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“If only I thought of the right words, I could have held on to your heart…”
Herbert didn’t want Howard.
He was forced onto him. Some bright-eyed intern dumped on him, as if that would somehow aid his parole adjustment. Another wide-eyed fool chasing immortality. Another Daniel. But a cheap sick imitation.
The moment Herbert saw Howard, with that jittery determination and ridiculous optimism, something in his gut turned. It wasn't just disgust. It was worse. Memory. Watching Howard frantically attempt to resuscitate one of the death row inmates had been like watching a ghost from a past he tried every day to excise. The way Howard kept trying, over and over, pressing against a chest that had long since cooled. It was exactly how Daniel used to be. Exactly like how Dan had fought to save that older woman in the ER that day… the hopelessness in her faded pupils and the stubborn light still burning in his even after the ECG was nothing but a flatline. He pushed and pushed.
Back then, Herbert had found it admirable. Now, it was a knife twisting in his gut.
That eagerness, that defiance of death, that sickening hope. It was haunting.
“Herbert-”
“West,” he snapped, not looking up. “I told you to call me Dr. West.”
The words came too fast, too sharp, slicing through the air like a scalpel. He hadn’t meant to sound so venomous, or maybe he had. It didn’t matter. The name Herbert in someone else’s mouth felt like a trespass. Especially his mouth. Howard flinched slightly at the correction, but didn’t argue. Instead, he shifted awkwardly, holding something in his hands like it might burn him. Herbert resumed angrily rearranging a tray of surgical tools that were already in order, the clatter masking the tremor in his fingers.
“I… uh, found these,” Howard said finally. “Confiscated items… from when the police raided your, erm, your old residence. Yours and your partner’s. I thought… maybe you’d want them back.”
He offered the bag like a peace offering, like he understood. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. He was just mimicking empathy, another eager little medic trying to impress the infamous Dr. West. Herbert didn’t even look him in the eye.
But when his gaze finally dropped to the bag, everything stopped.
He knew.
He knew what was inside before he even touched it. It was like a phantom limb, something lost long ago, but still aching, still part of him. There was a stillness that settled over him. not peace. but the silence before a storm. His hands moved before he could stop them, snatching the bag away from Howard like an animal guarding a wound. “Leave,” he said, quietly this time. Howard hesitated — always hesitant, always on the edge of asking questions that weren’t his to ask. “I said leave!” He said cruely losing his already limited patience then backed out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him.
And now it was just Herbert. The bag. And the ache behind his ribs.
He set it down gently. For the first time in years, his movements weren’t clinical — they were careful. Almost… reverent. His fingers curled around the zipper, reluctant to expose what had been buried for so long. When he peeled it back, the inside: chaos. VHS tapes out of order. Mishandled. Rifled through. He could feel the disorder. It pressed against the part of his brain that needed things categorized, precise, untouched. Panic bubbled up, silent and immediate. ‘What if some were broken? What if they erased it?’
What if he was erased?
He swallowed it back. No. Not now.
His fingers brushed one of the tapes. He pulled it free, turning it over in his hand.
“ June 16, 1986. ”
He didn’t need to read it. Every date on those tapes was seared into him, into every crevice of his ruined memory. The tape was heavier than it should have been. Weighted by what it held. What it meant. Herbert was never a sentimental man. He didn’t keep photos. He didn’t save scraps of paper. He didn’t feel in the ways others did. Or, at least, he told himself he didn’t. But he had kept the tapes, even made the tapes. Not because he wanted to remember. Because he couldn’t forget.
And now, holding this fragment of a long time dead connection. Herbert found himself sitting down slowly, knees aching with age and rage. Tape in hand, breath shallow.
This wasn’t a scientific artifact. It was a relic of a heart he claimed he never had. Of a man who’d torn it out and left him bleeding in a courtroom.
Of Dan.
And he hadn’t even said goodbye.
He remembered the syringe in Daniel’s hand. When he helped and inject into Herberts vein… then the year after he remembered the calm resolution on Dan’s face as he injected the reagent not into muscle tissue, not into a corpse — but into the still, heart of the thing they had built.
Meg's heart.
But also, somehow, his own.
Even after thirteen years, Daniel Cain was still inside him. In every waking moment. In every twitch of his eye, in every silence between breaths. A knife he could never remove. A stake so deeply embedded that it had rooted itself in his spine. When Dan left — really left — Herbert shattered. He had begged. Not with dignity, not with the cold intelligence he was known for, but with the desperation of a man unravelling. He tried manipulation. Then threats. Then sobbing. He wept, not just for Dan, but for what Dan was. His heart. His only anchor.
And Dan walked out.
Worse still, Dan had turned on him. The one person Herbert trusted, the only person he ever let in. Gave his life’s work to, handed him the notes, shared the secret — that man had walked into court and handed over Herbert’s existence in a folder.
A betrayal not of science.
Of love.
That last moment… Herbert in cuffs, the cold steel biting his wrists, bruising his skin — he looked back and saw Dan. Not angry. Not proud. Just… empty. That look, that absence of anything, was worse than if Dan had screamed his hatred.
He used to tell himself that Dan didn’t understand what he was doing. That the guilt had twisted him. But now, with age and rot and bitterness clawing at his brain like maggots in an open wound, he could only see it one way:
Dan fucked him over. The only person he ever loved.
And now, he was gone.
Gone in every way except the worst. the way that stayed and lingered.
He could hear his voice sometimes in Howard's. The cadence. The phrasing. The tremble of belief in the impossible. How Howard said "Herbert" and it made his stomach flip, until he crushed it under the boot of old rage. But the memories came anyway. Like rot under polished tile, like the stench beneath the bleach. He could never clean Dan out of his soul.
And now, standing with the tape in his hand, the weight of the past like a needle pricking just beneath his skin, Herbert closed his eyes.
He still remembered the way Dan had looked at Meg. The way he had looked at him. The way it felt to believe they were building something together — not just abominations of life, but something pure. Something eternal.
But it was all a lie.
Herbert knew now. He knew that love was just another reagent. Potent. Unstable. Fatal.
He slid the tape into the player with hands that trembled more than he’d allow himself to acknowledge. The static flared. A flicker of light. A shadow of a man who no longer existed.
"Play…" he whispered to no one but himself.
And the past answered.
The screen flickered, grainy lines warping the edges of the frame as the tape sputtered to life. Herbert’s breath hitched. That warm, amber glow spilling from the old fireplace. That unmistakable hush. That day. Back then it was a normal day… But now it’s only an out of reach dream
The tape cut into focus and there they were.
Dan, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a tattered cookbook propped open on his knees. His socks didn’t match, horrific bright colours like that bright red sweater back in 85’. His brow was furrowed in theatrical concentration, mouthing ingredients as if deciphering a surgical text. And Herbert there, beside His arms were crossed, yes, but it was more habit than defense. He wore that awful asymmetrical knit sweater Dan had picked out “because you always wear black, and it’s Christmas, damn it.” The wool irritated his skin, but he hadn't taken it off. Couldn’t. Not when Dan had looked so proud holding it up like a ridiculous trophy in that thrift store.
The camera, set on the shelf, recorded silently.
Herbert can’t quite remember why he’d set it up, actually… no, he can’t remember any reason for any of the tapes. He just liked how Dan looked. How they looked, together. Some part of him must’ve known it wouldn’t last. That it was worth preserving.
Dan's voice crackled through the room like warmth seeping into old bones.
“Okay, hear me out. rosemary roasted potatoes, garlic mushrooms, and maybe, like, a cranberry glaze on the protein? Or is that too much?”
Herbert watched himself on screen tilt his head slightly. Not an outright ‘no’, that would have come quicker. No, that version of him was… considering it. A relic of some other life.
“Glazes are usually for hams,” came his own voice, low and cool, not argumentative. “This is tofu. It’s not the same protein structure. It won’t-”
“Yes, yes, I know it’s not structurally appropriate,” Dan interrupted, waving his hand dramatically, “but this for date night this weekend, Herbert. Just once, can we not reduce everything to chemical bonds?”
Past-Herbert blinked once. Then twice. Then, it was barely perceptible, nodded. Dan grinned like he’d won a prize. Herbert, in the present, watched that moment repeat in the trembling reel. The nod. The sweater. The ever-burning fireplace they never really used, but Dan insisted on for ambiance. That damned cookbook that always smelled faintly of smoke and thyme.
And then a squeak.
“Hey, don’t let it near the fire - ”
Dan scooped something small off the rug with both hands and held it aloft like a prize. Fingers. A tangle of preserved reanimated digits fused with an eye as the centre body. Their grotesque little pet. “He’s curious,” Dan murmured, lowering the squirming creature onto his shoulder. It clung to the fabric of his sweater. “Just like someone else I know.”
Herbert rolled his eyes, but only half-heartedly. No sigh. No biting remark. He just… watched. And then, almost imperceptibly, smiled. Softly. Briefly. Not because it was expected—but because he wanted to. The kind of smile no one else ever got from him. The way Dan settled in beside him. Close. Practiced. Like gravity always pulled them into the same orbit. Herbert didn’t flinch. He didn’t straighten up or shift away like he would with anyone else. He leaned, very slightly. He wanted more contact, wanted to rest his head on Dan’s shoulder. But the little creature was still there
“You’re going to get attached,” he says tone gentler than he meant it to be. Not a warning. Almost teasing. Almost fond.
“Too late,” Dan murmured, and the morbid doodle chirped softly from his shoulder. Luckily Dan got the message, he understands Herbert more than anyone else. Dan gently plucked the creature from his shoulder and placed it on the pillow in front of them like a pet being tucked into bed. He didn’t say anything else.Herbert’s head dropped against Dan’s shoulder like it had always been meant to be there. No hesitation. No calculation. Just… ease. Dan shifted slightly to steady him, and their bodies aligned with practiced comfort, warmth seeping between them like muscle memory. Dan’s hand brushed lightly against Herbert’s knee and stayed there. Just resting.
Silence followed. Not tense. Not awkward. Just… there. The kind of silence Herbert only ever found with Dan. The kind that didn’t require him to fill it.
“Do you ever think,” Dan said, tone suddenly quiet, “that maybe we got something right?”
Herbert, present time, stiffened slightly. Herbert on tapes fingers twitched and went still. He didn’t answer right away.
“What do you mean?” came the eventual reply.
Dan exhaled, then looked over at him —not with pity, not with blind optimism. Just that unbearable sincerity.
“I mean this. Not the lab. Not the serum. Just… this. Us. A fireplace. A gross little Frankenstein finger-pet. A quiet day where no one dies.”
That version of Herbert didn’t answer. Not with words. But he turned, actually turned to look at Dan. And in that rare, impossible moment, the corner of his mouth curved. A real, reluctant, fragile smile. It wasn’t sarcastic. It wasn’t calculated.
It was just… human.
The tape clicked cutting off too soon.
‘No… no…’
The edge of the scene warping as the VHS was tampered with past that point. Herbert sat frozen in the dark, the only light now the pale blue glow from the screen. His hands were knotted in his lap, white-knuckled.
They had been something close to alive.
Now it was all ruin. But the tape didn’t lie. It didn’t dramatize or embellish. It simply bore witness. To comfort, connection. To silence. To a monstrosity curled up like a cat between them. To love.
The screen turned to static.
Herbert exhaled, slow and uneven. He reached forward and ejected the tape with trembling hands. Cradled it like glass. Then held it to his chest and bent forward, curling around it.
Not crying. Although everything in his body tells him to break down. But no,
Just remembering.
And maybe, somewhere in the place he had buried Dan, that spark still smouldered. Not science. Not rage… yet. Just… the thing beneath it all.
The thing he never got to name.
Love torn to anguish.
Rage, rage, undeniable rage at everything. Bubbled and bubbled
And- crack, snap the plastic of the tape broke under his grasp.
“…If only I thought of the right words, I wouldn’t be breaking apart all my pictures of you.”