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Frankenstein AU where the Creature, upon returning to seek terrible vengeance on Victor after realizing the tragic existence he's been forced into, takes a few days extra to actually, you know, observe Victor and see what he's like, to learn how best to enact his revenge. And he comes to the conclusion that, "Actually, I don't need to do anything, this idiot's going to ruin his own life without any outside interference, and I kinda wanna see how he does it."
Victor then proceeds to continue with his previously demonstrated levels of making good life choices, while now also constantly looking over his shoulder for his Creation and having the vapors at every little thing because oh noes, it's The Monster come back to Get Him-!!!
The Creature: (watching all this unfold through binoculars like it's a soap opera while sneaking in to help himself to Victor's larder and library when he feels like it, and also occasionally hiding small but vital objects, like Victor's keys or shaving blade, in weird spots in the house) Wow, it really does take an incredibly smart man to be quite this stupid, doesn't it?
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At one point, Victor finally starts to unwind and relax a bit, has a string of good luck, looks like he might actually be at risk of Getting His Shit Together. So that year the Creature sends him a birthday present - a bible with 'To my father from his beloved son' inscribed on the inside and 'Your me!' written next to a little arrow pointing at the first use of the name 'Adam' in the text.
He does nothing else, just sits back and lets the carnage unfold as Victor proceeds to regress into full-on post-Creature-creation breakdown and no one else knows what the fuck's going on, because he refuses to tell them, because No One Can Know My Terrible Deed, even though he's certain They All Suspect.
They Do Not, in fact, Suspect, the actual main theory is that he just fucked around in a normal manner for Young Aristocracy of Standing in the era and now some no-better-than-she-should-be chit is trying to shame him for knocking her up.
Another running theory is that Victor actually sent the bible to himself in an attempt to become more interesting again, because he's cringefail like that and can't stand the idea of not being seen as interesting or special.
The Creature is drinking hard lemonade and having a jolly old time watching the proceedings. He's got a 'when do I get to meet step-mother?' letter all planned out for next time Victor seems to be at risk of becoming chill, and, while still lonely as hell, is definitely enjoying this much more than the murder spree he initially had planned.
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@someoddmix: #adam frankenstein engages in psychological warfare against his creator and has A Great Time #because Victor is pretty good at psychologically torturing himself lol #MEET STEP-MOTHER LMAOOO
Greentrickster: Psychologically torturing Victor is great, because it's basically revenge on easy mode. This is the revenge equivalent of one of those mobile games that plays itself for you, and all you need to do is let it run in the background and check in for daily log-in bonuses.
Also, because people have always been people, eternal loneliness is sad, and probability means he's bound to luck out eventually, I'mma be kind and say that at some point in all this, Adam gets caught sneaking food in the kitchen by one of the maids who's also an old maid (so you know, like... early thirties). And he's frozen in place, because Oh No, this is generally When The Screaming Starts, and she's also frozen in place, because she's experiencing an Awakening (because people have always been people and if tumblr existed back then this woman would have three accounts and a The Shape of Water poster).
Then she notices that Adam's got like... half a loaf of yesterday's bread, a couple of apples, and one of Master Frankenstein's scientific journal-type books, and asks, "Wait, are you the reason Master Frankenstein thinks someone's out to get him?"
Adam: ...yes?
Maid: Well done you, then, he's insufferable. Here, let me get you some ham to go with all that, a big, strapping fellow like you needs some proper meat in his diet if he wants to keep his health.
Adam has never encountered this sort of reaction before and doesn't quite know how to handle it. Thus he ends up just standing there silently as she bustles around, gets a basket and puts his bread and apples in it, adds ham and some cheese and a nice jar of pickles ("You'll need to bring the jar back when you're done with them, though, jars don't grow on trees, you know"!"). By the end of it, she's introduced herself as Gytha, and he's introduced himself as Adam for want of having any other name, and he's somehow agreed to meet her in a specific clearing in the woods not far from the house on her next day off so he can tell her what his (she (accurately) presumes to be extremely justified) deal with Victor is.
Gytha has gained one (1) life-long devotee who has never before experienced the warmth of human kindness like this.
Adam has gained one (1) co-conspirator on the inside.
Victor is about to lose ten (10) more years off of his ever-dwindling lifespan.
Life is good.
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@baggebythesea: #Gytha deserves a little bit of Adam. As a treat
Gytha: (staring up at Adam, all eight canonical feet of him, formed with the intent he be a physically perfect specimen, only then he actually got brought to life and now he's got kinda yellowy-transluscent skin and weird eyes that are also yellowy, and is frankly considered by most to be very uncomfortable to look at)
Gytha: ...
Gytha: ...Gytha deserves a lottle bit of Adam as a treat...
She is also of the mindset, "Well, I've already spent a most considerable amount of time with him completely unchaperoned, enough to be a thoroughly ruined woman by this point. Therefore I see no reason not to show him my ankles and let things progress as they will."
Things take awhile to progress, mostly because Adam has an understandably difficult time just internalizing the fact that not only is Gytha willing to spend time in his presence, she actively enjoys his company. That she may wish to commit sins of the flesh with him due to finding him genuinely desirable is too anathema to all he has ever experienced for him to even consider. But progress they eventually do, because Gytha's no quitter, and they progress to a most definitively mutual pleasure at that!
(Father Thomas over at the church had been under the impression he'd weathered the worst of what life/Gytha had to throw at him by the time she was twenty-five and that he mostly had how to handle her visits under control by now. He was Very Wrong, and not only that he's having to deal with it while young Master Frankenstein is having yet another continuous crisis of everything.)
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someoddmix: Father Thomas, unwilling participant in The Drama XD
greentrickster: XD XD XD Accurate!!! He thought this was going to be such a nice, quiet parish, the Frankensteins are such a nice, respectable family and then Gytha happened, then Victor happened, then things calmed down a bit, and now Here We Are and he Wishes We Weren't.
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@someoddmix: #I LOVE GYTHA!!!!!!!!! #she is gonna climb Adam like a TREE!!! later. eventually. maybe #'well done he's insufferable' LMAOOOOOO #Adam has an inside woman to help with his psychological vengeance!! #they're gonna bond over pranking Victor! #he's gonna drive himself mad while these two watch holding hands and eating popcorn!
greentrickster: Thanks, Adam also loves this tiny woman (she's 5'10", he just happens to be Huge)!!! (As do I, naturally. ;) ) And the only reason Gytha hasn't already climbed him like a tree is that she's a good, Christian woman in the 1800s. She's already putting out ankle (and even, when they get to that point, pre-marital forehead kisses), and, regardless of if she's inclined, she doesn't really dare do more than that, she needs Father Thomas to stick around long enough to officiate the marriage. And that's going to be some time in the future - they're going to have a long, leisurely courtship, then Gytha's going to request leave time to wed and spring the news on Victor at juuuuuust~ the right time.
Adam's not at the 'the best revenge is living well' stage of things yet, though, so yes, very much bonding over pranking Victor, following him around and hiding in the bushes with binoculars together to spy on him when he goes out on Gytha's days off, making new plans, Gytha filing Adam in on all the latest household and town gossip, Adam soaking up the camaraderie like a big cat in a sunbeam.
It's going to be amazing once they do get there though. Gytha is so incredibly looking forward to putting a ring on that.
(Also, didn't start this planning for it to take such a romantic tilt, but eh. Why not. Don't know how she'd feel about me giving the Creature a normal human partner, but I feel certain that Shelley would approve of me bullying Byron's fictional counterpart like this, so I take comfort in that.)
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@baggebythesea: #Gytha's no quitter #Does it really counts as sins of the flesh if the flesh is second hand? Something for Father Thomas to consider #Because Gytha considers it A LOT
Father Thomas: Gytha's flesh is still first-hand, so yes, it counts. (takes a hit of the communion wine)
baggebythesea: #Due to shenanigans - the gossips (who quickly picks up on the fact that Gytha seems to show a lot more ankles these days) - #decide that she must be Taken Advantage Of by Master Frankenstein #Which - while not unheard of - is supposed to be handled with a certain level of finesse #Since everyone in the parish knows perfectly well Victor's level of chill they take upon themselves to educate him in The Ways Of Gentlemen #This does exactly nothing to reduce Victor's stress level
XD I love it, but even Gytha's not that scandalous - it's still the 1800s, she could absolutely get let go without reference for that sort of thing (not at all a good state for a single working-class woman in her thirties to be in that era, she'd likely never find another position after that). The showing ankle is happening by adjusting her skirts juuuuuust~ that much higher if she sits down on a stump next to Adam in the forest to luncheon together, or if she has to go through a muddy bit and hold up her skirts to keep them clean. Gytha may be thirsty as hell for this man, but she's not going to stop being respectable about it just because she's technically a ruined woman!
The frustrating part is that Adam, due to his everything, doesn't actually know any of these social cues she's throwing at him. This leads to her encouraging him to start borrowing Mistress Elizabeth Frankenstein's novels - she has some works of Austin that, for all they are somewhat older, are still quite popular.
He ends up misunderstanding this slightly as well, and ends up reading several of them aloud to Gytha, allowing progress to be made in a somewhat unorthodox way, but, nevertheless, progress! Gytha does get a little swoony over Mr. Darcy, because he's awkward, grumpy, and quite the sweetest gentleman alive beneath all that, much like her Adam.
Also handsome.
Mustn't forget that.
Adam: (an understandable combination of grumpy and hurt by the last one) You are having cruel fun with me.
Gytha: I most assure you, I am not.
And that's when the first forehead kiss happens. It's not a quick dart in and back sort of kiss either, it's a good solid one, and even once it's done she's slow to draw back, just taking a moment to enjoy seeing him so close like this.
This is also when it first clicks to Adam that, Oh. I think she might... actually like me like me. And he notices a little wisp of her hair has come loose and is falling in her face, so, in a very hesitant attempt to check if he's reading the signs right, he slowly reaches out and tucks it behind her ear again, and she leans into his hand a little, and-!
-and he needs to find someone to talk to about this beyond Gytha, because God as his witness, he has no idea what he's doing or how to handle this.
Gytha: I think I know just the person!
Which is how, a few weeks later, Father Thomas comes to find a Truly Enormous Man, wearing a large cloak and with his face mostly hidden by an equally large hat and scarf, sitting in his confessional.
Father Thomas just starts leaving the communion wine in the confessional after that one. It's easier for everyone.
The entire parish gossip chain is also now alight with the fact that Father Thomas is giving Master Frankenstein fairly routine dirty/disapproving looks now, and oh, what must he have done now?
Victor: (meeting Father Thomas's gaze with terror and (for once) the correct assumption that he knows)
Father Thomas: (does indeed knows, and wishes very much that he did not knows, he handled Adam's everything better than pretty much everyone else who isn't Gytha has so far (in part because of prolonged exposure to Gytha, in part because Gytha herself helped Adam prep on how to handle this) but, God as his witness, seminary did not prepare him for this, what is with this parish?!?)
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Father Thomas: On one hand, that is a walking, talking, Crime Against God.
Father Thomas: On the other hand, the Crime Against God is somehow the one committing the least amount of sins out of everyone involved in this.
greentrickster: This is, indeed, his tragic truth at the moment, and one of the key reasons for the communion wine's new location (with the communion wine its recent abuse being why Father Thomas is also including himself on that list of people sinning more than Adam at the moment). Communion wine doesn't even taste good, it's nasty as heck, but it's the only way Father Thomas is going to make it through this without breaking the sanctity of confession (or possibly Victor Frankenstein's sinful hands).
To his credit, he does manage not to scream when Adam eventually shows him his face, but it's in a bug-eyed, rigid sort of manner as he reaches for the communion bottle and takes a chug straight from it without breaking eye contact. And then suggests that maybe Adam should be baptized, just to be on the safe side. This is still the second-best reaction Adam's ever gotten from a sighted person, Gytha is obviously a good judge of character, so he agrees to it. And also doesn't burst into flame or show any signs of discomfort from being exposed to holy water or being on ordained ground, so that's... probably something. Father Thomas isn't exactly sure what sort of something, but it makes him personally feel a bit better about the whole situation, so at least there's that.
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@someoddmix: #aaaawww the extremely soft moment between Adam and Gytha! I'm LOSING it I LOVE it!! #and then Father Thomas GETTING EVEN MORE ENTRENCHED IN THE DRAMA LMAOOOOOO #kahfkshfj Victor has a new person tp fear! XD
greentrickster: Thanks! And yes, Adam may be a Crime Against God And Nature, but the more that Father Thomas gets to know him, the more he slowly realizes that he is also a Good Man. Years of Gytha exposure have also left him a little more open-minded than others of his vocation and era might otherwise have been (out of self-defense if nothing else), meaning he's relatively swift to come to the conclusion "It is as it is said, that none of us may help how we are made," and that this especially applies to Adam here. And, for once, he thanks God for the tribulation that is Gytha, because she may be a trial, but she has a good heart in her, and who knows what might have happened to a man as unhappy and unfortunate as Adam without it. (Gytha: ...yes, that is exactly what I was thinking of the first time I saw him. Completely pure, innocent, and virtuous thoughts of good Christian charity.)
Now Victor, on the other hand, is completely without excuse for any part of this situation, and frankly Father Thomas is wondering why he isn't bursting into flame every time he steps into church.
Victor is on the edge of a nervous breakdown, especially since his wife commented on how there seem to have been a lot of sermons on the subject of not thinking you know better than God lately.
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senirac: Can. Can someone light Victor on fire in the church and not get caught? Just so Father Thomas thinks Victor is now spontaneously combusting via God/Church presence?
greentrickster: Come now, let's be reasonable... this is Victor Frankenstein, he doesn't need anyone to set him on fire in church, at this point he's probably going to do it to himself by mistake during a candle service or something. It's the talk of the town for days, especially because it elicits a deep, pained sigh from Father Thomas that only Gytha usually manages to elicit.
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@j-snapdragon: #GIGGLING I LOVE THIS #WILL VICTOR EVER FIND OUT...
greentrickster: Yes, because Gytha makes sure to give notice that she'll have to leave for a short period to get married, and Elizabeth insists on meeting her young man to ensure that her household staff isn't consorting with riff-raff.
There's a lot of screaming in an array of emotions at this meeting, and the men servants get called in, and Father Thomas gets called in, and it's a huge hullabaloo, which results in:
The rest of the maids going, "This is the guy Gytha was hugging her pillow and kicking her heels over because he knelt down to kiss her hand?!?" while simultaneously going, "Of course this is the guy Gytha has decided to marry, she would."
Gytha and Adam getting a tremulous approval for their union after Father Thomas acts as a character witness (and a mutual 'Stand back, I'll protect you!' from Gytha and Adam to each other when things started looking like they might go all pear-shaped). They are planning for the ceremony to be in late Spring.
Adam getting relocated from the slightly-renovated-cave he's been residing in to the groundskeeper's house on the Frankenstein estate, since he's technically Victor's acknowledged offspring that wasn't born of wedlock or infidelity so he's... technically legitimate? No one's quite sure on that front, Father Thomas is considering whether or not it's worth getting the Vatican involved. Point is, it feels in poor taste to have him sleeping in the woods at this point.
William Frankenstein (Victor's kid brother who didn't get murdered in this timeline, and who is having a stay with his brother for all this) being unnerved by Adam's appearance, but willing to overlook it on the grounds that Adam being Victor's son means he's also William's nephew, meaning William's an uncle, which far takes precedent over appearance or manner of birth to a young lad. He is the first family member to willingly accept Adam as family, Adam is more than happy to acquiesce to referring to the boy as Uncle William.
The townsfolk Adapting to Adam's everything, because Father Thomas said he was good people, and if you can't trust your parish priest who can you trust?
Victor falling into the social doghouse (because it's the 1800s and he's rich, that's about as far down as he can go), being forced to be in forced proximity to that thing he created. He is also expelled from Elizabeth's bedchamber for the foreseeable future on the grounds of committing Crimes Against God, playing God, child abandonment, not telling anyone what he did, not telling Elizabeth specifically what he did even after marrying her, not making Elizabeth specifically aware that their family could be in danger as a direct result of his actions, and being of overall far weaker character and moral fiber than she had previously believed him to be.
Gytha and Adam living happily ever after, in their own way, at their own pace.