To be Julian’s keeper – a title that settled upon Elias Thorne with the oppressive weight of a leaden cape. Each whispered echo of it in his own mind served only to underscore the profound chasm between his years and the responsibilities thrust upon him.
Adulthood. A brittle, ill-fitting garment. It chafed, stretched taut across shoulders unready for its burden.
Night after night, the inherited duty became a shadow that clung to him, a constant presence in his solitary chambers. He spent his mornings poring over fragmented texts in the British Museum, and his evenings in the hushed, antiseptic corridors of the private infirmary in Whitechapel.
Scholarly pursuits, once his refuge, now felt like a secondary concern. His mind, usually a fortress of logical deduction, fragmented under the constant press of Julian’s fragile state.
With a heavy heart, he would push open the ornate oak doors to Julian’s ward. Julian, pale and skeletal against the starched white sheets, would stir, turning his head as if awaiting a familiar specter.
Like an eager, wounded bird, Julian would then pour forth the day’s indignities.
"Another draught, Elias. This wretched tincture tastes of rot and regret. They speak of a further 'cleansing ritual.' My very nerves recoil at the thought of those crude probes. And the gruel! My God, Elias, it's a punishment for crimes yet uncommitted. Am I so frail an invalid that I must subsist on this slop, fit only for paupers and spirits?"
The litany of complaints, delivered with a genuinely pitiable cast to his features, stripped away Julian’s years, revealing the petulant, suffering child beneath.
Elias offered a faint, almost imperceptible sigh. He delved into the satchel at his side, its leather already faintly redolent of the herbal infusions and a particular brand of spiced pastry.
The scent, a clinging reminder of his mission, twisted his lips. He disliked the imposition, the way mundane necessities invaded the sterile clarity of his intellect.
Still, to bear it openly, a parcel clutched in his hand like a common delivery boy, would have been a far greater affront to his sensibilities.
"What is it?"
Julian’s voice, a mere thread of sound, held a nascent, almost trembling hope. It was a dog-like devotion, tail-thumping anticipation, that pricked Elias’s skin.
He banished the crude animalistic thought. Such comparisons were distasteful. From the bag, he carefully extracted a small, lacquered Bento box, procured from a discreet establishment known for its restorative broths and light, nourishing fare.
A flicker of light entered Julian’s shadowed eyes.
"Is that… sustenance?"
"A collation. They assured me your constitution, for now, permits this. Before any further procedures."
"A collation," Julian echoed, the word a small, precious jewel on his tongue.
"Do not imbue it with undue significance. I merely acquired it from a nearby purveyor."
The injunction felt hollow, a lie echoing in his own ears. Elias knew the painstaking hours he had devoted to finding a place near the infirmary, one that catered to delicate constitutions, ensuring both safety and palatability. A place whose proprietor understood the subtle nuances of healing without explicit mention of arcane ailments.
He would never confess such a particular effort. He wished to appear an agent of detached kindness, nothing more.
But even that thin veneer seemed enough for Julian. A raw, almost infantile delight played across his face. He fumbled with the lid of the box, his left hand a tremor of anticipation. Elias’s gaze drifted to the other hand, the right.
The fingers curled inward, unnaturally. A subtle malformation, almost imperceptible, yet starkly present, as if the bones themselves had shifted, pulled by an unseen current.
A tightening in Elias’s chest. Why did his analytical eye fixate on such a detail? Why could he not look away from the subtle testament to Julian’s suffering, a silent scar from some unnamed, esoteric strain?
"…Elias. Thank you." Julian’s voice, uncharacteristically soft, caught in his throat.
Julian looked up hesitantly. Their eyes met, and he flinched, as if caught in some illicit act, hurriedly fumbling at the box once more.
Perhaps he merely feigned the startle. As if to be seen acknowledging Elias’s care was a transgression. As if he wished to hide the depth of his need.
Julian attacked the food, a silent, ravenous machine. Elias sank onto the worn armchair, its horsehair stuffing long past its prime. He felt an exhaustion that seeped into his bones.
Julian ate with an unholy fervor, spilling fragments of rice and tender chicken. Elias observed the three fingers on Julian's right hand. They remained stubbornly bent, rigid. Was it genuine affliction, or a performance for his benefit?
Slowly, Elias moved closer, taking the delicate porcelain spoon from Julian’s clumsy grip.
"Which morsel appeals to you?"
"..." Julian paused, a half-chewed piece of fowl distending his cheek.
"The spiced quail?"
He felt an odd responsibility, a duty to acknowledge the veracity of Julian’s wounds, both visible and unseen. Julian, lips smeared, offered a slight, lopsided smile, lowering his head.
Elias simply could not comprehend it. How could this individual, whose three fingers might never straighten, whose back bore the faintly iridescent scars of some arcane graft, smile with such unburdened joy?
It defied his understanding. He found he could not meet Julian’s bright, almost incandescent face.
What could be so amusing? If it were Elias, he would wish only for oblivion.
He selected a succulent piece of quail and gently guided it to Julian’s waiting lips. Julian chewed, still smiling, with a force that seemed disproportionate to his fragile frame.
This boy, this Julian, was a constant discomfiture.
Truth be told, the precise reason he had acquired the collation was rooted in an earlier stop before the infirmary – a visit to Julian’s family residence.
---
That day marked Elias’s second visit to Julian’s chambers since the most recent procedure, a harrowing dermal graft that had left Julian weaker than ever. Curiously, he still possessed the family’s old, tarnished brass key – a symbol of a forgotten intimacy.
In all their time within the infirmary, Elias had encountered Julian’s immediate family only thrice. Once, his aloof father. Twice, his brittle mother.
His mother, a creature of calculated grace, had effusively thanked Elias, a performance of gratitude for the burden Elias had so readily shouldered. A burden she had so readily cast aside.
Julian had merely rested his chin on a hand, watching his mother’s retreating, rustling silk skirts with an unreadable expression.
Elias’s purpose that afternoon had been simple: to retrieve a few select volumes, a distraction for Julian during his enforced idleness. Nothing more.
He understood, perhaps better than anyone, the suffocating monotony of confinement within sterile walls. His own convalescence from a youthful fever had taught him the crushing weight of empty hours.
He convinced himself it was not pity. Nor affection.
That day, rather than returning to his cramped academic lodging near Fleet Street, he found himself boarding a hansom cab for Julian’s family townhouse in Belgravia.
The grand, if slightly melancholic, edifice still welcomed him. But Coralie, Julian’s sister, did not.
Leaning against the heavy, damask-papered wall of Julian’s room, Coralie’s voice was as dry as parchment left too long in the sun.
"Still trailing after Julian, are we?"
In honesty, Elias harbored little warmth for Coralie. How could she remain so utterly detached, never once gracing the infirmary with her presence? Her own brother suffered.
The instinctive, untutored part of Elias’s mind, the part that defied pure logic, felt a surge of condemnation. He hadn't even recognized the judgment in himself until it materialized, sharp and undeniable.
The realization clamped his mouth shut. He merely continued to pack Julian’s small, leather-bound editions into his satchel.
"Indeed."
"He truly has, hasn’t he? That mad boy. Utterly fixated upon you."
Elias’s hand froze mid-air. He turned, as if drawn by an invisible current, towards her.
"…Fixated upon me?"
"What, does that please you, Master Thorne?" Her lips curled.
"No, I merely sought clarification."
"Nobody 'merely seeks clarification.' You desired knowledge, so you asked."
Her assessment was a barb, a dismissive flick of the wrist. She muttered under her breath, a low, unpleasant sound, which Elias pretended not to hear.
Coralie, however, stepped closer, utterly ignoring his feigned deafness. This entire lineage possessed a peculiar talent for disregarding the inconvenient truths of others. Coralie, Julian, even their patriarch.
"Pray tell, where did you vanish after the academy’s last term?"
"My studies called me away."
"Yes, well. The whole damned city seemed to know. It’s hardly a secret. But I assure you, I had no interest in seeking out the particulars. Julian, however, made a spectacle of himself."
A harsh laugh escaped her. "The boy, who rarely ever crossed the threshold of our family chapel, began to rave, to pray, to throw tantrums in equal measure. Not long after, he tore apart that ludicrous alchemical locket his father gave him. Screaming obscenities. Blaspheming the very aether."
"Alchemical locket?" Elias's brow furrowed.
"Yes, that trinket. He once clung to it, claimed it was his father’s blessing. Called the Great Work a 'fucking lie' or some such nonsense. Then he simply locked himself away, wouldn’t emerge. Our house, I confess, finally knew a moment of quietude. He cannot even perceive the true villain in this sordid affair. Idiot."
Her voice, which had dripped with mockery, suddenly dipped, hushed with a new, sharper observation. Likely at the visible tension in Elias's face.
"What is it? Your face is quite flushed."
"It is not."
"Oh, but it is. Do you truly… favour him? Is that it?"
"I told you, no." Elias’s voice was tight, thin.
"…Bloody hell." Coralie gasped, covering her mouth with a hand, feigning horror.
"You are quite deranged. Truly."
Why did she persist in this absurd assertion, when he had so vehemently denied it? Annoyance, sharp and cold, pricked at Elias. He yanked the zipper of his satchel shut with an audible snap. He yearned to retort, to offer his own stinging criticism.
"Why impart such a tale to me? Your father assured me Julian was his second son."
"What? What bizarre tangent are you pursuing now?" Coralie blinked, her composure momentarily ruffled.
A True Contradiction.
Indeed. He knew it well. Even Lysander Croft, that infuriatingly astute fellow, had once remarked upon Elias’s peculiar habit: no matter his initial intentions, he invariably ended up performing some act of uncharacteristic kindness.
But now, he possessed a potent excuse.
The faint, brownish, iridescent scars marring Julian’s back. A testament to suffering. Just as Julian could not meet Elias's gaze when he confessed his inner turmoil, Elias found he could not look upon those marks without a knot of discomfort twisting in his gut.
---
"Elias."
Julian’s voice, hoarse, beckoned him back to the present, back to the sterile confines of the infirmary.
"Yes?"
"Then… may I believe in you?"
The words, a whispered plea, slithered closer. Elias feigned indifference, a mask of calm. Yet he listened, every nerve alight.
"What nonsense are you uttering?"
"I shall not… like you."
In that suspended moment, Elias’s heart plummeted, a leaden weight striking the floor of his being. His stomach churned. A constriction tightened around his chest, stealing his breath.
He almost asked – the words teetered on the precipice of his lips, raw and unbidden – *Why not?*
The instant the question nearly escaped, he recognized its true nature. His most private, most deeply buried thought, exposed.
*Thorne, you are a damned fool.*
He clenched his fists, forcing the treacherous impulse back down, swallowing it with a bitter taste.
Yes. This was the correct path. For both their sakes.
"Instead, I shall believe in you." Julian continued, oblivious to Elias's internal tempest.
A strange cadence in his voice, a mixture of profound sorrow and nascent joy. Like a disciple receiving a forbidden revelation. Was there any other way to describe him in that moment?
Elias did not comprehend the fractured logic of the statement. Yet, he did not pull his hand away, did not flee.
The suffocating pressure in his chest no longer merely squeezed. It began to pierce, a sharp, insistent ache.
"I am an atheist now, Elias. Truly, you are far more instrumental to my wretched existence than any distant deity in the aether."
"Cease such blasphemy," Elias snapped, the words involuntary.
"This boy… he is truly incorrigible."
"You profane the sacred every single day."
"No, that is untrue! I was raised a devout worshipper, you know!" Julian protested, a frantic flutter of his uninjured hand.
"Then what was that utterance just now?"
Julian wrung his hands, a desperate gesture. He seemed on the verge of tears. If Elias did not acquiesce, if he did not offer some semblance of belief, Julian might truly break.
Caught off guard, Elias remained speechless.
Then, as if a sudden resolve had seized him, Julian slid from the armchair to the floor, dropping to his knees.
"Then I shall show you."
"Julian. What precisely are you doing?" Elias demanded, a tremor in his voice.
A thin, surprisingly strong hand grasped Elias’s foot. Elias, having been seated with his legs crossed casually, lost his balance, pitching forward. He barely managed to perch on the edge of the seat, his foot dangling, held captive.
Julian’s gaze fixed upon a faint, pale scar near Elias’s heel – the lingering mark from a childhood accident, a shard of broken conservatory glass.
Julian’s brow furrowed. And, to Elias’s profound disbelief, his eyes welled with tears, reflecting the flickering gaslight.
Elias recoiled in shock, attempting to withdraw his foot.
Before he could escape, Julian lowered his head.
"What are—"
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," Julian murmured, his voice thick with emotion.
Cold fingertips brushed against Elias’s ankle. A sharp, uncomfortable ache shot up his calf, coiling in his stomach.
*What arcane madness is this?*
Elias strained to pull his foot free, but his strength, usually so reliable, seemed to have utterly abandoned him.
Julian looked up at Elias once more.
Then, with a face that betrayed not a trace of revulsion – indeed, a visage of profound, almost religious awe –
Like a fervent acolyte touching a sacred relic, a forgotten fragment of the divine,
"I greet the Lord."
He pressed his lips to the tip of Elias’s foot.
Julian’s fine, dark hair, dishevelled from his illness, brushed against Elias’s ankle, a light, unsettling caress. The gentle press of his lips, oddly warm, traced the base of Elias’s toes.
"S-Stop it…" Elias choked out, throwing an arm over his face, as if to ward off the sight.
Julian’s left hand tightened around Elias’s ankle, holding him fast.
And in that moment –
Elias found he could not resist. He did not resist.
Three weakly curled fingers, part of that subtly deformed right hand, tapped lightly against his skin, a delicate, fragile connection.
The lips that had cursed the heavens, that had called the Great Work a lie, now traced a path, slow and deliberate, up his calf.
And Elias Thorne did nothing to halt him.
That was when the chilling realization settled. This relentless, incurable malady – this nightmare of his unasked-for guardianship, of Julian’s desperate devotion, of the insidious Serpent’s Coil tightening around them both –
It was far from over.