Chapter Text
Vincent is no stranger to Death. He came to him in the early dawn of his life–he watched through the sheer mosquito nets the figure of his brother, pale and silent, rested his head on His shoulder. He had followed him everywhere since then. Every monsoon, His gloved hands part through the curtains, caressing, holding, embracing those yellow eyed children, singing lullabies to those with little sprays of blood beneath the skin of their joints, those with sunken eyes and weak crying. He saw Him in the in-between places of Manila, in Congo, in Baghdad.
A constant companion, one would think. Someone who would stay, someone who’s always there, a friend but closer, almost a lover.
A small smile blossomed on His pale face, as if He could read the things in Vincent’s mind. The moonlight fell through the window on His hair, making it look much lighter, radiant. Reclining beside him on the too narrow bed, Death tilted His head towards him, still smiling, mischief shining in His pale blue eyes.
(He didn’t remember Death’s eyes being blue. He would have remembered, if it was blue before. How many blue eyed men has Vincent met before he came to Rome? He could swear He was brown eyed, brown like the glassy eyes of his father when they pulled him out of the mud–)
“You do realize, that you are by far my favorite human?”
Vincent doesn’t want to think about that. It has been a long, exhausting day. Monsignor O’Malley has been walking around with red-rimmed eyes that seemed to condemn him. His supposedly fiercest ally Eminence Bellini won’t speak to him. Even Ramos and Mendoza seemed to keep their distance.
“If I am, then it doesn’t seem to do me any service,” he sighed. The ceilings are cream colored and the overhead fan rattled a low hum, like a wounded soldier’s last exhales when blood has filled half of his lungs.
“And yet you call after me all the same,” comes Death’s simple answer. “And you don’t fear me, and hold no grudges nor defiance against me,”
Death has now inched closer, so close that he can feel the absence of breath against his cheek.
“I don’t understand why we can’t be together, that’s all,” his whispers were soft, a sound low enough that the wind almost silenced it.
Vincent shut his eyes closed. His stomach sank. His hands were folded over his heart and he could feel them beating, beating away.
“I have a duty. There is no place for indulgence–”
“Yes, yes, the dutiful Vincent, day and night always helping, always doing something,” he felt a smooth hand covering his own. A metal ring on one finger, not so different from the one he once had worn. The cold dug into his skin, spreading into his hands, into his heart beneath. “Is that what you told him, before you sent him away to die?”
His Thomas stared at him with those unseeing blue, blue eyes and Vincent screamed awake.