CONTAINS CONTENT:
a brief moment of torture, brief mention of cannibalism.
{Unedited}
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“Here, love,” Vincent whispered, putting her coffee cup to Marielle’s mouth, and gently tipping it back. She swallowed a little, and pushed it away. “You have to drink more,” he insisted. “I made it just the way that you like it.” She drew her knees up to her chest again, and exhaled, distantly locked in some memory or trauma.
Vincent sat back, and gently pulled her up to him. Then he looked deeply into her eyes, “Masin, I know. Okay? I understand. I’m not going to pretend that I know how you feel or what you’re going through inside. But I will not let you kill yourself by not eating or drinking. You can refuse food for a short time, but I will not let you waste away without water,” he explained, and again, he put the coffee cup into her hands. “Or drink of some kind.” She exhaled and her eyes slowly closed. “I’m here for when you need me, but look at me, Marielle-” She opened them again. “You are stronger than this. I know you. You are in a short period, but you will come through it. You are so strong.” He leaned in, kissing her forehead. “You need to drink, and you need to eat. There are people who need you. They’re grief stricken, and want a friend… Han, and Wei Ling. I heard that Hazal wants to see you.” He was stroking her black hair behind her left ear. Her eyes briefly widened at the mention of Hazal’s name, not in fear, but in curiosity. Vincent said nothing, but nodded at her. “Drink, love. You need it.”
She took in a deep breath and looked down into the coffee cup. It was the right color. She wanted to enjoy it. Could she enjoy it? Was she allowed to? Could she enjoy anything ever again?
He kissed her forehead again. “Let me tell you something, Masin,” he explained. “You are allowed to enjoy life.” She wasn’t sure how he knew what she was thinking and feeling, but he was right. “Start small, Masin,” he said, gently. “Enjoy that.” He gestured at the cup with his head.
She forced herself to take a sip and nodded, feeling the truth in his words. Then she forced herself to down it. He was right; she had to move on. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she was going to do it. Her mind hadn’t been working and over twenty-four hours had passed without food and water for her; no more.
After she finished the entire cup of coffee, she looked at him. He’d watched her take every drop and he smiled at her proudly. She forced a small one, herself. “May I have a little bread?” She asked, gesturing to the plate of food that he’d brought up for their breakfast. He nodded and kissed her mouth, handing her the croissant from the plate. She nibbled slowly, finding the emptiness in her stomach as it needed to be filled.
“Are you hungry for bread? Or are you hungry for me, Masin?” He breathed against her temple. She smirked. She had been thinking of him, wanting his touch and the feeling of completion that he gave her when their bodies mingled. His fingertips trickled down her back and over her tattoo. “Are you ready for this?” he asked.
“I’m more ready for that now than I ever have been,” she replied, noting where he was touching. “I can’t have another experience like that, ever again. Austin’s gun… It saved us,” she finished, before putting a flaky piece of the pastry into her mouth and letting it melt on her tongue. She looked around the room as if realizing for the first time in over twenty-four hours that she wasn’t home. She wasn’t with Felix, or in her own bed. Luckily a neighbor had a fourteen-year-old daughter who loved Felix, and had fed him while they were in Venice, but Marielle missed him.
Then a thought came slamming into the side of her head. “Where’s Austin?”
Vincent leaned back and exhaled, slowly. This was the moment that he’d been dreading and it was written all over his face. “He hasn’t been here for a long while.”
Her next thought gripped her with fear, “Here? Where has he been?” Her eyes widened in panic. “Vincent…” she said quietly. “Where is he?”
Vincent sighed and looked down. He briefly removed his glasses, stretched them in front of him, and wiped something from the left lens. “He hasn’t been to work.” He put them back over his nose. “He’s at home.”
“Alone?” Her eyes widened even more in terror. “Alone, Vincent?” She sat up, fully, and began to frantically look around the room for the rest of her clothing.
“Marielle, leave him be,” Vincent said, gently as he lifted a hand to her.
She was already slipping on her pants. “No, no, you can’t leave him alone. You can’t leave him alone after what he’s been through,” she cried.
“Marielle, Chamber is watching the house.”
She paused. “But, he’s not inside of it.” She began toward the door.
Vincent grabbed her wrist, jerking her back against him, “Don’t go to him, now,” he begged, but it sounded like an order.
“Why?” She demanded, tears flooding her eyes. “I can’t leave him now, Vincent! Not after what he did for me!”
“Mon dieu…” The sadness and horror in Vincent’s voice was heart shattering. “It’s already too late, isn’t it?”
Marielle pushed him back a little. “I can’t just leave him like that.”
“Like what?” Vincent asked cooly, crossing his arms, and sitting back on the bed. “To sit with who and what he really is?”
Color filled her pale cheeks, making them red with anger. “I don’t care what happened in your world. That is not who he is.”
She turned and left, going to her apartment, where she showered quickly and fed her cat. Then she drove to Austin’s house without thinking about a single thing other than her need to make sure that he was okay.
***
Austin fought, trying to clamp down on anything left of his sanity, but it wasn’t there. Or whatever was left, it was slipping. The crown was slipping, he tore it off anyways and mentally chucked it into a vast canyon. What could he cling to? What was there to reach out for?
Had he killed someone? Why were his memories blurring?
Was? You kill her or something? Marielle’s voice echoed in his head. She’d said that the day Chamber showed up at Valorant; he remembered that day well.
He frantically reached for his phone and opened the contacts, scrolling. Did he still have her number? Shaking, he stopped. He did. Rachel, Rachel Adams. He put the phone up to his ear and let it ring for two heartbeats. He’d blocked his ID. A feminine voice answered, “Hello?”
“Rachel?”
“Yes…?” He hung up. She was alive. She was okay. She didn’t recognize his voice at all. He deleted the number.
This one gave him elation for a moment as he realized that- wait, no, he knew that he hadn’t killed anyone. He hadn’t, right? His mind blurred again. Bodies… blood…
He thought of her… of Marielle; the taste of her lips, the way she moved through him. The way that she’d fought to keep him alive the other night. He remembered it in jerky flashes.
She’d crawled on top of him; he could feel her fingers on his heart. It’d felt horrible. It’d felt wonderful… He needed her here, now. No- no, he was terrified of being in the same room with her. Thoughts of her made his heart pound with dread. They morphed into him – or that thing that had dared to have his face – holding her down, seething over her, molesting her, tearing into her flesh with his teeth as she screamed.
He could remember her screams so well that he thought for certain that they were making him deaf from the inside out.
He couldn’t think- he stopped thinking. He tried to breathe. He reached out in the darkness and only one name came out.
“Vin…Vincent?”
***
“Vincent?” His voice came out so thin that it scared him.
The flesh on his arm was still searing, cooking; a sickly-sweet odor was permeating his nostrils… meat; him. Vincent was far from done. Austin had lost track of time. Had he been here three days? Four? Five? It was all running together. But there was a break now, and he wasn’t sure why. “V-Vincent?” he asked again.
“How are you doing, Austin?” The voice had a compassionate tone.
“If you’re going to kill me, just kill me,” Austin replied, shakily.
“Why, brother?” Austin bit down, grinding his teeth together, as the pain rippled through his arm and down his body again. “The pain?” Austin nodded, tears rolling off his face. “Pain is temporary, brother. It teaches us. Learn from it.”
“Please,” Austin begged.
“Shhhh, shhhhh… learn from it,” Vincent was close. If Austin didn’t know him better, he would have thought that he was going to lean in and kiss him.
“What am I learning?” Austin shook his head, “Please, let me go.”
Vincent pulled back as if thinking for a moment. Austin detected a reason for this on the tip of Vincent’s tongue, but whatever it was, he wouldn’t say it. “Hmmm…” The pain began again. “Consider this a free detox,” Vincent replied after thinking for a moment and adjusting the band with the magnifying glass and the light on his head. Then he looked back down at Austin’s arm and continued.
“Vincent, please!” Austin cried.
“You have a problem, my friend… I’m certainly not going to help you with it.”
Austin bit back more tears as the pain ceased for a moment. Every so often, Vincent would go to the rectangular sink full of water, take a jug full of it, come back to Austin, and slowly pour it over his burning skin, giving him momentary relief.
He did so then, and Austin arched his back, and growled both in relief, and in frustration at its quick end.
“Please, don’t stop,” Austin begged. “Please… I need more.”
“I know, brother…” Vincent replied, and he came to stand around the back of Austin’s laid out body, where he took his fingertips and ran them through his black hair, gently scratching his scalp and massaging his head. “I know.” He shook his head as he looked down at him, “Remember, I did this already, several times. I know how much pain you’re in. I’m so sorry.” He combed through Austin’s dark, sticky hair again. “It’s okay, brother. It will end… I promise…It will… end.”
“Just stop.”
“I can’t, Austin.” At that moment however – whether planned or not, Austin wasn’t sure – Vincent went to Austin’s shackles, and released all but the one holding his leg to the floor. Then he helped Austin sit up, and gave him a glass of water, which Austin drank fervently, like he would collapse if he didn’t down every drop bit of it that moment.
Then, Vincent put a plate in front of him. It was a sandwich; peanut butter and jelly. Austin ate with his left hand through tears of gratefulness as Vincent leaned towards him, making sure that he didn’t move or go anywhere on the metal table, hands on both sides of his legs like he was about to speak to a small child.
Austin knew in his mind that all of this was to create a deep bond between them; he recognized the tactics. And yet, Austin knew that he was surrendering to it; to the need to empathize with his captor. To trust him… to even love him.
He knew it because even though he was too weak to fight – because of the drugs that Vincent had given him to stave off his powers – he didn’t try to.
Austin finished the sandwich, and was given more water. He drank it, needing all of it that he could take.
When he was done, he realized his exhaustion, and simply let his forehead slap against Vincent’s left shoulder, as he both burned in his arm, and shook from freezing in this cold room.
Vincent did something that he didn’t expect, then. He picked Austin up in his strong arms, cradling him like a small child, and took him to the tub of water, where he lay him in it.
The pain was instantly eased, and Austin stopped taking in sharp breaths for a few moments, and rested his head back against the metal edge as his body slowly relaxed. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, Vincent.” And for a few minutes, he fell asleep as Vincent watched him, sitting in a chair near his side.
***
“Austin!” Marielle’s voice broke into his thoughts, tearing him away from a few years ago, and Chamber. She’d forced her way in through one of his front windows.
Reddened eyes wide with terror, Austin sat up, raising a shaking hand to the door of his bedroom. “No, no, Marielle, stay back!” He winced, biting back pain and gripping his aching chest. It hadn’t stopped aching from constant pounding in over a day.
She rushed into his bedroom, and paused. He was in nothing but sweatpants, he was unkempt and five o’clock shadow was all over the lower half of his face. She hardly recognized him; he was so pale. Almost the instant that she’d entered the room, she could almost feel his heartbeat pounding in terror.
He was shaking as he kept his hand up; as if that hand could stop a train. She was bigger than a train right now, and more determined; rushing to his side as he tried to move away from her across the mattress, whimpering like a beaten dog. “No, no, please.”
She dropped to her knees on the mattress, and put a hand to his bare chest, slick with sweat. It felt like he was in a continual state of having a heart attack. He was going to kill himself. “Lay back,” she ordered, sternly. He was hiding his face in his knees now, “Lay back,” she demanded.
He smacked back against the mattress and to his surprise she turned her back to him, and slowly lowered herself, disappearing completely inside of him.
He grabbed at the sheets, squeezing them and growling through his clenched teeth as terror racked his body, now suddenly mixed with an obscene and confusing pleasure.
Inside of him was utter chaos; his pounding heart sounded like a stampede that she was laying beneath. At first, Marielle arched her back a little, and screamed with him as he did. Instead of bringing him down, he momentarily brought her up… way up… into a state of pure terror and panic. She fought the battle for control until a few moments later, her heartbeat slowed, and slowly took his with it until he was breathing normally again, albeit jerky and harsh like he’d just done a triathlon.
She secured his perfect rhythm before she finally sat up out of him, then took her bottom half with her as well, turning to face him on the bed. She took his wrist and pulled him up against her, wrapping her arms around him protectively and cradling his head to her breast, maybe the sound of her heartbeat would also help to calm him.
She waited a few moments as she lovingly stroked over his face with her fingertips. “What happened? What did you see?” She asked, sensing what was going on.
His breathing went erratic again. “I can’t… I can’t…” he was heaving, and again he came unglued, hyperventilating and shaking violently against her.
“What?” She asked, and his response made her panic as well. “What was it?”
“No, I can’t tell you. I can’t… oh my God,” he panted. “You know how I have pictures? In my wallet? I showed them to you,” she nodded, “he did too. I wasn’t supposed to take them, but curiosity got the better of me, and I did.” He pinched his eyes shut, clawing at her forearm, “Oh, God, I wish I hadn’t,” he sobbed; and not tearful sobs, terrified, disgusted, throated, choking sobs.
“What? What did you see?” She asked, her hand over his ear and rocking him like a small child.
“No, no, I can’t tell you. I can’t,” he gasped.
“Tell me, Austin,” she demanded.
“Oh, God, Marielle. Oh, God… I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes.” He’d said that he couldn’t tell her, but the need to speak it out was winning him over. He had to speak it; he had to shine the light on it to understand how real it was. “He- he wasn’t just killing them,” he said, then he sobbed for a moment. She felt what was coming, and she squeezed him against her, more tightly, in some way attempting to choke the thing out of him that was strangling him from within. “He-…” Austin gagged, and wretched, but forced himself not to throw up… Still, he was trembling like a lone leaf in the wind against her. She had to squeeze harder to still him even a little. “He was eating them,” he breathed; leaving the planet entirely.
Marielle’s eyes began to widen in terror and disgust, and they became wider to the point that she looked something otherworldly… alien. Her mouth dangled open, gaping… a silent, disgusted, terrific scream. Tears were pouring down her face uncontrollably.
“He was eating them,” he repeated, sobbing into her chest.
Her mind spun out into a place that she couldn’t comprehend. Wheels turning, and shifting, causing her to turn into oncoming traffic; her sense of direction completely unhinged. She knew she had to get control again. She forced herself to speak, hardly registering the words coming out of her own mouth. “Yo- you know that that wasn’t you, right?”
“No, Marielle, it is me- that’s the thing… It is me,” he breathed, her shirt becoming soaked.
She shook her head, “Austin…” she didn’t want to ask the next question, but forced it out, “Did you kill someone?” And she was genuinely asking.
He shook his head, “No – I – I don’t know… I,” he gestured to his cell phone. “I – one of the pictures was,” he took a moment to cover his mouth, presumably to hold back vomit, “of this hooker that I liked- before, you know? He…” He couldn’t finish. “I had called her before we went to Venice, I wanted to know her real name, but then I deleted her number, I don’t know if she’s okay. I- everything is blurring. Did I do these things? Did I?” He gagged and cried for a moment. “I- I had Rachel’s number in my phone still, I’d forgotten about it. Your voice echoed in my head last night, do you remember when you asked me if I killed her? Oh God! I didn’t know! I called the number from a block so she didn’t recognize me… she answered, she’s okay,” he panted, relieved. She closed her eyes, feeling ease pour over her. She didn’t think he’d done these things, but hearing him now, she knew that he didn’t. “No, I don’t think that I killed anyone,” he whispered shaking his head. “But I’m terrified to look in the mirror. Because I know what I’ll see.”
“Him.”
“Yes.”
She’d never felt him seem so weak in the entire time that she’d known him. Rocking him, she looked down at his broken, handsome face and forced a soft, sad smile. She could think of nothing else to do, so she did what he did in times like this. “Do you want me to sing to you?” she whispered, having no idea what else to say or do.
Confusion flicked across his gaze for a moment, then realization hit him and he slowly nodded. She cleared her throat. She took a deep breath, remembering how he’d done this for her in Kingdom when both of them were broken beyond repair, and giving him a soft smile, her lips parted.
Only the melodic sound of Marielle’s sweet voice filled the space as she sang “Stuck in a Moment,” by U2.
For the first time in several long hours, Austin felt some kind of peace wash over him and he embraced it, and clung to it; his mind finally thinking something other than trauma, his body finally feeling something other than sickness and the room spinning in circles.
She tucked him into bed like he was a little boy when she was done singing, and went to get them something to eat, noting that she’d be back in a few minutes as she walked to the corner store.
She spotted a parked car across the street and nodded once; Chamber. He tipped his hat at her, and drove away. His job was done for the moment.
When she returned, she had a pint of chocolate ice cream in her hands and butterscotch syrup in a bag around her wrist along with a few bottles of water to drink. She’d stopped into his kitchen to get a spoon.
Wrapped up like a caterpillar about to undergo metamorphosis, gratefulness flicked across his gaze as she sat next to him on the bed and opened both the frozen treat, and the topping. She drizzled a little over the top of the opened dessert, took a spoonful, and put it into his mouth. He grinned at her as he ate it. It was his favorite now, too.
She smiled brightly at him. –Good boy.
-I’ll always be your good boy.
She gave him another bite, he took it. -Austin, you nearly died saving me.
-I nearly did… and you fought to keep me alive… and you don’t love me?
-Shhhhh, not now, darling. Just eat. Another bite.
He sighed, dreamily. She’d called him darling. –You, too. He insisted, and she nodded, giving herself some.
Then she reached into the bag, handing him a bottle of water after taking the lid off. She gestured to it, -drink.
He nodded, and still trembling a little, he took the bottle from her and began to down the refreshing coolness. His tears stilling a bit, finally.
When he was done, she set the ice-cream aside, and looked down at him, playfully. His eyes widened in confusion, mixed with a bit of excitement. -Tickle me?
He grinned, sitting up and leaning in slowly like he was sneaking up on her; their noses almost touching before he lifted his hands and forced them into her sides, rubbing her ribs and making her squeal with delight as she fell back against his bed and laughed, hysterically.
He followed, straddling her, and digging his fingertips in, more. She continued to squirm and squeal and he laughed. Oh, thank God, he laughed, the sound that she’d been so desperate to get out of him.
He leaned slowly over her, his eyes locked with hers as both of their smiles began to fade.
–Austin… she warned.
-Shhhhh. He whispered, and he leaned in, like maybe he’d kiss her, but stopped, and gently rested his head on her chest, hearing the gentle thrumming of her heart. -I just want to be with you.
She held him against her, and nodded. After a minute, she helped him up to the bathroom and told him to shower, she’d go turn his bed. He’d sweat so much in his panicked state that sadly, the room smelled from his sheets.
He stood under the hot water, trembling still, but smiling a little.
How? How could she make the worst moment of his life… feel like the best?
Once he was finished, he slipped into some new sweatpants and a t-shirt and stepped out of the bathroom to a clean bed which he thanked her for quietly before he lay down again, cradling a pillow close.
A knock on the door made both rise, but she got there first and opened it.
Vincent.
His eyes were on her and there was angry fire in them; but also, sadness.
She stood aside as he came in and looked from Austin, to her.
Austin was leaning against the hallway, arms crossed; he’d obviously showered recently. And it was obvious that Marielle had been doing dishes by the water on her mid-section and the fact that she was drying her hands with a towel.
“Leave us alone, Marielle,” Vincent said. “I want to talk to my brother.” Vincent locked eyes with Marielle, and she met his, internally wishing that she could read his thoughts the way that she could read Austin’s. Silence past between them. “I promise when you return, he’ll still be here.”
Her gaze flicked to Austin. -You’ll be okay, I think.
-Go, I have to speak with him.
Reluctantly, Marielle grabbed her purse and left, backing out of the house like something was on her tail, ready to pounce.
Vincent listened to her footsteps, until he heard the car start and drive away.
As soon as there was silence, he pulled Headhunter from his arm and put the barrel against Austin’s forehead.
Austin was strangely calm. “What are you doing, Vincent, you’re not going to kill me. You told her that I’d still be here when she came back.”
Vincent smirked, darkly, “I didn’t say whether you would be dead or alive… only that you’d be here… and you and I both know that that’s not the first time that I’ve lied to her.”
“Something you’re proud of?” Austin asked, then he sniffed, and wiped his nose with the back of his wrist.
“No, Austin. I’m never proud of lying to her. I don’t want to lie to her.”
Austin’s eyes became dark, and for a moment, they went cross-eyed as he looked at the barrel of the cool gold pressing against him. “I never have,” he dared. “She knows every dirty little secret that I have.”
“Well, it sort of helps when you can read one another’s thoughts, too… now you can’t lie to her even if you tried. You’d have to be so sure of your own lies that even you believed them and you know that even you aren’t that good.”
Austin swallowed hard, remembering how Tundra had apparently learned to shut his thoughts off in her presence. “You are making the mistake of believing that I want to be alive for even one more minute,” Austin seethed, tears welling his eyes. “You obviously have some idea of what we encountered- and everything that I want in this dimension? Is yours.” He said through gritted teeth. He stared Vincent down, mouth quivering, eyes daring him to shoot. “You’ve won… just kill me.”
“Everything that you want is mine? You don’t think that I wish that I was you?” Vincent dared. Austin narrowed his eyes at him curiously. “You don’t think that I wish that it was me that she could pass through? Or that it was me that could read and hear her thoughts and vice versa? That it was me that couldn’t lie to her?”
“I can lie to her, Vincent… I just choose not to.” He looked down with a heavy sigh, “Even before we could do that, if she asked me something painful, I told her.” There was a pause. “So what’s your excuse?”
Vincent finally dropped the pistol long enough to stare into his eyes. “My excuse?” He chuckled, ironically, and looked down. “Where do I begin?” There was a pause, as Vincent scratched the bottom of his chin with his free hand. He gestured Austin to the bedroom with the gun. He obeyed. “Heh… Let me explain to you the events of what occurred.”
Vincent began to pace. However, as he stepped across the room in five or six marches, he retrained Headhunter on Austin’s face, and it never left, regardless of which way Vincent turned. “In my dimension, we all met shortly after I did this,” he gestured with his head to the tattoos on his arms, “I was about twenty, you were twenty-two, Marielle was right in the middle of us.” He paused for a moment, “You were government, but you also became part of Valorant pretty quickly. Marielle fell desperately in love with you, and you with her.” Austin’s eyes narrowed at him in a strange mixture of uncertainty, shock, and disgust. Vincent stopped pacing for a moment, “She married you, Austin and it was me who was on the side, raging with jealousy and going home every night to fantasize about the day that she left you.” He sighed and briefly hung his head, “But at that point, you were still a semi decent guy. The problem was that you had your… vice.”
“I was a sexual addict there, too…” Austin realized.
“Oui. It was bad… intense. If you can believe it, you actually got Marielle into your bed within a few days of knowing her.”
Austin’s eyes nearly came out of his head. “What?”
“She was not only as deeply attracted to you, as she is now… she fell hopelessly and desperately in love with you, and quickly…” Vincent shook his head slowly from side to side, “you poor son of a bitch.”
Austin rubbed his forehead and swallowed the lump in his confused throat. “I’d say don’t talk about my mother that way…but by all means,” Austin shrugged a single shoulder, carelessly, “feel free.”
“That was another part of the equation. Isotta was your mother in my dimension, too. She was just as bad there… I think worse. She did things to you… I can’t imagine, Austin,” Vincent sighed. Austin looked down, feeling exposed, sickness moving over him in waves again. “When we were friends, you drunkenly told me some of it,” Vincent hung his head, and a moment of true empathy crossed his expression, “I am… so sorry, Austin.” Austin looked strangely vulnerable. Vincent wasn’t used to seeing him like this, and for a moment, he turned looking around as if searching for a place to sit, instead of just stare at him during this awkward moment. There was silence for a heartbeat, and Vincent took the chair that was at Austin’s computer desk, spun it around, straddled it and faced Austin; Headhunter never leaving his face for a moment. Although, Austin was getting the distinct impression that Vincent was never going to use it. It was all for some kind of show. “Anyways, you were married for about a year? And then… he happened.”
“Tundra.” Vincent nodded. “What did I do?” he asked shakily.
“You beat her.” Austin snapped his eyes shut, a sound escaping his mouth like he’d been punched in the gut. “You tortured her,” Vincent swallowed as he watched Austin’s face contort with each new revelation, “You raped her.” Austin tucked his lips in, biting back words, and images, and put his palms into his eyes as if trying to block it all out. “You forced her to move through you all the time- that was your thing. You used her like a doll- dressing her up like a hooker and even went as far as causing frostbite on her skin, and taking a knife to her, and if that weren’t enough, you still cheated on her… and often.” Austin had heard all this before, but for some reason now, it was far more real.
“Okay, stop…” he said, raising a violently trembling hand. “I can’t hear anymore,” he breathed. “I didn’t kill her, did I?” he asked after a moment.
Vincent scoffed, “No, Austin, the cancer in her left leg did that. She left you for me… well, technically for herself, but she came to me.”
“Because you offered her solace… from,” he couldn’t even say ‘me,’ he just gagged, and turned a shade whiter.
“Oui.” Vincent sighed and ran his fingers through his hair before pushing his glasses back up his nose a little. “She showed up on my doorstep with a large purple bite on her neck.” Vincent gestured to the area. “And a bruise over her right eyebrow.” Austin shook. “Do you want to know the saddest part of it?”
Austin’s face was still draining of its color, “I don’t know if I do,” he replied.
Vincent shook his head, pressing on anyways. “She still loved you, anyways.” Vincent took a deep breath in and out, “On our wedding day… she wore red lipstick.”
Austin became sick, the bile in his stomach rushing up his throat, and he broke away from the bed, and ran to the bathroom where he promptly vomited.
Vincent sighed, leaning back.
This reaction was actually the one that he feared the most. Hazal’s voice echoed in his head, -face your fears! …
Vincent was facing his fears in this moment; Austin Rancor was a good man, damn him.
Vincent removed his glasses, and wiped his forehead with the back of the same wrist. Then he looked up to heaven, having a brief moment with God. Paths were set now. No going back.
He stood, and went to the doorway, looking in as Austin retched, his entire body quaking and arching in misery. Once it stopped, and Austin’s cries were muffled in the porcelain toilet, Vincent loosened his tie, and spoke in a calm, strong tone. “You have an important choice to make, my friend, about where your life is about to go…where it’s going.” Vincent let out a long sigh, and approached Austin, bending to him, and putting the gun back against his forehead. “You should be grateful.”
“Grateful? Are you kidd-” he couldn’t even finish the sentence, and the putrid smell of vomit lingered.
“Oui,” Vincent said in a calm manner. “You’ve been given the chance that no one else ever gets. You got to see where your life could go if you didn’t get things under control,” Vincent spoke. Austin’s mouth, slick with sweat and vomit trembled. “And make no mistake, Austin, I’m not suggesting that anyone who likes to have fun in bed, or looks at porn will become what… he was,” Vincent took a deep breath in. “But you know what’s wrong with you, and why you do the things you do. You know how those urges are becoming darker, and more desperate. I don’t have to tell you.” Austin closed his eyes and cried for a moment, leaning into the cool steel against his forehead; it was leaving a round mark. He was right, things had gotten more twisted in recent months internally and in his fantasies, but some of his searches had scared him, too. Vincent slowly pulled back, cocking Headhunter, “I need to know… are you going to hurt her?”
Austin sobbed. “Hurt her?” It came out broken and hoarse; as did the rest of what he said. His voice and tone were unrecognizable as Austin. “I-I would rather die,” he grabbed at the little hair that was left. “Stabbing her right now would be like stabbing me. I’m never going to do any of those things again.” He bit a trembling lip.
“You mean it, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Austin barked. “Yes! Yes! I can’t.” He slammed the back of his head into the bathroom wall several times over. “I can’t… I can’t.”
Vincent narrowed his eyes at him, “Promise me, Austin.” Austin met eyes with him. “Make that promise.”
Austin’s blue eyes continued to leak their rivers, and he nodded. “I promise that I will not hurt Marielle any longer,” it came out unsteady and a little confused as the full weight of what exactly he was promising set in. That was it. No more Austin Rancor. He was no longer a “pleasure god.” He really and truly was…dead. “I promise that I won’t do something that will break her heart, anymore.”
Vincent took in a ragged breath as his own heart shattered. Now all of this was up to Marielle. “Do you recall how when we first met? I told you that I was either going to use you, or kill you?” he asked. Austin nodded, closing his eyes, preparing for a bullet in the head. “I’ve made up my mind,” Vincent whispered. Austin winced, gritting his teeth, and preparing. Instead, he heard Vincent uncock Headhunter, and pull it back up into his arm. He opened his eyes, bewildered. Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out an injection vial. Before Austin could understand what he was doing, Vincent grabbed Austin’s right wrist, pulled his arm out, slammed the needle into it, and injected his snake tattoo. Austin’s back arched and he bit back the pain as the needle pierced his skin, and he felt his skin crawl and burn up his arm all the way to the shoulder. “Reloading,” Vincent whispered. Then he stood, and tossed the now empty vial into the garbage can, and reached down for Austin. After a moment, Austin’s body relaxed and he let out a heavy sigh. “Stand up, brother… you don’t die today,” Vincent explained, hand still stretched to him.
Austin put his fingers to his right wrist, and rubbed for a moment. He remembered this feeling, well. It’d pass in a few minutes. “I’ve given you a gun, monsieur…” Vincent smirked. Austin took Vincent’s hand and Vincent helped him stand. “Use it well.” Austin shook, and closed his eyes. “Ten bullets this time.” Austin’s eyes found Vincent’s reluctantly. “As it should have always been, brother.”
Austin broke again, and without really understanding why, he threw his arms around Vincent’s shoulders, and held onto him for a moment; his forehead on Vincent’s shoulder as he sobbed.
At first, Vincent stood, bewildered, eyes wide; confused. His hands stretched out, and dangling. Then he slowly embraced Austin, and pat him once on the back. After a beat, he pulled Austin back away from him, and held him by the shoulders, looking into his face. Vincent gestured to the razor with his head. “Shave,” he said. Austin nodded. “Get yourself in order over the next week. We have things to do, and I need you.”
Vincent bent and turned the water in the sink on for him, and then turned to leave him alone. He paused, “We continue to let her be on the journey that she’s on until this ends,” he said, flatly, reminding him of their promise from before. Austin nodded. “She’ll make her own decisions in her own time, and time may in fact make those decisions for her,” he said with a heavy sigh. He glanced one last time at Austin. “I’m going to go make you some coffee… Then I’m going to leave. Whatever you tell her about what happened here is up to you.”