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Alfons didn't remember it.
He didn't think about it, so he didn't remember it. There were no feelings to be had. It was as simple as that.
That body wasn't his, and the hands he did not remember were not his. He did not remember the scalding touches. Not that voice. He did not remember.
It was a repeated mantra sometimes, even when his mouth soured, tongue growing numb, limping in his jaw. But who didn't need a little practice once in a while? He got along with their resident actor well for a reason after all, even outside their little curiosity-sating sessions. So needy, and with a taste for theatrics.
Maybe thinking clinically about bodies had been someone else rubbing off on him, too.
Sitting still did not stop shivers from shooting down his spine as if whispers were breathed into his ears. Ahh, Alfons, you'd grown sloppy. That wasn't your body, remember?
And why did it have to be against his will, besides? He'd known what would be asked of him from the moment his gaze had deigned remain on him for longer than a flit of eyes. He'd gone with him, hadn't he? And he'd known. There was nothing to even have feelings about, really. Truly. Not when he could just drift away.
It was possible to drown memories, it was something he'd learned young.
What he remembered was the hands of all the lovers he had taken to bed, their fingers roaming him like undiscovered land, and his roaming them back with the same wanderlust. The dim sensual lights bouncing off cheeks, flashes of white on fanged pairs of smiles, like dull jewels, ravenous with hunger they knew flesh could fill. New groans of pain, and new groans of ecstasy, because the tongue is a muscle that can also hurt. The sparking touches and sear of skin on skin, more, more intense, more numerous, more, more, more. More unmemorable faces. More shadows, ones that weren't outlined by the sky in alleys. They fractured and multiplied, it was so easy if you closed your eyes. Drown in pleasure, yes, in smoke and spirits.
He didn't remember the doctor's name. In time, he wouldn't remember his own.
He so loved lies.
Roger noticed the far-off look in his eyes, while Alfons drank from his cup at the dinner table.
"You need a therapist." He said, in that frustratingly chipper tone of his. Everything was so quiet, even though Roger never cared to soften the sound of his cutlery.
Alfons tasted the wine on his tongue again. But the alcohol's buzz in his mouth didn't compare to the cotton inside his head.
The transition was natural, Alfons' gaze falling back to the table like lenses refocusing. He spared a glance to his food from under his eyelashes and elegant eyebrows. Doing so he caught glimpse of his reflection in his wine and it took seconds to recognize his face, looking as sardonic as ever.
He'd never stopped smiling.
Everything looked so small and far away, but when he under-reached for the cutlery its touch was startlingly concrete in his palm. He resumed eating bites off his plate handling his knife with ease, to show off just how unbothered he was. He blinked at the appropriate interval. "Hm. Is that your business model? Telling people things best left silenced and later asking for money to treat them of their stupor."
There was never question of what he was referring to, when Alfons' voice held such barely contained venom.
Roger laughed, and Alfons was all the more offended by how unforced it sounded. "Hah, if only. I'm a doctor, not a psychiatrist."
Stop.
How could he ever forget. Self-serving, privileged fucker.
And then he had the audacity to give it more thought, still as casual as ever. "You've got a point though, as much as I'd like to deny. I guess I've got to thank it for my data, or your curse wouldn't have become so honed."
Stop. Stop.
Alfons would never call anything between them something as pleasant as a game. What Roger had was an urge to push people to the edge, to see how they ticked, so it was a fight between them, this unspoken challenge when interacting. Who could act the most casual, the most friendly and least bothered, with the best smile? Who would, inevitably, break the charade and reveal the animosity underlying? It was always Alfons.
He put his glass down harshly and rose, plate unfinished. That was quite enough Roger for one night, ruining his good mood. His drinking mood got cut short, but maybe it would return later at the bar.
He left the table, knocking down roger's glass as he walked by. Roger gasped and groaned, rushing after the cup instead of glancing back at his retreating back.
His loathing far outmatched any feeling Roger had for him- indifference made him a winner, and made Alfons the loser. It really was the same everywhere.
Now it was another thing knocking around in his mind, annoyingly loud. His tragedy he was born into, the mirror's curse. He walked down the hall of Crown, his footsteps starting to reverberate like glass ricochets in his ears.
It was going to happen no matter what, regardless of what he did, what was the point of thinking about it? What was he supposed to feel about it? Begging the air not to be so cruel?
Everyone will forget him. Everyone will forget him. Everyone else is allowed to forget his miserable life, except for him. Was it so much to ask? Who said memories were good things to hold?
Stop.
Thoughts never stopped, even while he pretended to not hear them. Begging really never worked, in life as in bed.
Ignoring things, though, he'd always been good at, especially himself. He was skilled at it, making a void of his mind even while acting inconspicuous, going about his business, whether it be walking, talking, killing, kissing.
Roger called his eyes glassy sometimes. To him though it felt like the reverse, like there was a wall of glass around the world. Like he existed in a glass dome, a foggy thick layer of it that muffled things. Like some flower. He scoffed, derisively amused, through the looking glass.
He tried not to catch glimpses of his reflection in it, keeping his eyes away from the shine glares. The outside air rushed against him, but even though his mouth was closed it was his breathing that sounded loudest, trapping his body in a rhythm of inhales, exhales, left footstep, right footstep. There was a restless pang in him that he ignored, even when his feet walked a little faster.
He needed to find someone to distract. Misery loved company. It explained why roaches flocked to him; he could never judge kin.
He was fine being a party trick. He'd make what he must out of himself, it was what it meant to be wanted. He was malleable, after all, a wortless, weak metal easily reshapen, a toy made of tin. A discarded belonging.
One that waited for its owner to die like a starved dog. He was glad, that Elbert had killed him. He was more glad, when Elbert replaced him as Alfons' benefactor. And he was even more glad, learning Elbert was miserable enough to need Alfons.
His steps stilled going over the bridge in town. His eyes found the water below, the way they caught glimpses of things they shouldn't. He watched the waves under his feet, under the layer of brick and the meters of distance of air.
He imagined they licked at his shoes instead, visualizing made manifest. What it'd feel like to be surrounded in them, weightless, breathless. His eyelids loosened, eyes gathering statics while he watched. There was a face reflected in the water that he did not recognize. It morphed in the ebbing and flowing, warping, stretching, thinning. Its hair was an abyssal color, its eyes like gutter bottle shards.
He looked down at the surface and the thought came to him almost like a memory. This isn't me.
Alfons had drowned himself in a puddle when he was a child, and he had hardly ever felt alive since.
Not enough to even bother jumping over.