Every morning I wake early and slip out of my quarters as quietly as I can. It's best to avoid the others, so in a way I'm grateful the doctor makes me start my day long before any of them. Some days I'm not lucky. I have to talk my way out, and quickly. If the conversation gets too personal, I'm in trouble; if it makes me late, doubly so. You don't get second chances working for Death. You don't get any pity from the other trump cards, either. They wouldn't last a day under Disraeli, but it doesn't stop them from envying the position. So it's best if I can just avoid them.
There's this look he'll give me when I get to the lab. I'm not sure what it means…something between relief and annoyance. I wonder if he's secretly glad to have someone who comes to see him every day. I get the feeling he doesn't like being left alone with his thoughts, despite how much he hates everyone. That hatred he holds for humans includes himself, after all.
I bring him things throughout the day. From the closet full of medicines and poisons, from the table across the room, from the apothecary on the other side of London. I don't get breaks, but occasionally he'll leave me just enough time to finish the errand and grab some food along the way. I don't think he does it on purpose, but it's a nice thought, Death pitying his subject.
Aside from the errands, there's some pretty gruesome work I do for him. Who do you think cleans up after his experiments? I've seen my share of corpses, and the body count keeps rising. He has this fascination I've never seen on anyone else when he opens up one of those "volunteers" who found his way into Delilah's schemes. Blood smeared over his hands, eyes wide and brightly attentive to the colour and fading twitch of life in the organs. He gets far too close; there's blood spattered across his cheeks and eyeglasses, hands trembling in excitement when he carves out the newest piece for his collection. It terrified me the first time I saw him do it. Now I watch with morbid interest—and a bit of nausea.
He skips luncheon, doesn't even stop for dinner; it's standard procedure. He looks uncomfortable when he does remember to eat, like he's doing something wrong. I shouldn't care, but it makes me worry a little, so I'll sometimes sneak something onto his desk while he's not looking. Never meat, though, because I've seen how ill he looks when he tries to make himself eat it. It seems strange if you haven't seen the way he is around animals, but to me I guess it makes a bit more sense.
Sometimes he smiles. I have nightmares about it. It's not the calm sort of look he has around his doves; that look is gentle and sad, but almost pleased. The smile I'm talking about…it's how he reacts to the Cardmaster, the man who's supposed to be a father to him—but don't I know family will betray you, and that man thrives on the doctor's pain. So the Cardmaster stops by from time to time with a sick look of amusement, calling the name I'm forbidden to say, "Jizabel." It's a pretty name, but not the way he says it. I flinch, and the doctor smiles. There's something horrible about that smile. Broken. Completely empty. I've watched him for a long time, and you don't get used to it.
The Cardmaster will turn to leave after that exchange, a smug, expectant expression on his face, and the doctor always follows. People talk about lambs being led to slaughter; I imagine this is what that looks like. Around his father, the doctor looks more pained than ever, and his eyes aren't quite so vacant when they become tainted with the scared innocence that creeps in. I shouldn't worry about him, but this is another thing that makes me ignore that fact.
Later the doctor returns. Sometimes it's back to the lab to scatter scalpel, forceps, and the innards of some unlucky corpse across the stone floor. Other times he retreats to his bed, blood seeping through his shirt to stain his sheets. The reddish stripes from the lashes of the Cardmaster's whip decorate the silk of the doctor's bed and make me want to vomit.
Usually he sends me away when I find him like that. This time I think he's sick of arguing, because he makes a small sound and turns his back to me, letting the shirt slip off his shoulders—giving up or opening up, or maybe both. I clean the wounds with shaking hands. I know what they feel like from my days in the circus, but that's not why. He lies on his stomach and presses his face into the silk so he won't have to look at me, and I swallow back my comments. It hurts more seeing the lashes on his back than it ever did receiving them myself, and I can't figure out the reason. No, that's not true. But I don't want to admit the explanations I'm pondering.
My hands are small and callused with thin scars scattered across them from the time I wasn't as skilled with my knives, and they linger on his back as I bandage the wounds. He shifts uncomfortably under my touch. I don't think anyone's been this gentle with him before. My fingertips slide from the bandage to his pale skin before I swallow and pull away. I'm not sure what I'm thinking now, but he only sighs and sinks further into the sheets, so I put away the spare bandages to keep my hands busy enough that I won't be tempted to touch the silvery hair fanning out across the bed.
I consider leaving, but another glance at the frail figure on the bed changes my mind. Instead, I lock the door and sit with my back against the side of the bed, reaching up and running my fingers over a few strands of his hair that trickle over the edge like water. It's softer than I expected, and he's already asleep. It takes me longer, though. Right now I'm carrying the weight of his pain on top of mine, and I dwell on it until I finally slip into fitful, bloody dreams.
He's still asleep when I wake. The light hasn't crept through the curtains of his room yet, so I run my fingers through his hair again before disappearing into the dark hallway that leads back to the trump card quarters.
I can't sleep anymore, so I lie in bed examining the hand that touched his hair. I shouldn't even be thinking about this, but no matter how many times I push it from my mind, it comes back. So I close my eyes and try not to picture the doctor's sleeping face.
It's not working.
The way he looked, you'd think he was a completely different person. Eyes shut, long eyelashes brushing against the delicate, faintly flushed skin of his cheek. His breath came softly, somewhat halting but relaxed overall, lips parted slightly. Someone with the title of Death shouldn't seem so vulnerable, and yet…there was this fragile, angelic creature curled up in a pile of silken sheets and hair.
And I can't stop thinking about it, so I pull the thin blanket over my head and pretend to sleep, knowing the other trump cards would crucify me if they found out what was going through my head. Here I'd thought I'd only ever fear the doctor, and now…no, it's nothing, just something that caught me off-guard. Like his kindness toward animals. Like his innocent fear of the father who hurts him without end. Like his delicate beauty.
None of these things are thoughts I'm allowed to have.
In the end I manage to sleep a little more, but I'm awake again before I ought to be. Before anyone else. I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly as though it'll clear my mind of the afterimage from last night, but my head is still full of the doctor's horrible smile and the marks on his back. How many times has he submitted to this? I'm afraid to know the answer.
Lately, though, I catch myself thinking even more of the doctor than of getting an adult body. That scares me a little, and I wonder how I let myself become so interested in him. But there's a fragility and a need that start to stand out incredibly clearly when you work this closely with him, for so long. The deepening streaks of madness that mimic his scars, worsening with every destructive command the Cardmaster throws at him, do little to deter my growing obsession and in fact seem only to further convince me that I have to do more than quietly clean his wounds.
Now I'm sure I must have a death wish, because I'm on my way to check up on him. I'm breaking the rules. I'm supposed to pretend I don't remember seeing the blood, the forlorn eyes, the crippling pain. I'm supposed to simply show up in the lab like nothing happened. But I'm at his door before I can persuade myself to turn around.
There's no reaction until I reach the edge of the bed, and then his eyes are accusing me. He asks what I could possibly think I'm doing here. My words are gone, though, and I stand before him with my mouth half open. I'm a coward and he hasn't got any reason to listen anyway. Besides, what could I even say? Finally I stutter an apology and an excuse, but he's not in the mood to let me see those wounds again so his bandages will have to remain unchanged. He tells me I'm foolish, and I fight the urge to smile at how right he is. What am I doing here? Worrying is one thing; I'm clearly losing it, but it at least make sense for me to think that way after all I've seen of him. But trying to confront him about the way he thinks of his father is idiotic, and an impossible task. Because that's what this is about, and that's what I hate seeing; he believes the lies his father feeds him and follows him blindly with the desperate hope of being loved by a man who isn't capable of anything but the opposite. He thinks he can make the Cardmaster see him if he tries hard enough, if he acts out, if he disobeys and tries to hurt the boy who replaced him in his father's eyes. But that's a dream that'll never be, and the doctor is no more than a lost child.
He hasn't told me to get out yet, but it won't be long, so I admire the beauty I shouldn't have noticed while I still can. Strands of silvery-blond fall in front of his face as he stretches and pulls one of his silk robes around his pale shoulders. He looks impossibly pristine when he's not spattered in blood. My breath catches in my throat and I tear my eyes away from the sight before he realises I've been staring.
Sooner than I'd like, I'm back in the lab and starting the whole routine over again.