Chapter Text
She didn't blink as snowflakes landed right on her open eyes. A truly lovely shade of hazel. Her wet bangs sticking to her forehead, the ground around her soaking in red, as if bleeding with her, for her — she stared with glassy eyes at the night sky for the last time.
Lights from the neon sign of the bar flickered over her face. Red-blue-green. Red-blue-green.
Marianne Vacher, beloved daughter, dear friend and oh so tactful ex-girlfriend, dead behind some greasy bar two feet away from a dumpster. And they say God is kind to those who deserve it.
Or maybe it was a mercy.
One careless shove and an accidental slip was all it took.
Vincent's mouth tasted like cheap booze and bile. The ground swayed under his feet and his very bones pulsated to the gentle rhythm of the song leaking through the walls and cracked open windows of the bar.
They'll bust your knee caps.
Ooh wop de do wop de do.
They'll bust your knee caps.
Ooh yeah they're coming for you.
Snowflakes tangled in her blood-soaked hair, fell into her open mouth. Her mascara was in dark smudged circles under her eyes. His knees hit the snow-covered ground, instantly soaking his slacks, and he reached out to her face — brush the hair away from her eyes, that has to be uncomfortable, and wipe away the mascara because what kind of friend-
Everything was alcohol-soaked blurry edges and vertigo was a bitch but he could— he could—
"Marianne," he whispered, wiping the snow from her cheeks with his gloved hands, the snow that still melted but wouldn't after a couple of hours. Vincent was not ready to think about it yet. Couldn't, really. "Marianne. Manon. Please."
No point in begging God — didn't you hear? God's dead. We killed him! Some sort of fucked up teenage rebellion of humanity to fantasize about the death of their creator, we overtook the agency of ourselves, in process facing the vicious nature of ourselves. God's dead, he's dead, but—
But so was—
"Vince."
For one precious, wild second, he though Manon was the one calling his name.
No, the voice came from behind. His head was spinning as he looked back, a dozen hammers pounding on his skull from the inside, and he squeezed his eyes shut. His pained exhale was a cloud of warm air in front of his face — he was never this aware of his lungs expanding, his heart frantically beating with its weight seemingly everywhere, on the bottom of his stomach, in his mouth and at his fingertips.
No, no — the voice was familiar, but different. Deeper. Usually infuriatingly light, now so oddly solemn.
The world tilted on its axis as Rody's hand fell on his shoulder. It wasn't really a choice. Fatalists may say that in no life, no alternate reality, was he able to resist falling into the man's orbit — but what does it matter? Is there really anything besides here and now? Vincent flopped gracelessly toward Rody's outstretched hands.
Strange, wasn't it?
He was no stranger to getting so drunk off his ass he could barely stand but this — he felt hollow and too full all at the same time, gutted of everything filthy and rotting, and stuffed with wet cotton. His head felt like it was filled with thick decaying sludge just one stumble away from leaking from his ears. Maybe that's why everything sounded like it was underwater. Rody's voice, cars passing by somewhere far away, the song from the bar, still that fucking song.
Jonny don't leave me,
You said you'd love me forever.
"Hey, sweetheart," Rody's hand rubbed gentle circles on his back, which Vincent could barely feel over the thick winter jacket, over the waves of nausea and the world tilting this way and that every few seconds. "You come here often?"
Oh, Christ. It hurt to roll his eyes but Vincent couldn't help himself.
It was so hot, muggy and sweltering all of a sudden on a February night — Vincent's trembling hands reached up to the zipper at his throat, fumbling, shaking, he couldn't breathe-
Rody's hands tightened over his shoulders as Vincent suffocated.
His presence was soothing. Steady. A lighthouse in a stormy sea, always so warm, so welcoming.
"It's okay," Rody cooed in his ear, pressing Vincent closer to his chest as Vincent's consciousness slipped from his fingers no matter how desperately he clawed at it, tooth and nail. The darkness dawned with no regard for his effort, submerging him into the deep dark waters, and the only thing he had left was Rody's voice. "I'll take care of it."
Honey believe me,
I'll have your heart on a platter.
...
"Vincent, you have to listen to me—"
"You sound insane."
"You have to get the fuck out from there, put in your two weeks tomorrow. The way he is, it's not healthy, he's—"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The whole world was a swaying deck under his feet.
"That he's dangerous."
A hand grabbing his sleeve. He brushed it off. He was pulled back around, again.
"I was in your shoes once, I can see the signs already—"
Sounds were strange, warped, reaching him through radio static. Colors fractured, distorted. He was looking at the world through a broken TV screen.
Her hand was so heavy on his arm.
"Vince, please, I know the attention is nice and you like him but he's fucking insane, who knows what he'll do when he gets attached enough—"
"Stop."
"Think for a fucking second, Vince! Listen to me!"
"You're very loud."
"Why don't you look at me? Do you even hear me? Vince, fuck's sake — look at me!"
Careless shove. Accidental slip. That was all it took, really. No one was to blame. Right?
...
Someone moving around in his apartment was the first thing Vincent registered. That was wrong. No one was ever at his apartment, not since he moved in — who the hell could it be? Rummaging around his cabinets, humming quietly under their breath, so clearly comfortable here.
Then, smells — hot coffee, cigarette smoke that saturated the walls, fresh chilly air from wide-open windows, and a familiar cologne, something like—
Like lemons.
Fuck, Rody.
Fuck.
Why?
Vincent was careful to not move a muscle, not until he assessed the situation.
So: pounding headache, something like rotting roadkill in his mouth. Everything hurt. He was lying on the pull-out couch that doubled as his bed in his home clothes — a washed-out t-shirt and sweatpants — with no recollection of changing into them. With no recollection of... much of anything else. Oh God, did he fuck his boss? That would be-
No, that's not right. He finished his shift, downed just a few sips from the wine he was supposed to serve customers, clocked out and—
He was supposed to meet up with Manon at the bar. Fuck, was it...
Récolte. Right, that one. Did they get there? Think, Charbonneau, think for fuck's sake. Your job depends on what you remember, and you absolutely cannot fuck it up — it's a miracle already as it is that Lamoree took you in.
So, right. The bar.
Vince was able to conjure up a hazy image: the dim lights, the old music rumbling smooth from the speakers and the shitty booze burning its way down his throat despite the fact that he couldn't really taste it. Low hum of conversations around them, vaguely 80's looking decor in deep reds and browns. The place was full but they managed to get a small table in a secluded corner. Manon — clad in her best jeans and soft-looking sweater in swirls of coffee-brown, black and off-white, tapping a rhythm on the rim of the glass of her barely-touched cocktail, her face half-concealed by the shadows.
She was so worried. Looking over her shoulder every so often, her lovely hazel eyes alert, wide open—
wide open as snowflakes landed right on her open eyes.
No.
Oh no.
God, please, no.
And suddenly he was 5 again, in desperate need of a parent, of someone older and wiser to take care of everything. Who would have though, huh? Losing everything in the past 6 years — his sense of taste, his job, apartment, car, almost everybody he ever knew or cared about — only had him gritting his teeth and pushing forward out of pure fucking spite. He was going to show them, and if not that, at least he won't go down easy.
Look at him now, though: exhausted, pathetic and hungover, shaking all over as he prays for the first time since he was a child, for the first time ever in his life — with conviction.
Please, his unintentional prayer took a fuzzy form, not so much words, more of a sick feeling in his stomach and shaking hands, lovely hazel eyes and snow and the ground bleeding red. Please, fix this. Please, I can't— I can't do this alone.
But there's no God to answer his booze-drenched frantic begging. Humanity always had only itself to rely on and to blame, and it was a shitty fucking deal because aren't we just awful? We thought we needed a shepherd and not yet realized that we are the wolves.
No, Vince did not pray to God on the cloudy February morning as he was lying on his couch, unsuccessfully pretending to still be asleep. The prayer was a letter without a recipient, a shout into the dark abyss.
It was Rody who answered.
How lovely, how selfless. How kind. And so very, very unfortunate — Vincent was doomed from the very moment he laid his eyes upon the charming man. Now, the trap snapped shut with a Bang! when that man kneeled by the couch on that gloomy winter morning to press the back of his palm to Vincent's forehead, feeling him up for fever.
"God, you're burning up."
But you must understand, for someone left to drift alone for so long, the heavy metal teeth of a trap will feel like home.
Vincent leaned into the gentle touch.