Chapter Text
There comes a point in any person's life where they start to fit into certain routines. Patterns form. Behaviours become expected.
For Vince, it should come as no surprise whatsoever that he finds himself in a nightclub at 11:30 on a Wednesday night. A scandal, to most people. The kind of people that have refined their behaviour to a much more responsible thing. Those with proper jobs (which he supposes he has) that require them to clock in at 9am (and again, his aforementioned job definitely does). But to Vince, this is not only a pattern - it’s practically encouraged. He wasn’t the Prince of Camden based on his own word was he? People wanted this from him. They needed it. So he delivers.
Though if he’s going to be completely up front about it, the whole night is a bit of a surprise for him. Considering his original intention for this evening involved a takeaway, pyjamas by 9 o’clock, and bickering with Howard over whose turn it was to monopolise the television (because if he had to sit through another documentary about the creation of the paperclip he was gonna hurt someone. Probably Howard) this was a big step in the opposite direction.
That plan had gone solidly out of the window at closing time. The pair of them ambling up into the flat with a low level thrum of something ricocheting between them. No words but plenty being said with body language alone. Howard’s pinched features and Vince’s tense shoulders.
It all came down to a cape.
“Do you have to leave your clothes lying everywhere,” Howard had complained, shifting the shiny fabric off the back of the sofa and thrusting it into Vince’s hands. “It’s like living in a Topshop storage unit.”
And to the eye the beholder (that being Vince) there wasn’t really any clothes about at all. Well. There were some. But a pair of boots, a few blouses, and a cape, were practically nothing in comparison to some of the messes he’d left lying before. “Do you have to be such a clean freak.” He’d snapped back in annoyance.
Though he did begin to scoop up the other offending items. Might as well.
Looking back on it now he should have seen it coming. Both of them had been spoiling for a fight all day, in their own particular ways. Howard squinting over at him in that way he knew wound him up and Vince, well, Vince didn’t do much different besides taking his avoidance of doing any actual work to the highest level possible. That being to prop himself in his chair by the window and not look up once all shift.
All it took was one comment. It wasn’t even a big one; it was the delivery. Uttered under his breath like the argument wasn’t even worth his effort. A lit match tumbling onto their spectacularly short fuse. They’d spent all day covering themselves in kerosene, ready for the opportunity to set themselves alight.
“Well one of us has to be.”
Fireworks.
And not even the fun kind. Not the quick witted back and forth they usually engaged in. Like sparklers, that was. Exciting. Fizzing in the pit of his stomach. Speaking to a kind of tension they surely both knew was there but refused to acknowledge. Vince could feel it - arguably he’d been feeling it since he was in his teens but recently there had been a shift. After the party this thing vibrating under his skin had begun to feel explosive. Now there was a spark present on both sides of the equation. Spitting excessive heat into every interaction. A wonderful whizz-bang of (what Vince liked to think was) sexual tension.
But the world tilted again following Denmark. Howard came back the same but slightly different.
This is what he’d brought back with him. This type of firework. The kind that was loud and dangerous; ones that, if you set them off wrong then there was a good chance they would kill you. Probably not even legal. Bought on discount. Who buys discount fireworks?
That’s what their fights felt like lately. Discount fireworks. Vince had gone on to express in many (mostly expletive) words that Howard was a dull old lunatic. Howard returned the sentiment in almost as many (clever sounding) words that Vince was vain and self involved.
Vince had grabbed his wallet, the offending cape, and had stormed from the flat and into the rapidly setting sun.
He was the kind of person that didn’t really need a plan when staging dramatic exits from his own flat. He had runaways across the city he could hole up in until a reasonable amount of time had passed (or he got bored enough to go home, whichever came first). But none of his usual haunts felt like where he wanted to be. Not when so many familiar unfamiliar faces would be waiting there to bask in his attention. He wanted somewhere fresh, where he could disappear into a crowd as much as possible and drown himself in music.
Leroy had been telling him about a place for weeks now, they had some in house DJ that was supposedly a genius - he’d been putting off going for reasons he can’t remember at this moment in time. Was he ever going to find a better time than this to try it out? Unlikely. Vince knows his own patterns well and he knows that the best way to take his mind off Howard was to get a bit drunk, dance away his frustration and stumble home in the wee hours of the morning to pass out in his bed.
So he goes.
There isn’t a problem getting in. Skips the queue because he has a friend whose girlfriend’s brother is friends with the bouncer (who says being the Prince of Camden was a pointless venture) and pressing his way into the place gives him a good sense of why people are talking about it all the time.
The music is pretty genius. The beat is thumping in his chest. Rattling his bones. Pushing everything out of his head and filling him up with it’s looping chords; there’s no room for anything anymore. Nothing except tunes. It’s how he likes it.
It’s what he needs.
Barely any time later he’s made himself at home on the dance floor; lost count of how many drinks he has had, but knows he hasn’t paid for a single one of them. Warm bodies come and go from his personal space on rotation, fleeting in their attention. There’s a girl in his arms at the minute; backing herself into him as she sways. It’s surely a sign that should he wish to avoid going back to his own home tonight he would be more than welcome to hers.
Sadly that definitely isn’t on the agenda for this evening. Being mad at Howard was one thing, but he wasn’t about to force him to stay up all night fretting. Not when he knows how much he worries. Disengaging takes nothing more than a press of fingers at her hips and the dip of his head to murmur his intention of returning.
Little white lies to save her feelings, and all.
Quick trip to the bathroom and then his sense of guilt informs him it is likely time to head home. As it is he can practically hear Howard whining at him for staying out so late when they have work in the morning. Mostly a front; the whines cover the breathy relief that Vince has in fact made it home safely.
After he’s finished his business and is busy washing his hands; he catches his own gaze in the grimy mirror. Observes his reflection closely; tilts his head this way and that.
A result of having not planned on being out, he’s nowhere near as done up as he prefers to be. Only in some grey jeans and a flowing blouse; cape on top adding a splash of colour. His hair isn’t done past his basic backcomb structure - his makeup was only whatever he slapped on for a day at work.
He wonders when he started looking so tired.
Someone pushes into the bathroom behind him; snaps him into action once more. It’s the work of a moment to pull the pieces of himself back together again. Flicks the water off his hands and drags fingers through his fringe so that it sits a little better and then turns to slide past the stranger politely. Except when he looks up, intent on delivering that tight awkward smile that people do when passing strangers in close quarters, he locks eyes with the man. And the man looks back. And they both get trapped staring.
Vince is intimately familiar with his own reflection. He knows himself when he sees it.
Just as he stutters a “Wot..?”
The other man curses. “Holy fuck.”
And then he’s gone. Turns tail and practically sprints out of the bathroom faster than a Genie out of a bottle (which coincidentally he’s seen happen before, and is a pretty fast process).
Vince finds himself hovering in the empty bathroom, unsure. So used to having Howard (or at least the suggestion of his involvement) close by when weird things happen that he isn’t immediately certain what to do. Tonight he isn’t here. Tonight they’d fought and he wasn’t sure he would believe what Vince has just seen.
Two Vinces.
One thing is for sure though, he'd never once turned his back on an adventure in his life and he wasn’t about to start now.
A split second later he’s on the trail of the mirror man.
***
Jones is having a bit of a shocker.
For starters he wasn’t even supposed to be at the club tonight, being that it was his night off. But another DJ had some sort of family emergency thing and left a set to be covered. Chris had practically begged for him over the phone.
He’s really not in the habit of turning down an opportunity to play - Jones fought hard enough to be able to do this for a living, he made damn sure he took advantage of every opportunity that arose. Even if that happened to be the one night he felt a caffeine crash coming on (he was about ready to build a nest and sleep for three days when the call came). That and Chris had always been good to him; kept him in a regular slot and paid him good money to boot.
Of course he’d said yes.
Plus. There was the fact Dan was secluded at home - settled on the sofa with a bottle of Vodka, two packs of cigarettes, and a phone that would not stop ringing . A phone he refused to answer even though it would not. Stop. Ringing .
“It’s Barley.” He’d said, like that somehow explained everything.
“Then turn it off, Dan, the sound is doin’ my 'ead in.”
“Then he wins.”
How putting your phone on silent to ignore a call is any different than ignoring it on loud, he’ll never know.
Actually. He does know. He knows that the only distinction between a loud phone and a silent one is how well Dan can punish himself with it. The man was a glutton for punishment - especially the obscure kind. Every shrill cry his mobile made was another twisted reminder of the shit he was currently neck deep in. He probably enjoys it just as much as he enjoys drinking the pain away.
It was the only thing Dan knew how to enjoy anymore, really.
That being said it was still setting Jones’ teeth on edge. When you live with a man like Ashcroft you get used to the nihilistic tendencies - but this recent spate of low was swinging dangerously close to rock bottom. Jones was an optimist at heart and would always do his best to help, but these days getting a smile from his best friend was like getting blood from a rock.
No matter how much he’d happily put himself in Dan's verbal firing line if it meant he could feel marginally better (even if just for just a moment) he was reaching the end of his tether. Which likely sounded incredibly selfish of him, but he was terrified of being pulled into the abyss with him and not being able to climb out again. Jones wasn't unscathed by the world. He'd been in dark places too; the fact of the matter was he didn't want to go back.
So yeah, he’d easily agreed to cover because it meant a good enough reason not to be around for Dan’s pity party.
On the upside, he knew his housemate terrifyingly well. He could be certain that by the time he had finished his set, had a dance or two, and then ventured the few streets back to his home - Dan would be passed out on the sofa. Out cold and unwakeable until at least noon tomorrow.
Meeting his own clone in the bathroom, though, that flips reality on its head a bit.
Instinct kicked in and told him to run. As he assumes a great many people would when encountering a situation like that. Sure, there was likely a small handful of the population that would bask in the adventure of meeting… well, themselves. But Jones was not one of those people. Nope. Weird things happened to Dan, he lived and breathed weird, he attracted it - look at his track record. Jones (other than his practically supernatural ability to maintain a sunshine attitude) was completely run of the mill.
How do things like this even happen?
Dan wrote an article years ago, back when he’d been allowed to write whatever he felt like. Could express himself in his prose and opinions (aka before Jonatton was made editor and ran the whole publication into the ground - along with Dan’s sanity). It was all about doppelgangers.
Jones thought it was complete bullshit, honestly, and he was pretty open minded to most things. He was superstitious. Believed in ghosts. Thought dreams were like peeking into alternate realities. Jones existed in a state of childlike belief - more so than Dan, who even in his youth had been a bit of a grumpy shit. But doppelgangers? Not as easily believed. He found it a stretch that with billions of people on the planet, it was possible for two individuals to be completely identical without being related.
Dan argued the opposite, that surely even with billions of people there were only so many combinations of genetics that existed and thus absolutely a chance for people to be physically identical - it was just the chance of them meeting each other that was slim.
How he’d probably laugh now to learn that when Jones had finished his set and told the club manager Chris he was just popping to the loo - he had run almost face first into his.
And if the look hadn’t freaked him out enough then the voice certainly did. The accent. London. That man was from London. He had potentially been existing in this city looking exactly like him for years - his whole life. Somehow that thought was scarier than anything else about the situation.
Music was still thumping around him as he weaved his way through the mass of bodies back to where he’d left his gear. If he was lucky he’d be able to grab it all and go, he could arrange payment with Chris over text for another day.
He only gets halfway there when he feels a hand grabbing at his arm and his natural fighting instinct kicks in. Despite looking a bit scrawny he was definitely a fighter. He could hold his own; he turns and shoves at the body he finds - discovers the familiar stranger from the bathroom.
He stumbles back grinning nervously at him. “Steady on!”
Jones’ adrenaline hasn’t abated enough to stop him from curling his fingers into fists; the stranger seems to click onto this fact quickly and his hands shoot up, demonstrating his harmlessness as best he can. He takes another step back for good measure but is restricted from taking anymore by the still gyrating wall of dancers that surround them.
They stand like that, sizing one another up, for what feels like ten minutes. Jones breathes deeply; deep enough to make his head stop screeching alarm bells. Eventually, he forces his metaphorical hackles down and calms himself.
The longer he looks the more he starts to realise that - although weird - this man doesn’t look to be a threat to him.
The other tilts his head towards the glowing neon sign that indicates the smoking area. Says what he thinks is, “Can we talk?” but the sound around him is so loud that he struggles to hear him properly.
There are many things Jones would rather do than have a conversation with this person. And some of them are distinctly unpleasant. He can understand why he might want to - morbid curiosity and all that - but this sort of thing just doesn’t happen to him. He hasn’t got the right mental toolbox to process any of it. He’d be more than happy going his whole life without learning what his face gets up to when it’s on somebody else.
But he’s gasping for a cigarette (or five) so he nods carefully. Gesturing for the stranger to go ahead of him, he resigns himself to the uncomfortable chat for the sake of a nicotine fix. The man beams like a kid at Christmas and leads the way, Jones can’t help but watch his frighteningly feminine hips sway as they walk towards the outside.
As soon as they get there he makes quick work of fishing out a smoke and lighting it, practiced fingers finding the action soothing. It’s only as an afterthought (and age old memories of his grandmother telling him to be polite ) that has him offering one to his reflection.
Thankfully he declines.
Not completely identical, then. He thinks, a misplaced sense of smugness overcoming him that he has managed to be in some way unique from this copy.
They’re here. He, perhaps wrongly, followed him at his request. And yet they stand in silence. The feeling that they’re evaluating one another returns. Blue eyes on either side making quick trips from head to toe. The other man is chewing on his cuticles anxiously and it makes Jones’ own chewed fingers twitch in sympathy of the shared habit - but neither of them speak a word.
His hair is longer than Jones’ own, he notices. While he has his chopped and feathered just below his jawline, this man’s hangs to his shoulders. Not only that but the colour differs; jet black where Jones chooses to inject highlights of colour (right now red, but he’d been known to have an imaginative range depending on what took his fancy).
In fact, now that he cares to look, there was plenty about them that wasn’t identical at all.
This stranger had sharper angles to his face, defined cheekbones, while Jones would admit he was a tad softer with what some people (Claire - once ) would call puppy fat. He was perhaps a fraction paler. The way he dressed was stylish but down a road of fashion Jones didn’t care to follow. His whole body seemed to be a lot more wiry than his own frame, and he seemed to purposefully dress to highlight it; pointed collar bones on show and sharp hip bones poking out from under his blouse when he reached his arm up to brush through his hair.
On initial estimation he looked taller but a closer inspection revealed this was down to the heeled boots he was wearing, Jones’ beaten converse could not compare height wise.
There may have been a lot that was frighteningly similar about them - but there was also plenty that was different.
A fact that comforted him a lot.
“What’s your name?” The stranger asks as Jones lights his second cigarette.
He takes a second to answer that, weighing up the threat level again. He can’t help it really, trust has never come easily to him even in normal situations. His abject suspicion of strangers tripling when the stranger also happens to be some sort of natural phenomenon.
“Jones.” He answers eventually.
“Jus’ Jones?”
Narrowing his eyes, he slowly exhales a stream of smoke. “Yeah. Jus’ Jones.” He frankly isn’t interested in getting anymore acquainted than that if he can help it.
“I’m Vince,” He introduces. “Vince Noir.”
Nodding his head is all he can do in response to that. Honestly, he can’t think of a single thing to say. Vince resumes chewing on his thumbnail, Jones wonders if he is looking at him and trying to spot the differences too.
His big blue eyes look a bit terrified and it's only then that Jones climbs out of his own little world long enough to realise this probably isn’t weird for him alone. How often does this stuff happen to people?
“So…” He clears his throat, tries again. “Long lost twins then?”
It’s an attempt to lighten the mood with a bit of humour - somehow, though, it manages to have the opposite of the desired effect on Vince. For whatever reason appears more distraught at the idea they could be related (despite that explanation being the one that would comfort Jones the most).
“You um, you look my age.” Jones reasons, floundering.
Vince looks over each shoulder before stage whispering, “I’m 29.” and he looked pained to have admitted it. “Roughly.” He adds after a second of doing what looks like mental maths.
So consumed in his own relief/distress/confusion that they’re apparently not twins, he forgets to ask why a person wouldn’t know their own age enough to give anything but an estimation. “Well, we’re not twins. I’m only 27.”
Wide cobalt eyes shrink back to a normal size, Vince’s grin returns. “Where you from?”
He seems to be loosening up a bit the more they talk. Jones isn’t sure if this is a good or a bad thing. No longer chewing on his nails, Vince lets his shoulders drop too. Originally, he had wanted no part at all in this conversation, but as they go on, he finds himself just as interested in Vince’s answers as Vince is in his own. And it isn’t the worst thing in the world to indulge him and watch that shy smile grow in confidence.
“London.” He stubs his cigarette out against the wall. “You too?”
“Sort of.” It’s another incredibly vague answer and he once again doesn’t get the chance to question it because Vince is talking again. “This is genius, it's like my reflection escaped and went off to have it’s own life.”
Jones finds that sentence so absurd he has to laugh at him. “A bit, yeah.” He agrees. “Got more creative with the hair though.”
Thankfully the joke lands this time, and Vince shares a small chuckle with him. “Your hair is pretty genius. I used to put all blonde in mine when I was younger. Sometimes think about doing it again.”
“Why don’t you?”
That makes Vince pause. His mouth twists in thought. It’s like he wants there to be a reason he can give but one just isn’t coming to him. “Not sure.” He says after a moment. “People like me with the black.”
And if there wasn’t already so much to unpack from this encounter - Jones could have a field day examining that statement alone.
Personally, he had never found it in himself to worry what other people thought about his life choices. Through a series of less than ideal life circumstances he had grown up mostly alone; no one to answer to but himself. When he dyed his hair or painted his own clothes or put makeup on then it was his choice. Granted it also meant learning how to throw a punch (a skill that had come in handy in years gone by) but he’d always been unwaveringly happy within himself.
That being said, he was aware that to some, other people’s opinions did matter to them (he lived with Dan after all). This felt different. Vince speaks as if the opinions of others don’t just affect him but rather actively control him.
It makes him inexplicably sad.
Perhaps that’s why he says, “Wanna come back to mine?”
For a second Vince seems startled by the invitation (Jones certainly is but he can’t back out now) but then he gives a shy smile. “Yeah, alright.”