "Ah! I'm bound to you? Fascinating! Did you know? Can you detect anything different? You have to tell me everything. Please begin at once; don't leave out any details, anything at all might be vital. Was it immediately--oh..." He broke off at last with a dim pulse of regret and loss as he reached into the pocket of his coat and came out empty-handed.

"Let's get out of the rain, first," Robert said.

Fugue half began to turn back to the churchyard, then stopped and shook his head slightly. "I suppose you have the advantage, here."

I do, Robert didn't say. "This way," he said instead, leading the way down the grown-over path, leaving the smouldering ruins behind. The tug inside him eased as Fugue caught up with longer strides to walk beside him, still turning nearly round about every minute to look about, drinking in the world in a way that was not entirely unfamiliar.

"Fascinating," Fugue mumbled again, his hand settling gently, as if entirely unconsciously, on Robert's shoulder.