The fog moved under his feet in serpentine swirls, curling up his boots in inquiring tendrils, the damp creeping like vines under his clothing and leaving vaporous night kisses, shrouding his eyes and he found a certain safety in this blanketed anonymity, this ghostly existence.
He breathed the air, tangible in his mouth and in his ears, muffling him and everything he came in contact with, a shroud of silence that clung tight to his form. Hunched, he traced the achingly familiar steps, every a one strumming the web of tension humming in his muscles. His body knew where he walked, reacting before his mind did, and he closed his eyes to the veil of white, fighting its siren's call to step where he was not welcome, to dance with abandon when he knew that every footfall was a risk.
He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, but they trembled for other reasons. The building appeared before him like a sentinel in the night, foreboding, dark, a savagery of angularity, panes of glass reflecting a deeper black than the fog would allow the night to embrace.
The key felt like fitted ice in his fingers, and even as he turned the lock he jutted his chin out as if refusing to believe his own actions. The door creaked, sliding heavily over the tiles slick from dew, and the stairs did not welcome his weight, announcing his progress at every turn.
He stood before the door for an interminable amount of time, letting his fingers roam over the brass Arabic numbers. The gold of the "one" was beginning to erode at the edges, yet he smiled at it, like he could sympathize. The "nine" provided a smooth motion for his wrist, a flow that brought a spark to his eye, cerulean emerging once more from the mist-clouded gray.
Fate smiled and the knob turned soundlessly under his ministration; his lips began a tentative journey upwards, lifting every-so-slightly at the edges. The light from Ennis's room cut a thin razor's blade of wan yellow across his face, growing into sharply-edged slash as he eased wood away from wood.
The sight that greeted his expectant gaze was more than unexpected—it was ice in his veins.
Ennis was pure elemental beauty, charcoal scratching in his canvas in a song that honored the silence of inspiration, his golden-fire lion's mane licking flames around his head, the loose white linen on his upper body already stained with the work of his craft, like gems caught in the sun briefly before being submerged once more in desert sand. He was a glory to behold, light and radiance and passion painted in such exquisite relief against his darkness.
The man sitting ruler-back erect in Ennis's unfinished stool, on the other hand, was everything Ennis was not. Their coloring could be called similar only in the most superficial sense; where Ennis was hued and vibrant, this man was ashen and frozen. His hair, blonde to the point of being white, was combed in neatness so harshly articulated that it cast the rest of his features in a frightening light. Jutting cheekbones cradled eyes that recalled the winter's most frigid sky and thin lips cut contemptuously across the rigid expanse, held in perfect stillness. His whole figure, cut in slim angles and tailored to exact lines, radiated authority as much as the suit he wore, black and red blurring in Jack's vision as he fought to breathe.
Jack passed eternal moments taking the scene in, his eyes gradually fading back to the mist-clouded grey as the implications roared in the silence.
He closed the door with as little event as he'd opened it, fading outside. The fog enveloped him and he let the colorless night swallow him up once more.
October 16, 1931
Dresden
Elena's face aged before his eyes, like a painting left to the elements, cracking at all the important seams, vitality draining with each moment that she looked down at him. She clutched her hands at her chest, watching him with wild, mournful eyes. The new snow peppered the air around them, flaking down into the spreading puddle of vomit that lay like a testament between them, Elena in her slippers in front of the doorway, Ennis barely able to prop himself up on one elbow on the cobblestones that lined their drive.
"You are seventeen today." It sounded like a death sentence.
He just looked at her, running his tongue across his lips, cracked and bleeding, refusing to heal because he constantly probed the pain, numb to it, or perhaps, addicted to it. There were no answers he could give for himself anymore, no promises left in the broken shell that was crumbling at her feet.
"Karl will be here in a week to take you back to Vienna with him."
Ennis surged feebly, shoulders and joints trembling under the strain. He scraped out one word. "Warum?"
The handkerchief Elena had been wringing between her hands fluttered onto the stones, a white flag of surrender.
"There is nothing more I can do for you, brother."
Every protesting muscle in Ennis's body rebelled at her assertion, tightening and coiling rejection. Shuddering with convulsions of frost under his skin, he reached one trembling hand out.
"Elena… bitte…"
She turned, stopping for a breath between giving up and nurturing hope in the doorway. Her words carried the weight of a gavel echoing through a courtroom after the sentence has been pronounced.
"There's nothing more we can do for you, Ennis." Her head fell. "Goodbye."
October 16, 1931
Berlin
Jack jittered like lightning in his seat, barely able to remain earthbound. He roiled with demonic energy, shoulders set into storm-brewing lines, jaw pulled taut like an overstrung instrument, every movement a battle to keep himself in check.
"Herr Schwarz?" A voice pitched to soothing inquired and instead of bolting up, he looked, taking in the parched white lab coat, the dark hair and large liquid eyes. When his assessment reached a deciding point, he rose, offering a shaky hand and smile.
"Ich bin Doktor Abraham. Come with me, please, and we'll begin."
Jack's posture relaxed enough to let him follow Abraham. The imposing appearance of the building belied its inviting interior, the pastel carpets swallowing the sound of their passage through the hallways adorned equally with art and information—with a few, it was hard to tell which was which. Dr. Abraham's gait was easy; he did not hurry or linger, greeting his colleagues and telling Jack in soft voice about the various rooms and their functions, sweeping away the cobwebs of rumors and hearsay that surrounded this Institute and its work.
Abraham's office was an interesting mixture of clinical and social; his political affiliations demanded recognition, as did his scientific expertise. They interwove into a atmosphere that was both welcoming and cautionary, riding the edge but not inviting all who entered to skirt it. They sat themselves on the earthen brown couch; somewhere along the way, Abraham had shed the labcoat and papers.
"I…" Jack swallowed, a breath of solid anticipation lodged in his throat.
Abraham placed a hand on his, hovering lightly so that Jack had the room to refuse it. He did not.
His voice was gentle, and the words that should have carried the weight of dread instead unraveled the radial lines of tension, cutting the tethers that had stopped him from coming forward before.
Jack removed his shirt willingly, looking Abraham right in the eye as he bared to light the bruises formed in the same darkness that compelled him here.