AN:
-still have problems with times and commas, and this is only my second fanfiction, so apolgies for those things as well.
-After writing the first FF for that ship I actually felt the need to write a second one.
-maybe I can make one or two of you happy as well by writing another thing to that (sadly) rarepair.
-Can also be found on my ao3 account
So, please enjoy Fanfiction Nr.2
Victor Bruntley has always been special, not because he is such a genuinely nice person even to those that weren't to him, and not even because he can easily lift a trunk twice his size as if it was merely as heavy as a feather.
No, it is because he wants to leave the place he's lived in for years and years, with his sister, under the wing, quite literally, of a caring woman, the place that means safety.
It isn't as if he wants to because he doesn't get along with anyone anymore, quite contrary, he cares about each and everyone of them more than anything else.
But the thing about Victor Bruntley is, that would at one point be the death of him, that if he's made a decision, he sticks to it.
No matter how often the other children try to stop him, beg and plead to convince him otherwise, no matter how often Miss Peregrine lectures him about the dangers, he stops listening at one point.
After a while, no one asks anymore, and he is glad about it.
It pulls at his nerves, it pains him to see how sad it makes his little sister, even as he tells her he'll visit as often as possible.
"People say that but they don't. Look at Abe, he said that too but he doesn't visit us that often anymore the longer he's out there, living a normal life", she said one night as they sat on her bed together, after he tugged her in.
The possibly worst about it is, the more people try to talk him into staying, the more he wants to leave. Every phone call from Abe only encourages him in his plan.
He has to leave; it feels more and more as if his life depends on it.
Not everyone begs for him not to leave though.
Miss Peregrine doesn't and Victor is almost sure she is incapable of begging anyhow, she just tries to convince him with logic, but she is a smart woman that knows when the case is lost.
However that doesn't make her stop lecturing him about things, showering him with information and threatens him to come visit them unless he wishes to get into real trouble.
The other person that doesn't ask him to stay is Enoch.
But Enoch is a whole different case all together.
When he finds out about Victors plan his expression somehow turns from the usual disgruntled look into something blank, exactly the opposite of what Victor expected.
He has been prepared for anger, not understanding, anything of the likes, as he tells him, sitting together under the tree they have often spend the afternoons under.
He didn't expect the other boy to just stand up and leave without another look back.
Somehow it hurt, that Enoch seems to not care at all.
The other boy even starts to avoid him, starts to look the other way every time Victor tries to catch his attention and leaves the dinner table as fast as possible when he is done.
The place under the tree is empty next to Victor now.
It is as if Enoch is already saying goodbye, adjusting to him not being there anymore.
It feels terrible.
But Victor Bruntley is strong-willed and he wants to leave so badly, live a life like everyone else, and so he forces himself to not be influenced by that.
He tries to tell himself that maybe this is Enoch's way to try to make him stay, and after a while he thinks that possibly it is easier to leave if he just assumes that Enoch just doesn't care if he's gone or not.
It doesn't stop him from trying to talk to the boy though, especially as the day he's chosen to leave on comes closer.
He doesn't want to leave on bad terms with his closest contact, next to his sister.
But whenever he tries to start a conversation, approaches the other one, Enoch blocks his attempts, which leads to Victor just standing in the distance, watching him work on his puppets, letting his eyes move to him whenever he is in the room.
The last time they talk before he leaves is the evening before when Enoch had deigned to answer him for once.
It was a short talk, Victor mostly just telling him he'd miss him, promising to visit, send postcards; he's long given up on trying to explain why he wants to leave.
Enoch just nodded and the only thing he said was
"You better do so"
He seemed angry then, actually angry, and hurt, and it somehow makes Victor feel simultaneously better and worse.
The day he leaves is warm, though a gray mist lies over the blue sky, clouds not breaking open to let much sunlight trough.
He carries a small suitcase with his belongings and he's in his button up, all proper with dark pants and braces, hair combed back as if he's going on an important journey.
The hugs he gets are long and he can see tears glistening in some eyes, his sister wiping them off on his shirt.
He's told about a million times to visit very often, to write and to not forget them and then he heads out.
Walking away from the house feels weird now that it's not just for a walk or for getting into the small town. It's the last, biggest step to fulfilling his plan and the excitement weighs over the sadness.
He's not quite sure where to go yet, but he carries a map in his suitcase and money to leave the island.
His steps are light when he walks and despite the sun not being visible it feels as if it's shining bright onto him and for a while he forgets where he comes from and that he's left behind everyone he knows.
The excitement doesn't last long.
Victor Bruntley dies the day he leaves the orphanage, only a few meters from it, whistling a soft tune and smiling.
He dies almost without realizing and without ever knowing who or what killed him.
He will not see how he's squeezed until he can't breathe anymore by a thing that has long ago stopped being human and he will not see how his eyes get sucked out of their eye sockets.
When Victor Bruntley dies he thinks of his sister.
Of her smile, bright and everlasting, and of her voice, of all the days spend together, how close they are and he thinks only for a second about the tragedy of the fact that he'll never see her again.
He feels sorry for leaving her when he feels life slipping away and he asks himself how she'll find out.
Suddenly he wishes he'd be able to see her grow up, watch her outdo him, she was always so close to being as strong as he was.
He'd give so much to hold her again for one more time, but he assumes that you only value the things most important to you, when they are gone.
For a split second he thinks of Miss Peregrine, of how she'd repeatedly warned him and he thinks, almost ridiculously, how much she'd scold him for not listening.
Then, his thoughts wander to Enoch.
It's even a bigger tragedy considering that he'd never been able to tell Enoch how he'd felt.
That they had barely talked in the last days.
Oh but after all Victor thought he'd have plenty of time to do so still.
Turned out fate was cruel.
He doesn't think about this for long, he thinks about the nicer things instead.
As he dies, he reminisces about days long gone.
Enoch and Victor hadn't always been terribly close, for the longest time they'd only ever had contact trough other people, only talked when needed.
Somehow Victor's attention just never had been drawn to the other boy.
Mostly because he'd been focused on his sister for the longest time, watching her like she was the apple of his eye.
That made conversations with the anyhow mostly grumpy boy a lot harder and Victor stuck around those that made talking light and easy.
After a certain while though, he'd realized someone's eyes on him during the days and whenever he looked up, Enoch was around.
It confused him highly and multiple times it caused him to turn to whoever was closest to him and ask them if there was something off with his face, a spot on his shirt or something of the likes.
One time no one else had been around to ask, so he'd turned to Enoch.
That was how they'd started to talk.
The boy had looked taken aback by the fact that he was caught staring and his lips were pressed into a thin line, Victor was almost certain he could see a faint tint of red on his cheeks, but that could've been the light playing.
It was hard, getting under Enoch's shell, but after a while he'd managed doing so quite delicately.
Still, getting him to talk was an art form, on some days.
He still remembers vividly, standing next to him in the boy's room and watching him work.
He'd walked in some minutes ago but Enoch hadn't even looked up. Victor simply took it as an okay to enter without asking as he strode through the room, past the shelves stacked with jars filled with glassy liquid and hearts in various sizes.
Stopping at the table, where the other boy sat, crouched over in the chair doing whatever it was he was so focused on; Victor leaned against it, one hand on its edge, watching the careful movements of Enoch's hands.
There was silence for what felt like half an hour until Enoch's voice made Victor look up at the other boy.
"Can you stop distracting me?" was all he muttered; only meeting Victor's eyes for a second before lowering them to the puppet in his hands again.
Victor had furrowed his brows and then answered, a light and careless tone in his voice, "I'm just standing here."
After all that was all he'd been doing, not saying a word especially to not keep the other one from working
"Exactly, you're distracting me."
Had Enoch's answer been and it caused Victor even more confusion.
"I'm sorry if my mere presence is distracting you" Victor had found himself saying, tone making it sound more like a question than like a statement.
Enoch hadn't answered any more to that, which had made Victor sigh in frustration, asking himself how in God's name he could've distracted Enoch just by standing next to him and he thought that possibly he'd invaded Enoch's personal space too far for the boys liking.
That however didn't have seemed to be the boys problem because only a few days later Victor had spotted him under a tree in the gardens and as he'd sat down next to him, Enoch hadn't looked all that uncomfortable by it.
And it surely was certain that he hadn't just swallowed it down to not be rude.
Not being rude was something Enoch proved incapable of quite often, if on purpose or not wasn't always easy to tell.
Victor wasn't even sure why he enjoyed the company of someone that continuously kept on giving him the cold shoulder but the way Enoch kept watching him told Victor that the other didn't hate him after all.
He took comfort in that, and the confidence to end up sitting next to him under that tree.
The first few times this had happened, they'd sat in silence, not a word spoken between them, Enoch mostly playing around with his dolls while Victor threw small pebbles into the air, or read a book.
After a while they'd started to talk, what had begun as stop and go conversations ended up in hours of speaking with each other about the most random things.
By now Enoch seemed to genuinely enjoy his company, even if Victor was sure he'd never admit that out loud.
Some things however still were off.
One day as they had sat under the tree, talking about any topic that had come to their minds, Victor had seen Olive out of the corner of his eyes, seemingly searching for them, dinner was approaching, and he'd called out to her, to tell her where they were.
Whereas he smiled brightly at Olive as she was approaching, happy to have found them, Enoch suddenly seemed disgruntled, pulling a face as if Olive had just brought rain and thunder with her and had not even answered her words of greeting.
Victor had patted Olives shoulder on the way back to the house and told her that Enoch surely had nothing against her, which had smoothed the worry out of her face.
Later the day Enoch had even made a weird comment to Victor's connection to the younger girl that had left Victor shake his head at the other boy.
It wasn't as if he was interested in her anyhow, whom he was interested in was a whole different topic and he sure wouldn't open that to Enoch when the boy was in the mood he had been in then.
Once or twice Victor had even gotten the feeling that Enoch was quite possessive over him, and the thought left him feeling odd.
The feeling had come back when he'd thought about the times he'd fallen asleep on Enoch's shoulder and how the other boy had looked at him as he woke up.
He'd looked a different sort of beautiful then, with his brows not furrowed, the stern look off his face, and Victor had almost leaned up to capture the other boy's lips, that were so close, between his.
There were a few reasons he hadn't done that then
One of which was that he knew of someone's crush on Enoch and he couldn't bear the imagination of hurting her like that, it somehow felt not fair and he thought that possibly he was just a tad too nice.
The other was simply that between those moments that made him believe that maybe Enoch felt the same, the other boy didn't show any signs at all, and somehow he feared the rejection, the possibility of losing Enoch as the close friend he'd become.
He was sure he wouldn't be able to take seeing disgust on the others face.
Now however he wished he'd just done it, now he wished to just have felt Enoch's lips on his at least once.
To know how it felt like.
But he'd die unkissed.
Possibly unloved by the boy he adored so much.
He didn't want to think about that though.
When Victor Bruntley dies, he lets himself believe that Enoch loved him as well; he lets himself dream of how their kiss would've been.
It makes it easier, to just disappear.
Victor is found not by one of his friends, or by Miss Peregrine, he's found by a curious child, attracted by the stories of the orphanage and her scream is so loud Fiona can hear it in the gardens.
They all go out immediately and in most of their heads an unspoken fear is making its nest.
Please don't let it be Victor
Silent prayers do nothing however.
Victor is already dead when they arrive and the sight is a horror itself.
His body is pale, limp in the grass but the worst about him are the deep black holes that have taken the place of his eyes.
Everyone knows at once that something terrible had happened and Miss Peregrine shields her kids from the sight.
She will hold back her tears until all her children are safe in their beds, she will not let them see how much she blames herself for giving in so easily, that she thinks if only she'd persisted on keeping him in the house, he'd still be alive.
She knows there's no use in thinking like this.
She'll wear black in his mourning and preserve his body up in his room.
Bronwyn can't hold her tears back for no one to see, she's too young for that and no one blames her for not managing, her brother died after all.
She cries a lot and begs for him to return.
She will even beg Enoch to bring him back.
Enoch will decline that request.
He's not crying for a long time, he's angry at first.
Angry at Victor for being so god damn stupid to leave, for not listening to any of them, for being so stubborn and selfish.
Angry at himself, for not trying to hold him back harder, angry for crying when he does late at night, angry that he cares so much, angry that he didn't tell Victor that he cares so much.
He won't bring back Victor for his sister's sake.
He knows that it wouldn't be the same and in a way he wants to protect her from that.
He brings him back for his sake though; he's always been a little selfish.
It's not the same.
It will never be the same.