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Dying, it turns out, is the best thing that ever happened to Vincent Whittman.
Now, that’s a BIG claim, folks. He knows! And he can back it up—there’s a whole list, it’s a real airtight case.
But the list can wait, because his brain’s just threaded up an old reel. A memory over twenty years old. A real classic.
The title?
The Day Little Vincent Whittman Fell In Love For The Very First Time.
Bring the lights down. Let the reel turn.
Aaand—roll it.
Richmond, Virginia, 1915. Open in the back row of a dark movie house on one scrawny kid with a pair of bigass ears he has not yet grown into, paperboy cap yanked as low as it’ll go, face lit blue-white by the screen.
That’s our guy. Twelve years old, parked in the exact spot his father damns from the pulpit every single Sunday, which, obviously, only made him want in more.
So there he sits in the back of the devil’s playhouse, sweating through his shirt, sunk halfway down in his seat and jumping every time the light-lock door creaks, dead certain that any second now he’s getting nabbed and hauled home by the ear.
But nobody ever nabs him. He’s good.
By now he’s a regular, if you can believe it. A hardened little sinner, lying to a preacher’s face on the weekly and loving every rotten second of it. He’s seen a hundred pictures by this point.
But never anything like her.
Here’s the set up. Up on the screen there’s the hero: some rich, upstanding family man with a wife and a kid and a fortune, the whole shining package.
And then she walks on, and it’s lights-out for the poor sap.
The Vampire, the title cards call her. She doesn't have fangs or a coffin though, it's nothing like that. It's just what they like to deem a woman who can ruin a good man without lifting a single finger.
And boy, does she look the part. Everybody else on that silent screen flails around—but not her. She's draped in black, pale as the moon itself, with a pair of huge dark eyes that swallow up the whole screen. She just stares at the lead with those eyes and waits.
And he does all the ruining himself! Walks out on the wife and kid, torches the fortune.
Follows her clear across the world, drinks himself down to nothing, and hands over every last thing he's got.
And at the end of it, the guy is wrecked, broke, and dying on the floor of some rented room. And that's when the idiot reaches up for her one last time.
She, of course, doesn't give a damn. The man is stepped over and The Vampire goes on looking for her next victim.
The End.
The lights come up, shining down on a theater filled with decent folks clutching at their pearls, shaking their heads at that wicked, ruinous woman.
Little Vincent on the other hand? Has his cap shoved all the way back, slacked-jawed, halfway out of his seat and leaning ALL the way in.
He never did forget those eyes.
…huh, he thinks now. Has he really had the same type since he was twel—
SNOOOOORE.
Wow.
Okay. So. There’s a man asleep on top of him.
Good morning, and welcome to the swamp!
Top story: there’s five feet, nine inches of dead-asleep Alastor Hartfelt, currently sprawled facedown across this reporter. Early estimates put the man at roughly twelve tons. It does not look good for ol’ Vince.
(He is not being crushed. The man weighs a buck fifty soaking wet. He is warm and he is heavy; Vincent would happily die under him.)
Turning now to weather, and this reporter means it sincerely: it is gorgeous under this blanket. Toasty. Not a draft in sight. Highs of not going anywhere. Lows of wouldn’t dream of it. Forecast calls for more of the same, indefinitely, forever, until the sun burns out—
(Don’t.)
(Don’t do the long-range forecast, Whittman. Not today.)
In other news, Vincent’s left arm has been flattened beneath the both of them and is presumed dead past the elbow. It was a good arm; it never asked for much. A service for it will be held next Saturday.
And in sports—
His right hand is on Alastor’s ass.
It’s given a firm squeeze.
Niiiice.
This just in! Hold on, we’re getting something.
The sleeping man has just wrapped his arm tighter around this reporter’s chest. LIVE. On the air. He’s pulling him even closer.
This reporter is being held onto and has absolutely no idea what to do about that. SOMEBODY cut to a commercial—
Signing off, live from the swa—
Nobody.
Move.
Especially not Vincent.
Because there IS a man asleep on him… and it isn’t just any man. No sir. This is the don’t-touch man. The freezes-if-you-breathe-on-him man. The man who has, on multiple documented occasions, peeled Vincent’s hand off his shoulder like it was a bloodsucking tick—and that very same man is now lying facedown on him, using him as a mattress, a pillow, and, going by the warm and wet patch on his chest, also a napkin.
And—heh. Let’s not bury the lead here.
He made that man come. Twice.
Twice. T-W-O TIMES. And the best best part about all this is that the guy liked it so much he passed right out. Yeah. Thats right. Who does that? Who puts the most dangerous man in the Crescent City down for the count?
This guy. Right here.
SNOOOOORE.
Snore away, pal.
…
That happened.
And now that the self-congratulating parade winds down, the rest of it starts filing in behind.
The crying. He cried last night—ugly, gasping, right in front of the man—and didn’t even try to stop it.
Don’t go, Alastor had whispered.
And Vincent said never, and meant it, and means it with everything in him still.
And before all that.
…He doesn’t remember dying. Not one thing after he blew a bloody hole straight through Leo. There’s just nothing; a gap in time.
But he remembers coming back.
And he remembers the sky. The Milky Way poured out across the top of the world, a great pale riverbed of it, glittering and silent, more stars than there is counting for; so far off it hurt to look at, and so near he could have put his hand right up into it.
So he did.
It, of course, came back down empty.
Then his eyes left that unreachable sight onto the next.
And there he was. Alastor. Curls plastered dark to his forehead, face covered in gore and bayou muck, staring down at Vincent with his eyes blown wide and shining wet and the whole night sky caught in the dark of them, every last one of those thousands of little constellations.
And Vincent, who had reached for the whole of the heavens and come back with nothing, found something to hold onto after all.
…
Oh no.
Here it comes, up his throat, scalding hot behind his eyes—
Don’t you DARE. You already did this. You are a GROWN—
…Too late. Big Baby Whittman, back on the air.
Big Baby Whittman hauls the other in—both arms around the man, locking him down, dragging him in until there’s not a sliver of morning left between them, face shoved deep into those curls.
Alastor stirs.
Vincent freezes solid. Eyes still wet and getting wetter, and there is no time to fix that.
Shit. SHIT.
Okay. Okay okay okay. How are we playing this. What’s the bit—
Alastor shifts once again.
The whole world seems to hold its breath.
And—
He mushes his face deeper into Vincent’s chest, like a hog into warm mud, and sighs out—
“…you smell like toast.”
—and is, instantly, deeply snoring once more.
…
Toast.
Buddy. We definitely smell like somebody took a shit on a motherfucking slaughterhouse. And that little nose of yours came back with TOAST?
…Fuck it. He’ll be toast. He’ll be toast every morning for the rest of his life.
He’s the crispiest, butteriest goddamn slice this side of Louisiana.
And there he lies, in a filthy bed in a raggedy murder cabin, sore and dead-armed, with a snoring manslayer drooling into his collarbone, smiling up at the ceiling like an absolute moron.
…
Uh.
Okay. So he has to piss.
No.
Ignore it. IGNORE IT.
…
…Yeah. That’s not happening.
Fine. FINE. We do this quickly! Twenty seconds max and he is RIGHT back in this man’s arms before the guy even knows he’s gone.
OPERATION LEAVE THE BED (WITHOUT WAKING ALASTOR HARTFELT UP): BEGIN.
PHASE ONE: THE LEG.
Alastor’s leg is thrown over both of his. Vincent slides a hand under the knee, lifts it, and sets it down on the mattress.
It stays put. Beautiful.
PHASE TWO: THE ARM.
Alastor’s arm is slung across his chest. He takes it by the wrist and moves it off.
The hand slaps right back down onto his chest.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
He grabs a pillow and shoves it up against the man. Alastor wraps both arms around to hug it.
THANK you.
PHASE THREE: THE HAIR.
Alastor’s other hand is fisted deep in it, and it seriously fucking hurts. Vincent pries those long fingers open one at a time, and every single one springs shut the second he moves on to the next.
Several of Vincent’s hairs are torn off during this phase.
PHASE FOUR: THE EXIT.
He slides backward off the mattress an inch at a time. It rustles under him.
He freezes, halfway off the bed, holding perfectly still. Listening in.
Alastor just snores away.
Vincent’s feet touch the floor without a sound.
Flawless performance. Attaboy!
He grabs his specs off the nightstand beside the bed and shoves them on, Alastor snapping into full focus: curled up all small in the middle of the bed, arms wrapped around that pillow, one cheek smashed into it, curls flattened on one side and standing straight up on the other, mouth hanging open, dark lashes splayed out over his cheeks.
Still snoring.
And it hits Vincent then and there: he has been replaced.
By a PILLOW.
That’s HIS spot. That spot is BOOKED. It has been booked since November, and a sack of goddamn FEATHERS just walks in and takes the slot. No audition or callback. Just… waltzes right in AND—
Alastor sighs into it dreamily.
That pillow’s burning today.
He shoots it one last glare and tiptoes the hell out of there.
Down the hall, quiet as he can manage, with one goal in mind: get to the outhouse, get back, and resume being the luckiest man alive!
…He does not make it to the outhouse.
Because four steps into the kitchen, the entire morning really, TRULY catches up with him all at once. And a man cannot be expected to just piss at a time like this. A man has to sing.
“—are the stars out toniiight—”
Vincent’s voice barely works, scraped raw and giving out at the edges.
Probably on account of a special somebody having a hand around his throat for the home stretch of last night’s… activities. He continues through the pain anyway cause he’s NOT a little bitch.
Two pale feet shuffle across the wooden boards, shoulders rolling to the rhythm. This is a serious number now.
And every serious number deserves a microphone.
So he goes searching for one.
The timber cupboard over the counter eases open under his hand, and there’s no mike in it—
Just skulls!
A whole row of them, with a pale candle burned down to a waxy stub set in one of the sockets.
He shuts it and tries the next.
“—I don’t knowww if it’s cloudy or briiight—”
The next shelf is crammed with glass jars. The first is filled with teeth, yellowed and blackened, a hundred at the least. The second contains blood. The third has a white card taped to the front in Alastor’s handwriting:
Criers.
Vincent peers through the foggy glass.
Pickled eyeballs. A whole jar of them. Ew.
“—’cause I only have eyes—”
That leaves one last jar shoved toward the back. He fishes it out, at this point just curious and not really expecting anything, and watches something gray and slick slide down the glass of this one. A whole jar of gray, rubbery tongues. Ugh. The container goes right back where it came from, and he vigorously wipes his hand on his bare leg.
Not ONE microphone in the entire Cupboard of The Damned. The man keeps everything but!
Then, when he turns around…
There's a soup ladle.
Hung on the wall, in plain sight, right where it’s been the whole time.
Voilà!
It lifts it off its hook, tapped twice against his palm, and yes. It’s a microphone now. Obviously.
One arm sweeps wide, his feet carry him gliding across the boards, and he’s off— “for youuuuuu dearrr—”
Mid-spin, mid-glide, his eye snags on the floor.
To the floorboard.
No. THAT floorboard. There’s nothing on it. It’s the same as all the others—
EXCEPT!!! That last night, right there, on that exact amazing, beautiful, ten-fucking-star wooden board, Alastor laid down all the pretense and.
Kissed. Him. FIRST.
On that.
Spot.
Vincent knows the coordinates by heart already. He’ll be able to find it when he’s ninety and legally blind.
Down he crouches, eye to eye with this knotted, seemingly ordinary, world-historic floorboard.
“…right here,” he announces to literally no one. “This is where it happened.”
A hand rests upon it, akin to a man at a grave, shrine, or site of a miracle… which as far as he’s concerned, it is all three!
“Gonna be a monument here someday. Bronze, with a velvet rope so people can’t touch it. A plaque that says…uh. ‘ON THIS SITE, THE FIRST TIME HE KISSED ME.’” He nods, planning it out. “Yeah. Uh huh. Lil giftshop by the stove. Somebody’s gonna sell a snow globe with us in it and I am gonna allow it, cause’ the people deserve access to an event like that.”
Then, because a man just has to do something about a wonderful thing like this, he leans all the way down and kisses the wooden wonderfulness.
A man of faith at the holiest spot he knows.
“Mwah,” he whispers. “Never change.”
…Uh.
Right.
He still has to piss.
Vincent gets up and struts out of that kitchen for the front door, ladle in hand.
Best morning of his li—
He stops.
A few steps deep into the main room, now. The fireplace to his right is out cold, the armchair sitting right beside it.
And—
His free hand has found his chest.
Vincent doesn’t remember putting it there.
This is the room where the thing got inside him.
Standing here he can feel it all over again—his own arms lifting without him and his own hand opening and his own mouth working while something else picked the words that came out of it, using his teeth and tongue and air, and all the while he was shoved into some abyss at the back of his own skull, not one muscle in his whole body so much as twitching for him.
He couldn’t stop his hands.
His mouth.
Couldn’t close his own eyes.
It made him watch.
…
And—
(his own hand going down)
(his own hand, and it wasn’t him, and it went down, and it—)
(—and Alastor was staring right at him, at the working hand. It made sure of that.)
NO.
…
Vincent’s hand leaves his chest to look at it. The old scar sits across the palm—closed and pale. He flexes it around. It is his own. No one else is moving it for him.
And yet, a breath goes into his lungs and doesn’t work like it should. He tries again and it doesn’t hold. There’s a high whine ringing behind his ears, and the room’s gone bright at the edges, and his heart is slamming under his palm, right under the sigil, and the mark is warm, and he cannot tell if it’s warm from the rite or from his own hand pressed to it for two seconds or two hours.
Cut it out.
Cut it OUT—
He shuts his eyes tight.
And thinks of another’s arms around him. Steady, pressing, and warm.
…
The whine slowly drops away. The air starts becoming breathable again; one let in, then another, then one more.
And his palm is still flat over the mark, and he doesn’t take it off. Because there’s a thread running out of the middle of his chest and through the wall and down the hall into a bedroom where another man is asleep at the other end of it with his arms clutching around a pillow. And it calls to him.
Vincent wants to go where it’s calling so badly he can hardly stand up straight.
…
Would Alastor still…
If the mark had never been branded in.
Would he still—
Stop.
Vincent’s shoulders roll back, and one of the many faces is plastered on—the brave one.
…
So.
Hear him out here.
Not two minutes after that thing let go of him— Alastor sat down in that chair and told him to get on his knees.
And he did.
…Everything since, in a way, sort of traces right back to that awful March night.
Now, not that the demon gets the WHOLE of the credit here. Vincent put in the hours! Months of charm and groundwork and frankly excellent company.
But it did… kinda kick the door in for him.
The ladle goes under his arm and the empty chair gets a crisp little salute.
“Appreciate it, pal,” he croaks out. “Real nice assist.”
He drops the honors.
“Now never come back.”
And he’s out the front door.
The early morning air hits him; not freezing, just chilly, the way November sometimes likes to get down here. He lets the breath go and takes another one in.
It works, this time.
Better.
The outhouse is to his right and back. Twenty steps off, tops.
He goes down to the water instead.
Vincent’s feet are already off the porch and onto the grass— and by the time it occurs to him that the outhouse was much closer he’s most of the way there, so, fuck it! Might as well. A man can water a swamp, who cares.
He passes by an old pirogue turned belly-up in the grass. There’s a single paddle lying half under it.
And makes it on down to the black edge of it.
From there, business gets taken care of.
Afterward, he doesn’t leave.
Because it has gone and gotten beautiful out here while he wasn’t looking.
The sun isn’t up yet. Most of the sky is still a deep blue, while below, the treeline stands black against the coming rosy band of light, their dark wooden knees poking up through the mist along the bank.
It’s silent.
Not empty, though. Every living, crawling thing in this swamp has only gone down. The gators, the frogs, the snakes, every one of them tucked into the muddy dark beneath that surface, waiting on the sun the same as he is.
Vincent’s chest aches from out of nowhere.
It's a wordless, homesick thing, and it will not tell him what it wants.
He looks down.
Right at the waterline, now. From what he remembers, he was over three feet back only a second ago. He’d swear it.
The bank isn’t an inch off his toes, his own watery reflection gazing back up at him, the sky mirrored across its surface, dark blue and rose-pink with the last few stars still lingering along the edges.
Thousands of heartbeats lie down there. Warm, under all that cold.
Get in.
And—
Vincent’s weight is tipping forward.
Heels leaving the mud, body leaning out over the black, easy as nodding off into nothing at all—
—NOPE.
Vincent snaps back and wheels around to haul his ass straight back to the cabin, NO-HO, no thank you, we are DONE communing with nature for today—
—and comes nose to nose with a pair of hazel-brown eyes.
“HOLY FU—”
Vincent shoots backward, the ladle flying from his grip in a high arc against the coming dawn. Both bare heels hitting the edge of the bank once more, and—
A strong hand clamps around his forearm and drags him firmly back to safety.
Plop.
Somewhere behind him, the swamp takes the ladle as its own.
Vincent staggers upright with his heart trying to climb out through his own throat, finding himself a few inches off from one naked Alastor Hartfelt.
Who, to put it frankly here, looks like he got hit by a fucking Mack Truck.
The man’s hair is a frizzy rat’s nest, standing straight up on one side and mashed flat on the other (there’s a leaf in it??). The bruises under his tired eyes have come up plum-dark, deep enough that they genuinely don’t look real. Those full lips are still split and scabbed up; the bruise up the side of his jaw has bloomed out into a full-blown dark purple overnight.
And he’s still got Vincent’s arm.
Say something.
“…hi.”
No response.
“Mornin’! Uh. Nice morning. Crisp. Meteorologically speaking, this is a tremendous morning, is what I’d say if somebody asked me, which uh. Nobody did—”
Vincent has to cough through the sudden pain his throat decides to give him.
Alastor has still not let go of his arm.
“—so listen. About the ladle.” Vincent rasps outs, pointing behind him at the water. “Your ladle. Which is kinda… in the swamp. That’s on me, and I’m gonna go get that. Right now. Watch this.”
He has to pry those spindly fingers off his own wrist.
Vincent turns around and wades in.
The water is ice cold. It breaches over his knees and thighs, then to a place a man definitely does not want swamp water, and blindly gropes around.
Then after some searching…
His hand closes around the ladle.
“AHA!”
Ow. (Note to self: Do NOT yell right now)
He holds it aloft anyway, soaked and triumphant: brandishing his prize at the sky.
The rescue ends as Vincent wades back out.
Alastor still has not moved.
Instead, he has stood in the exact same spot the entire time and watched Vincent do every single individual part of whatever the fuck that was.
And there, for half a second, deep in those hazel eyes, something flickers. Entertainment.
Vincent will take what he can get.
“Heh. Got it,” he presents the kitchen utensil to its rightful owner, swamp water running off his elbow. “Little ah—well. It’s had a rinse now, yeah? Honestly, it’s cleaner—MM— if you really think about it, on account of all the. Uh. Minerals in there, which—”
Alastor takes a step closer.
—which are. Good. For a spoon. I mean. That’s—that’s what he’s trying to say—
Another step.
The man is now standing well inside the distance Vincent has spent an entire year learning not to cross.
Wow.
Alastor takes the ladle out of his grip—
And shoves it right in Vincent’s gaping mouth.
“—mmph?!”
His own hand shoots up to pull it out.
But Alastor raises one finger, wagging it in his face. No.
…okay???
Then—
Two long dark fingers come to rest on Vincent’s chest.
And push him forward.
—hang on—
Push.
—the cabin’s the OTHER way—
Push.
Vincent points a thumb at the hut, which is right there, in plain view, being wildly ignored.
Push.
—buddy, he is POINTING at it—
Push.
Vincent drifts left toward it. Those same fingers only drift to his shoulder and pull him right back on course.
—Did you just STEER—
Push.
—HEY—
Push.
—the FUCK—
Push.
—why are we going toward the trees—
Push.
—what’s in the TREES—
And Vincent’s bare back hits one, scratchy bark catching against it.
—OW. Ow, damn—
Alastor plants a hand flat on the trunk, right beside his head.
…
Oh.
OH.
He did NOT just—
Because Vincent knows this move! Has done it himself, even, to a girl named Annette behind the soda counter at a Rexall’s back in 21’, and got slapped so hard for it that his ears seemed to ring for days after.
The lean.
That does not WORK. That has NEVER worked. He got WHACKED for th—
…it’s working.
This wreckage of a man is looming before him like Rudolph fucking Valentino.
Yeah. Okay! Alright! So this is where he dies (again).
…But.
Nothing else happens.
The other simply stands there, hand braced on the tree, not moving one more inch closer.
Hi. Hi. Hello. Good morning to you too, once again, and might I just say—
“—mrf.”
—right.
Alastor’s other hand then closes around Vincent’s cock.
“—MMRFF?!”
The firm grip on it is way too tight. Even still, his hips buck right off the bark to chase after it.
Vincent is still soft from the chill air, but not for long.
In opposition to his own growing erection, Alastor is not hard at all. The man’s dick is soft against Vincent’s hip, pressed there but not chasing after anything itself.
That same hand releases from Vincent’s dick, sliding down further, shimming around a bit to feed it between his own lithe thighs—
And clamps them both shut.
They lock around Vincent’s cock, where the backs of the man’s legs meet, dry brown skin gripping him on all sides.
Alastor’s face drops right into his throat.
And he starts to rock.
Every slow drag hauls Vincent up and down, the cypress bark scratching at his bare back the whole time. The rind is shaggy and hard, grabbing at his skin and scraping the same stretch over his shoulder blades raw, driving splinters in.
Vincent shoves back into it anyway. Deliberately. Harder, over what’s already tearing open.
The bright hurt it brings shoots straight down to his groin.
(…Well. That’s some new goddamn information about himself.)
His hands, meanwhile, hang limp at his sides. Useless. They come up. Hover for a second. Then drop.
Because he truly doesn’t know the rules yet; whether last night was an open invitation for more… or that the second he grabs ahold of the man he’ll get shoved off and just be left standing there.
But again, fuck it.
He sets a hand along that warm hip, the bone there jutting out from under the skin.
Alastor doesn’t stiffen or do anything in opposition at all.
…
Oh.
He’s allowed.
HE’S ALLOWED—
So Vincent is just gone, throwing his hands everywhere at once. To the small of that back, the dip of the spine, down to a fistful of that ass and back up again, greedily mapping out all of it, because he kind of still half expects to get shoved off any second here.
And Alastor allows him. Doesn't do one thing about the two clumsy grabbing hands.
But… also doesn’t come up from his spot buried in Vincent’s neck.
Or have any ounce of reaction at all, really.
Look at me.
Look at me. Look what I’m doing to you. Come on. Look.
Vincent waits.
…But that head does not rise up as he wishes it to.
He lets it go, mainly because the dry drag of those thighs is not letting him think about anything for very long.
The ladle is spat out—
And his mouth comes down onto that throat, open-mouthed and wet with no finesse in it at all. Up the side of that long neck, dragging his tongue over the pulse, mouthing at it, sucking there. The pulse under it is racing, going quicker than the current rocking of their hips.
Up to the ear, licking at it sloppily, breathing heatedly and loudly into it because he can’t help it and doesn’t want to. He mouths at the wet curls at the man’s temple, at anything the turned-away face will let him reach—which is all of it except the one part he wants.
Throughout all of this, Alastor does not give him one singular reaction.
And—
Something cold suddenly drops straight through Vincent. He doesn’t want it, I’m doing it wrong, I’m nothing, I’m nothing—
He swallows it down tight.
So he tries harder. Working for a flinch, a breathy hitch, a yes.
Nothing.
Vincent’s breath shortens through his own nose, and his cock doesn’t care about a single bit of it—for those thighs keep dragging on and on. It feels so good, even now—and it’s humiliating—
“—this what you want?”
And his hips don’t stop. His mouth is falling to pieces and his hips just keep rolling into that grip, wanting it, taking it.
“This it? ‘Cause I— I can’t even—” he blabbers on, mouth running way ahead of his head, “just tell me what it is, Al, just tell me and I’ll—what am I to you, just— just tell me, tell me and I’ll be it, whatever it is, I’ll be it—“
His own voice cracks and gives out. His hips do not.
Am I not even worth looking at?
“—Al. C’mon, would you just—would you fuckin’ look at me—”
One of Alastor’s hands lifts off Vincent’s chest—
And two long fingers shove right into his open mouth and press his tongue flat. Silencing him. Quiet.
With that, some low, traitorous part of Vincent goes quiet under the press of them. Settling. Rolling right over. And he shuts up.
Vincent hates that part of himself.
…maybe not that much.
So he takes them, pulling the digits in deep, tongue driving between the knuckles.
There. Look. Look what I—
No reaction is given.
And just like that.
Vincent feels as if he’s freefalling. The bayou ground caving in, dropping out from under him completely.
Is this ALL I am to him? A mouth to fill and SHUT UP?
His eyes sting.
The fingers only down press harder.
…And Alastor’s head stays exactly where it is.
Those thighs keep on working at his cock, that low, pleasurable pull still building in his groin despite it all.
Vincent can’t take it another fucking second.
So—
He tips his head back against the trunk to tear his eyes someplace else.
And there’s the tree.
The cypress climbs and climbs until Vincent can’t tell where it stops and the sky begins. The branches rake out wide and thin against a world flushing rosier by the second, it’s moss hanging off them in long ragged hanks, and nothing up there is stirring for there’s no wind out here this morning.
Vincent looks up at it.
How old is a tree like this?
Older than him, that’s for damn sure. Older than Richmond, older than the men who cut the River Road, and in all that time it never once had to be anything. It never had to smile, or earn its keep or make itself useful or be quick or be funny or be wanted. It never had to be anything at all but a tree.
And here it stands, straight over his head, wanting nothing from him either and is never going to, and it’ll be right here when he’s gone for good and a long time after that, too.
It never once had to prove it deserved to be here.
So what does that make him?
The hair lifts on Vincent’s arms. His breath jams up where it is and everything slows to a crawl.
That’s it. That’s actually—
Alastor’s unoccupied hand leaves the tree, catching him by the chin, harshly hauling Vincent’s face back down.
The grip is ugly.
Both hands are upon his face now—fingers still jammed up in his mouth, the other gripping hard around his jaw, dragging Vincent's eyes off the tree and back where they’re supposed to be.
With nothing left braced on the trunk, Alastor’s weight fully pitches forward onto his chest, pinning him there, and the rocking never stops for a moment.
So much for the tree. So much for all of it.
…
A year.
One entire year of knocking on that door. With charm, jokes, gifts, loyalty—whole year of it, and the man has both hands on his face right now and won't give him one single word. One sparing glance. One ounce of anything anything real.
Boiling heat floods up past Vincent's neck and straight into his face.
He is, he realizes, furious.
Look at me.
Look at ME. What do I have to do to that face to make it look at ME?
Vincent’s done knocking.
Those fingers still lie flat on his tongue, tasting of last night.
Vincent bites down.
Hard. Molars into the meat of them, all the way, and he means it. He has never meant anything more.
There. Feel that? Feel SOMETHING—
A sound breaks out of Alastor. Small and strangled before it’s fully born. The first one all morning.
The thighs around Vincent’s cock clench up.
And there, still pressed against Vincent’s hip, where there was nothing a minute ago: Vincent feels Alastor start to go hard. From that.
Something in Vincent lets go all at once.
He works at Alastor’s fingers some more, still caught between his teeth, and he is not gentle about it. Tongue driving up between the knuckles, sucking, biting down and easing off just to bite down again somewhere new, chasing the taste of the copper coming up under his tongue, wanting more of it, to feel the give of the meat when he bears down.
And each time he bites down, Alastor trembles.
Every time.
Finally.
The more Vincent gets this reaction, the more he wants.
Then, subtly, like Vincent might not notice, Alastor pushes those caught fingers deeper into Vincent’s mouth. Feeding himself to it.
Vincent bears his teeth down even harder.
And Alastor hisses, head grinding deeper into Vincent’s throat, chasing after the hurt. Those thighs squeeze so tight around his dick that Vincent’s head is thrown back, cracking against the bark once more.
Then—
Those fingers finally slide out of his mouth, wet and bloody down to the second knuckle, and the other hand that was gripping his jaw lets go.
Both of them instead land on him elsewhere: one fisting right his hair, one going back to his chest, holding him to the tree.
Vincent’s mouth is free once more.
And not a second later, he sinks his unbound teeth into the shoulder in front of him—
Alastor laughs. It’s tiny. Breathy. Right against his ear, and then it's gone.
Vincent deeply rakes his nails up that back, all eight—
And there it is again. Coming out higher. A small chuckle. Vincent gets the feeling the laughing was brought out to cover for whatever was actually trying to get through.
So Vincent gets a fist in that hair and wrenches Alastor’s head up.
And it feels so good. After a whole morning…a YEAR… of getting NOTHING, of hands he can’t read and a face he can’t reach, he’s finally got hold of SOMETHING. He gives the head a little shake, just because he can—because the man can’t stop him now, for once it’s Vincent’s hand doing all the hauling and Alastor’s the one who has to go where he’s PUT.
Vincent sees what he’s reeled in.
Those hazel-brown eyes are blown wide, white all the way around the irises. They’re entirely fixed on him, unblinking, bright and wrong. And the mouth is back to smiling. Stretched out too far, all the way to the back teeth, where Vincent can see every last gum.
Alastor’s still laughing. Delighted.
Below all of it, their flush hips have never once stopped their grinding.
“The fuck’s so funny?” Vincent huffs out.
The grin only holds in response. Alastor tips his head into the grip, like Vincent is doing him a favor he’s grateful for, breathing out another laugh right at him, and still, not one word is given.
And Vincent grins right back.
Because this is what he wanted, isn’t it?
This is the whole thing he’s been clawing for all morning, the face finally came out of hiding and turned to him at last—it’s his, he dragged it up himself, and he is not doing a catch and release today. He holds his fist in the ratty hair and keeps the awful thing right where he can see it.
They hang there three inches apart, smiling at each other like a pair of goddamn lunatics.
Then Alastor’s teeth snap down on his thumb.
“OW—”
That does it.
Vincent goes to bite him back—
And Alastor beats him to it. The man twists in his hold, quick as a slippery snake, sinking his own teeth right into Vincent’s shoulder, and this one MEANS it. A real bite, deep, and Vincent feels the skin give under it. He shouts and shoves—but Alastor just rides through it and comes right back at him, dragging four hot lines up Vincent’s stomach. Cackling all the while. Bleeding Vincent open and laughing about it, breathless and thrilled.
And there it is, right up in his face—the real thing, still grinning away—and it doesn’t ward Vincent off, it never has, it only pulls him right on in.
Takes one to know one.
Vincent has never been so scared or hard in his entire life.
So they go. And it is a mess.
Vincent gets a good fistful of hair—Alastor headbutts him for it, crack, right off the cheekbone, and Vincent sees stars and swears. He grabs for the thin wrists. Gets one! Then loses it immediately. Jumps for the throat and gets a mouthful of Alastor’s teeth in his forearm instead, the man latching on and hanging there. He gets an elbow hooked around the man’s neck—HA, PROGRESS, some actual leverage, he’s twisting him around, he’s really doing it—
But Alastor just goes boneless, dropping all his weight at once, using Vincent’s own grip to swing them both around and PLANT him right back where he started! Spine to the bark, the scratchy pain it brought lit up fresh. Vincent yelps.
And then—
And THEN—
The son of a bitch, having done all that, reaches up with one bloody hand and pats him on the cheek.
Twice. Pat. Pat.
“—oh, you f—”
Boop.
One finger right jabbed to the tip of Vincent’s nose. And a little tut to go with it.
…
Vincent has just been booped on the motherfucking nose.
And STILL. Still. Not ONE goddamn word out of him.
…Oh, it is ON.
Vincent surges up off that tree with everything he’s got.
And here’s the thing. He’s winning.
He’s bigger and heavier and it turns the fight all at once. He manages to wrangle both of those skinny wrists gathered up in one hand. Driving the man back—finally, FINALLY the other way around—turning them, and now it’s Alastor’s spine barreling toward the trunk—
And he pins him there. Forearm up under that jaw, the grinning face forced up and backward, and for the first time all morning it’s Alastor who can’t move.
Vincent holds him just like that. Caught. Made to be still.
And the fight just goes out of the man.
The straining stops and the body under his hands goes still—not slack or beaten, just still, letting itself be held—and Alastor tips his head back into the hold, throat bared.
The grin’s still there and those eyes are still wide and wrong. But he lets Vincent have him pinned there. He doesn’t laugh it off or twist free.
Just stares.
And Vincent could hold him here all day. He really could. But there’s no fight left to hold down, to brace against anymore, so he eases his elbow off that throat, letting the wrists come loose.
Alastor doesn’t bolt or move at all. Just stays where Vincent put him, back to the tree, breathing hard, eyes roving over him. Waiting to see what he does with it.
So Vincent takes what he came for.
He grabs Alastor by the hip and hauls him in. The man rolls into the pull like he was waiting for this. Peeled off the thin back, Vincent’s right hand runs down over the curve of that ass, reaching between his legs from behind, finding him.
The man is still wrecked back there, tender and swollen from last night. He circles it, not gently this time. Presses his pointer finger into that dry, tight heat. Just the tip.
And Alastor doesn’t cry out or make a sound at all, really. Just seizes up, his whole body snapping tight and shuddering hard against Vincent’s chest, breath held.
A hand locks around Vincent’s wrist, pinning it where it’s digging.
And from there, Alastor bears down onto it, grinding himself down all on his own, until his own thighs shake with effort.
…
…oh.
So Vincent hunts after it—for the spot he found last night, the one that broke the man open.
And then he’s on it, and Alastor lets out a startled sound against Vincent’s throat and swallows it back down.
He’s got it. He’s got it—
“—there,” he says, and it’s supposed to come out cocky, to be see, told you, look what I can do—and it does, for about half a word… but then his own voice betrays him again and the rest of the sentence tips up all crackled and hoping, “—there, that’s it, that’s the one, right? You-you like that?”
Fuck. Just listen to him. So fucking pathetic.
Yet it’s too good to stop or even remotely care at this point, and Vincent goes right on begging for his gold star, because he’d much rather have this than the scraps of his pride.
He adds his middle finger in, Alastor arching with it, nails driving into Vincent’s shoulders, taking them both, working himself back onto them, and doesn’t stop rocking his hips forward for any of it. Vincent crooks both digits harshly and Alastor laughs again. It’s that same breathy thing, except it’s thinner now, coming apart in the middle of itself. Almost like it’s getting harder to hold up.
He scissors them around while still driving up into the lock of those legs, and Alastor’s coming apart on his hand—the laughing gone thin and shredded, hips working back for it—and Vincent can feel exactly how close the man is, too. The weeping hardness of Alastor’s cock between them is growing wetter with each new drive of one of their bodies or crook of Vincent’s fingers.
Alastor’s now leaning more into him than he was a moment ago, growing heavier by the second, the sweat gone cold across the man’s back.
Whatever’s been holding this man upright all morning has finally run out.
Those knees start to go.
And instead of catching himself—pulling back and standing on his own, the way Vincent half-expects—the man tips forward. Off the tree and into him.
At that, Vincent immediately slips his fingers free and out of his hole, bracing an arm around him just as Alastor’s own arms come up between them. They wind around Vincent’s neck and hold on tight, his whole face shoving into Vincent’s throat once more.
And he just—hangs there. Gives Vincent all his weight and lets himself be held up.
And the anger’s—
Gone.
One second he’s the meanest thing in the swamp, ready to open Alastor up and drink up whatever pours out. Then there’s an arm looped around his neck and that feeling has just—vanished.
Been wiped clean.
He brings his other arm around to pull the other man in, those thighs never stopping their crushing pressure, his cock still locked in the grip of them, and dragging Alastor in this tight only works it deeper, harder, the two of them completely flush together, now.
Little broken breaths come in place of those previous laughs, going ragged against Vincent’s throat. The man’s cover is burning all the way down.
And it’s still not enough.
It’s not enough, nowhere near enough, Vincent wants more, to be closer and peel back the skin and crawl inside the guy and fucking live there forever, and it’s not fair that he can’t.
It’s just too good. That’s the problem, that’s the entire issue. He just wants it too much.
“—you,” Vincent’s gritting this out into the curls, not even deciding to, “you don’t ever—you hear me, don’t you ever go—not now, never, you’re staying right fucking here with me—”
He buries his face in the dark hair and breathes him in, all the blood and warm, sweaty skin—and both their hips keep their slow, deep rolls, Alastor letting himself be moved, taking the nonsense too, letting Vincent say every last word of it.
And the dragging, viscous heat climbs and climbs, and there’s nothing left in him but the drag pulling tighter and tighter and the crushing grip and the man in his arms—
Vincent breaks first.
It hits him all at once, and the shout that tears out of him isn’t a word so much as the wreck of one—some curse, or the man’s name, or both mashed together. His whole body bows up off the tree around Alastor, flooding the tight clench of those legs, easing the raw dry drag he’s been fighting through the whole goddamn time.
Alastor follows him over shortly after.
There’s no cry to it. The man’s breath just catches against Vincent’s throat, and the whole body jolts once, twice, and what gets out of him is small: a low, broken little groan, muffled into his skin. And he spills between them, hot and wet across their bellies, ground into the raw place they’ve been mashed together this whole time. Neither of them had touched his cock the entire time.
And they tremble against the trunk, locked together, and neither one lets go.
Then—
Alastor’s knees give out, releasing his softening cock. Vincent’s own go with them, and so they slide down into the grass below.
They sit there, heaving. Alastor is sprawled atop Vincent, legs hooked on either side of his hips, arms still locked around his neck. The rest of him completely slack.
Neither of them moves.
Vincent’s heart is slamming so loud that he hears it banging up against the inside of his own ribs, up into his throat, beating hard enough that the man laid out on his chest has to be able to feel all of it.
And Alastor lifts his own head off Vincent’s shoulder.
Those eyes are practically shut, eyelashes heavily fluttering over lowered lids, breathing ragged and slowing. And his face is—open. Unguarded. Mouth loose and doing nothing.
There. There you are.
And Vincent’s gone, too. Fucked-out and floating, with nothing left in his head. Both of them just hanging there in the haze.
It feels like the walls have come down.
Like it’s okay now.
So Vincent leans in.
And those dark lips are right there, and it’s the most natural thing in the world—six inches, three, two—
A palm comes up against his mouth.
The almost kiss dies where it stands.
“…Al?”
The word comes out muffled, into the hand.
Alastor meets his eyes, then, and it isn’t the wall that faces him—Vincent knows it all too well. This is quieter than that, and somehow worse.
Those dark brows draw faintly together. His gaze moves over Vincent’s face, searching for something it doesn’t find. Like he can’t understand what all of this is for.
The palm doesn’t press harder and it doesn’t shove him off. It just stays there.
Vincent could push it aside with no effort at all. But he doesn’t. Instead, he lifts both of his own hands up and away from the other instead.
Both palms open in surrender.
Alastor watches him do it, something crossing over his worn out face, much too fast to catch.
Then, the hand leaves Vincent’s mouth, bloodied fingertips dragging against his bottom lip on the way down.
He rises up off Vincent’s lap and brushes the grassy dirt from his knees—
And then hisses, through his teeth, one brown hand shooting out to catch the tree. Alastor holds there a second, breathing through it.
And the smile is dragged back on.
Vincent watches the whole thing reassemble, a moment too slow, hung crooked over a split lip.
It is the worst thing he has ever watched the man do with his own face.
Alastor lets go of the tree and walks away.
A few steps out, he pulls himself together—shoulders squaring up, chin lifting, the limp smoothing into something that almost passes for fine. The picture is trying to revert back to the way it is meant to look.
Then his head turns, just a fraction, back toward Vincent, who is still sitting in the dirt, right where he was left.
Alastor faces front again and keeps on going.
…
Vincent follows him.
Straight to the old pump.
Alastor works at the handle. Water splurges up—brown, rusty, then clearer. The man puts his head under and lets it run. When he comes up, the smile’s gone. Washed clean off. He shakes his curls out and holds the handle out, still not looking at Vincent.
Turn and turn about, they clean themselves. One on the handle, the other under the water, no words spoken between them. Vincent pumps and watches the early light catch in the droplets against thin, tawny shoulders.
Except this time, the water comes off that back pink.
Eight lines of bloody fingernails, running down into the mud at Vincent’s feet.
He keeps pumping and says nothing about any of it at all.
Then it’s his own turn under once more, and the cold hits every painful, torn strip down his back at once. He bears it with a shuddering grimace.
When they’re finished, Alastor starts across the grass once more, and Vincent falls in step—
But not behind him this time. Beside him.
They reach the shed.
Nothing in it has moved, not even a little. Work shirts sorted by size, pants by length, boots ordered in a way only Alastor understands. Over fifteen men’s wardrobes, give or take, hung up and pressed and waiting on owners who are never coming back for them.
One filthy little window at the far end lets the morning in, the light through it gone the deep rose of a sky halfway to burning.
They dress in pants first, separately.
After, Alastor takes a white button-down off a shelf and gets his right arm into it. He reaches back for the second sleeve and stalls halfway, shoulder locking, hand stranded in the air behind him. He tries again, twisting at the waist to bring the sleeve around where he can get at it, and the whole shirt slides off him and pools on the floor.
Up it comes, and he starts all over again.
Vincent crosses the shed. “Here—”
Alastor’s face whips around, the look on it saying: I am a grown man and I am extremely capable of putting on a shirt.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Vincent takes hold of the fabric. “Arm.”
The look holds a moment. Then, with a slight roll of the eyes, Alastor turns front and lets himself be clothed.
The sleeve feeds through, the shirt comes up over those slender shoulders— and there Vincent slows, because now the cloth has to come down over all the wounds. He lays it across them carefully, smoothing it flat. And lets his hand linger against that covered back longer than the task requires.
Alastor allows it.
Then a second shirt comes down off the rack, and the other turns around with it held wide open. One trimmed eyebrow lifts.
…oh.
Vincent lets Alastor dress him in a dead man’s Sunday best.
They’re face to face for it, Vincent’s back to the window and Alastor facing into what light it lets in. And it isn’t quick. The man takes his time, softly lifting the cloth over Vincent’s shoulders, easing it down, moving around every single mark left over. Around the deep bite in his shoulder, the other in his forearm. The raw stripes where the bark tore him open.
The fabric never once touches where it would hurt.
Vincent keeps his head hung low through all of it, letting out one shaky breath at the dark floor.
Here he goes again, trying not to cry about a shirt. Big Baby Whittman, LIVE from a shed.
He lifts his head to say something stupid—
But the other man has gone utterly still.
That expression facing his own is completely emptied right out, gone on somewhere he can’t follow.
Vincent follows the distant stare down to his own chest, where the shirt still hangs open.
To the sigil.
Washed clean now, raw and red, last night’s scratches still angry across it.
What?
What about it? You put that there—
—so why are you looking at it like that?
Alastor’s thin throat works once, hard, swallowing something that won’t go down.
A brown hand rises. It stops a few inches short of Vincent’s chest and just hangs there in the air, not landing, not anywhere at all.
And—
Instead, it reaches for the last buttons. The ones that cover the mark completely. He smooths the white shirt down over it.
And walks out of the shed.
…Fuck.
When Vincent steps outside, Alastor is already ten feet up the gravel path, still walking like the limp isn’t there. He’d rather be shot dead right there than let a single word be said about any of it.
Not today.
Vincent catches up to the other in three strides, looping an arm behind those knees and one across that back, and scoops him off the ground.
Right into his chest.
“Vincent—” Alastor jolts. “What are you—put me—”
HE’S TALKING.
“Nope.”
“I can walk—”
“Sure can.” He’s already moving, blades of wet grass cool under his bare feet, the most valuable thing in the entire state of Louisiana locked up tight in his arms. “Not gonna, though. Walking isn’t in your job description this morning.”
Light. Keep it light; for the second he makes it about the hurt, the man will jolt out of his arms and walk the rest of the way out of spite alone, only making it worse by doing so.
Alastor is rigid beneath him, arms crossed up defiantly. Probably wearing a sour face, knowing the guy.
Yet…
Halfway across the clearing, those long arms unfold. Then—a weighted bed of curls presses down into Vincent’s shoulder.
A few moments later, the back porch comes up to greet them.
And Alastor pats him. Twice, on the pec. Like a cab door you’re done with.
That's his cue.
The other is lowered inch by inch toward the boards, one hand still cradling beneath his knees until bare dark feet find the weathered wood. Toes first, then heels.
Those tangled coils of hair slip away from Vincent’s shoulder last.
But neither of them lets go.
Their eyes catch.
And hold for one second. Two.
Alastor brings his gaze away first. Quickly. Almost urgently.
Vincent follows suite,. glancing out toward the lightening tree line.
They let go of each other at the exact same moment. Casually and deliberately, in opposite directions.
“…Sooo,” Vincent starts up.
Somewhere, far out in the forest, a single cricket chirps into the following silence.
Alastor lowers himself onto the top step, elbows resting on his knees, gazing out at the water as if the last twelve hours had never happened at all.
And Vincent stands there behind him.
…Should he sit, too?
Is he like. Supposed to sit? What are the options here—sit, stand, twiddle his thumbs, hightail it outta the fucking state—
He sits.
Down onto the same step beside the other.
A hair’s breadth away.
And neither of them says anything, because what could they possibly say? There is no script anywhere in the world for two men who have held each other like this, hurt each other like this, saved each other like this.
So, they just sit in the blazing brilliance of it all.
The whole sky is burning. Lofty clouds catch fire in shades of red and orange above them, while the rising sun throws its light farther and farther across the world.
They sit there for a very…
Very long time.
Vincent finally manages to open his mouth.
“…Hey. About before.”
Alastor doesn’t look his way.
“When I— y’know. Um. Asked.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “You don’t gotta— It never happened.”
Nothing.
“I only did it ’cause—
…
“‘Cause you’re my best friend.”
……
“You’re my best friend,” he says again, because apparently he is doing this. “And I’m—really glad I met you. S’all. Yeah.”
Zero response.
Vincent’s face flares hot. Blood rises through his ears first, then his cheeks, until the heat spreads through him from head to toe.
His only hope is the sunrise. Everything on the porch is painted in those same warm colors, after all. And maybe—just maybe—if there is any mercy left for him in the world, a flushed face can disappear right into it.
His fingers dig into his own clothed knees until they ache.
Then, from his left…
Coming out so quietly Vincent nearly misses the beginning of it—
Alastor starts to sing.
“So the dial winds down…”
There’s no polish or practice left in that voice, none in the slightest.
“…and the dawn comes new…”
Vincent joins in. Because how can he not.
“…but the show goes on…”
And it’s bad. Both of their voices are terrible. Ugly and cutting out halfway through lines, and every last note of it brings thousands of tiny pinpricks down Vincent’s bruised throat.
“…and we’ll see it through.”
Yet, through the awfulness of it all, the harmony still locks together.
“So stay right there, don’t touch that dial—”
And Alastor’s voice gives out through the line, dropping off and not coming back.
So Vincent takes it. Takes the whole thing and carries the rest of it by himself.
“—we’re not goin’ anywhere.
…for a long, long while.”
The song ends.
Vincent doesn’t move. Or breathe.
Alastor reaches over and takes his right hand.
He turns it palm-up in the red light, bends his head, and studies the scar there like he’s never seen it before— though the knife that slit into it was his, and he knows that line better than even Vincent does.
His thumb finds one end of it and travels the whole length to the other.
“This is what we are, Vincent.”
Then Alastor turns his own hand over. The fingers are still raw where Vincent’s teeth went in. Dark punctures line it, the deepest of them cracked back open and welling slow, not yet ready to close. And amongst all of it lies the very same scar cut across his palm.
Another was opened up that night as well, one wound to answer the other.
The man brings their palms together, pressing them line to line—the old scars, the new blood—and threads their fingers closed.
Vincent doesn’t have the first idea what it all means.
But there is a hand in his—and it stays, and it does not let go, and Vincent Whittman has gone his entire life with his own hanging empty at his side.
Say it again.
Doesn’t matter what it means.
Say it again.
…
There was a man who got off the Crescent Limited on a muggy November evening.
Thirty-one years old and forty hours out of Penn Station. Brought along two duffel bags and a Pullman berth he did not pay for, because APEX paid for it; they were sending his first-class ass down to the end of his career and wanted him comfortable on the way.
Eight years of clawing up out of a booth for a chair with his own name on it—and he’d lost it, and this was the punishment.
Go down to a swamp. Sign a colored radio man nobody up north had ever heard of. And then they’d fire him.
He stepped down off that platform into all that wet heat with his collar already sticking to him and his glasses fogging clean over, and he looked out at this low, rotting, sinking city and thought:
One job.
One signature. And I’m gone.
He’d like a word with that guy.
Because it starts small.
It starts with a note in a wastebasket.
That’s all.
He fished a scrap of paper out of a trash can because it had that man’s handwriting on it, and kept it in his wallet until it came apart at the folds.
Then he ironed a shirt for a dinner that never came—and kicked the man’s door in about it.
Then he read about seventeen years of murder and sacrifice in a journal and, instead of running, got in a cab and drove right toward it.
Then he lifted his chin into a knife at his throat.
Then he burned down the only thing that man had ever wanted, stood amongst the wreckage, looked him in the eye, and thought:
I’d do it again.
Then he dug until sunup and watched the sun rise over the bayou, and thought, for the very first time in his life:
Beautiful.
And he never looked at the northbound platform again.
Then he quit eight years of his life from a phone booth on a sweltering street instead. Hung up. Laughed. Took up residence two blocks east of where the man lived because he was told to—and never once asked why it had to be so.
Then he spent eighteen dollars he did not have on a book about Hell. Carried it over to the apartment in both hands. Watched that man’s face open alongside the book’s first page.
Then he sat beneath that lamp three nights a week ever since, over endless grimoires.
And never got a thank you.
Not one.
Ever.
Then he went back every single week.
On time.
(Early, sometimes.)
Then he walked out of a warehouse with a Thompson in his arms because he was asked to.
Then he kissed him in a ballroom.
Then he got laughed at.
Then he came back the second he saw a photograph.
Then he opened a man’s throat to the spine and stood there in the mud, grinning about it.
Watched the man lick the bloody blade.
Then he held out his own hand.
Let him slice it open.
Let him carve a covenant into his chest.
Then he watched that book he gifted come flying at his head—
and picked it up off the floor anyway.
Then he handed him the Friday bit with the other’s name on it instead of his own.
Then he put three men into the mud to reach him.
Then he died for him.
Then he came back
And now he is sitting on a step in a swamp with that man’s hand in his, and there is not one thing left in him—not his name, blood, voice, not one single year of what’s left of his life—that he would not hand over.
And thank Alastor for taking.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
…
Yeah.
Little late for that.
And Vincent Whittman bows his head, just the way he was taught.
And holds on.