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It’s cold.
That’s the first thing his mind registers, just as Rody stirs from unconsciousness. A puff of warm air leaves his lips as he shakily takes a breath, the rest of his body waking up in shivers. He blinks once, twice– trying to observe his surroundings. But all he can see, or rather, feel, is the cold metal floor beneath his cheek.
Cold metal floor. Cold, freezing. Freezer— he’s in the freezer, lying face-down on its floor. What was he doing in the freezer again?
Rody closes his eyes, brows furrowed in concentration as he tries to recall.
He… He wanted to check what was inside the freezer, whatever Vincent was hiding inside there. He was just curious, really! He just— He just wanted to take a look.
Just a look…
Rody opens his eyes, shifting his head so he is looking behind. Yeah, he just wanted…
His eyes catch something. A big wooden crate covered in blood splatters.
He just wanted—
Rody’s whole body tenses up. And that’s when he sees it, remembers it.
A bloodied golden locket glinting in the corner of the room. The locket he gave his girlfriend. Manon.
His breath hitches, a flash of panic. “I-I have to get out of here—“
He can’t get up.
“Wh–”
Rody starts wriggling his body, struggling. He can’t move his arms or his legs. His wrists are bound with coarse rope behind his back, his ankles tied up too. He– He can’t move.
Did Vincent tie him up? He must’ve been the one who knocked him out earlier too. Oh no, oh nononononono— God, what did he get himself into?!
Rody shakes his head. “N-No, I can still escape. I just need to—“ He tries to wriggle his hands out of their constraints; if he could just free his hands, then maybe he could—
“You’re finally awake.”
Rody pauses in his movements, his blood turning to ice. No, it really can’t be him… It- It can’t— “Vince…?” Rody looks up at the person looming over him.
The head chef remains silent. Rody figures why the moment his eyes trail down from the other man’s face to his hand. A knife.
Panic floods his senses. A fearful noise escapes his lips as Rody books for it, trying to escape, crawling like a worm due to his constraints.
Vincent merely lets out a disgruntled sigh. “How pathetic.”
“Vince, wait- what are you— Stop, STOP! LET GO OF ME!”
Just as he’s about to reach the freezer door, Rody feels a harsh tug at the back of his collar. And just like that, he’s thrown back into the freezer, as if he weighed like nothing. Rody lets out a painful groan as his back hits the cold ground, the pain pulsing out towards the rest of his body. God, he didn’t expect his boss to be so strong with that stature…
“Vince?” He tries to call for him.
He hears footsteps towards the freezer door.
“V-Vincent.”
There’s a click at the door. It’s now been locked.
“Boss , please—“
“You speak too much,” Vincent finally speaks, voice laced with annoyance. “If only you were aware how grating your voice can be sometimes.” He walks back towards the redhead, spending a moment too long just looking down at his dear waiter, before he places a foot against his shoulder. And he presses it deep.
Rody attempts to struggle free, despite every muscle in his body singed with pain, despite the chef holding him in place as he pushes his foot deeper and deeper into his shoulder. Vincent has both hands behind his back, looking down at the redhead as if he were some labrat he was experimenting on. It’s fascinating, almost, watching him scream like this.
He wonders if he can make him cry next.
“Vince, please, let me go— GHAAAGH!”
What a pleasant sight this is. Having his dear waiter writhing beneath him like this, screaming, struggling— all because of him. All for him to revel in, all for him to indulge in. Him, and him alone.
Vincent decides to grant him temporary mercy, lifting his foot off the older’s shoulder.
Rody can’t even slump back on the floor: his figure is hunched over, curling in where Vincent had stepped on. The pain is still fresh on his shoulder, searing through his skin and bones. The redhead can’t help the pained whimpers that escape him.
Vincent kneels down beside him, resting an elbow against one leg before propping his hand under his chin. With his other hand, he holds his knife out, grazing the sharp end from Rody’s chin down to his chest where his heart is. He lets out an amused hum. “I must commend you, Lamoree. You’re struggling even now, despite knowing how fruitless it’ll be.”
Rody gulps, stiffening at the contact from the knife. "Wh-What the fuck do you want from me?"
“Good question,” Vincent says calmly. “What do you think?”
How twisted can his boss actually be? Is this some sick game to him?! Rody grits his teeth, ignoring his stupid question, his next words forced out like bricks from his mouth. “Manon- why her?”
“Huh?”
“You- You killed her!” Rody practically lashes at him. “What did she ever do to you? You didn’t even love her either; was she just some toy to you? Did she mean nothing to you?!”
Vincent’s eye twitches- how he loathes the way he’s still talking about her . But, he manages to stay calm, to stay in control. “You are correct about one thing,” Vincent circles the end of his knife around where Rody’s heart is. “Compared to you, that woman is nothing but a fleck of dust in my eyes.”
“You—!”
Vincent presses a hand into his shoulder where he previously stepped on. It's effective in shutting him up, with Rody groaning and wincing at the new influx of pain. “... I-I don't even know what to say about you. How- How could you?”
The chef merely tilts his head, looking down with morbid fascination.
“Then… What about me? Are you going to kill me too?”
Rody’s eyes widen in horror when he sees a smile— a smile— ghost the chef’s expression. “No, not yet.”
Vincent glances down at his knife, before bringing it up, tilting Rody's chin up. "I've told you this once before, haven't I? That I have no sense of taste. Everything tastes the same to me; the act of eating itself made me sick."
Rody is looking at him like a deer in headlights as he continues.
"That being said, it's quite hard to make food that appeals to… unnecessary sentiments. Some say my food isn't made with love. Hah, I personally think it's a meaningless sentiment that should be discarded when critiquing food. I'm a professional chef, not some parent cooking for their child. But—" Vincent looks deep into Rody's fear-stricken eyes. "But maybe, with you..."
Okay, now he's actually smiling. Dread pools in the pit of his stomach. Rody flinches away when the chef reaches out to stroke his cheek with the back of his hand.
"Yes, you will be the key ingredient to creating my magnum opus. With you, maybe I'll finally understand what those critics meant by making food with love."
"You're- You're insane."
"Am I now? Well, not that it matters." Vincent climbs atop Rody, straddling him by the hips, much to the redhead's horror. "It's unprofessional of me as a chef to play with my food, but I believe I deserve to toy with you just a little bit. You were quite the difficult prey to catch, after all."
"Vince- What the- Get the fuck off me! Stop—"
"Behave, and I'll make this much less painful," Vincent cuts him off.
"Fuck you." Rody practically spits in his face. He starts wriggling in his constraints, hoping to break free.
A mere sigh. "I said, behave."
Vincent stabs the knife into his shoulder, and Rody screams. "AHH, IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS—"
Vincent simply looks at him with a fascinated look, and especially at his mouth. Chapped lips, opened nice and wide as he screams bloody hell. What lovely lips. Vincent takes this chance to shove his own lips against his, pressing hard against him in an open-mouthed kiss.
Rody screams even more, though muffled as Vincent shoves and licks and bites at his lips. Teeth clashes against teeth in this sloppy excuse of a kiss. Oh, but this is more than just a kiss; he wants more than that. How he wishes to swallow down every one of the redhead’s cries, devour him, imagine how his blood would taste as he bites at his lips.
Whatever it is, all he wants is more. And all he takes is more.
"Rody..." He whispers in between kisses, briefly pulling away to breathe.
“Vince, I–” Rody doesn’t even have a chance to catch his breath before his lips are assaulted once more.
It's a whole mess of blood and saliva. Dirty, disgusting. An absolute bloody mess. What an addicting sensation. If he could taste, this would be his most favorite taste. The key to his magnum opus, his amour .
"Vince, wait—” Rody manages to jerk away. “Stop—"
Shut up. Vincent twists the knife in his shoulder, reducing the redhead back to a screaming mess so he can continue kissing him.
"Mon dieu—" Vincent pulls away finally, catching his breath in shallow pants. The other man beneath him looks absolutely wrecked. His lips are well-bitten and bleeding, drooling down the corners of his mouth. And his eyes— glazed over in a daze, unstruggling.
How he wished he had a camera to capture this moment forever.
"You look rather lovely like this, Rody," Vincent whispers, pressing his forehead against his. Rody groans in protest, the gesture sickeningly tender. The chef closes his eyes and sighs, using the thumb of his free hand to wipe away the blood on his lips. " Mon amour. Where have you been all this time?"
"Don't call me that."
The chef twists the knife in his shoulder again. More screams— a much better sound than speaking.
"It seems you're unaware how much your very presence affects me," Vincent gazes into Rody's eyes. "Your oblivion is endearing, but surely you aren't that blind, are you?"
"Wh-What do you—"
His hand leaves the knife, followed by a single choked gurgle. It comes over him like an instinct, and once he realizes, Vincent has both hands wrapped around the waiter’s throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. Rody wheezes under his grip, shallow gasps escaping his mouth. He’s no different from a goldfish out of water.
Though, Rody could learn a thing or two from a goldfish, such as shutting up.
“You are frustratingly naive, do you understand?” Vincent begins. “How much more obvious should I be?”
Rody doesn’t respond. He can’t, not with his voice box practically getting crushed under his grip.
“You know, I actually had a surprise planned for you, Rody.” He continues, never once easing up on his hold on the redhead. “I was going to actually cook for you. You never told me your favorite food though, so I had to make do. Or I was going to make do, until you decided you had to ruin it all. Did you think I never noticed you taking the freezer key from my room that night?”
Rody seizes up. “Oh yes, I knew all along. I just never expected that you’d actually open up the freezer to see what’s inside.”
For a moment, Vincent sees red, and the grip on his throat increases tenfold. Rody chokes and lets out more pained wheezes, angry hands pressing harder and harder. “Now, because of you, it’s all ruined. You ruined it all, my surprise for you. It’s all your fucking fault, you ruined it, my surprise. You oblivious piece of shit .”
Tears gather at the corner of Rody’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was from the pain or the sting of his words, but it hurts regardless.
Once the venom’s done pouring from his lips, Vincent takes a deep breath to compose himself. He regains his usual monotone voice. “Ah, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In the end, cooking a delicious meal out of your girlfriend wouldn’t be enough to convey the full extent of my feelings for you.”
Bile gathers at the back of Rody’s throat. He… He was going to serve him his own girlfriend?
“You… You’re… sick… Vincent…” He barely manages to choke out.
“Sick doesn’t even begin to describe it,” his voice takes on a sharper edge, growing more and more disheveled with each passing second. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me, Rody? I can’t spend a single moment without thinking of you; every waking thought I have is all about you. And the way you smile like a dumbass at me every day? I desperately want to wipe it off your face and make you cry instead. You’ve consumed me, Rody.”
Vincent takes away his left hand from the redhead’s throat, picking up the knife he dropped on his side. Rody gulps, sensing the ever so familiar sharp edge of metal teasing the skin beneath his uniform.
“Now, answer me this, Rody.” Vincent continues, and— why does he sound so raw, so vulnerable? “Will you allow me to devour you in return?”
His heart is pounding against his ribcage– Rody would’ve mistook it for fluttering at his words if Vincent hadn’t just stabbed him in the shoulder minutes ago, or pinned him down by the throat. He can only look at the chef above him, appalled. “I-I…”
Vincent sighs. “Never mind, you don’t have to answer that.”
His other hand leaves the older man’s throat, yanking his knife out of his shoulder in the same breath. Vincent ignores– again, how Rody screams, seizing up in pain. “It was nice playing with you, but I’ve had enough fun now.”
Rody shudders. “V-Vince…?”
"It’s time to prepare the main course," he says, as he drags his bloodied knife down Rody's chest, right where his heart is. His heart beats faster, almost as if he can feel the cold metal grazing the organ itself. "Starting here."