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When Vincent had been five years old, he had found a dying cat on the side of the road, slowly choking on blood. At that point he hadn't quite understood what death was but he had known that the cat was suffering and he could end it with a rock and a strong hit.
He had stood over its ragged body debating over it until its breaths had evened out, until its body had started to cool down, until its eyes had glazed over. In his dreams he had kept waiting until the maggots got it too, started devouring its flesh until only bones and rot remained.
He wondered now, as he was lying on the floor, agony flooding through his body and Rody standing over him, if that was how the cat had felt. Cold, clinical eyes watching as he rasped out hoarse shouts, mixed with what should have tasted like iron but was only a slick liquid in his throat, oil dripping off his body and a single lit match flickering in steady fingers.
Vince wondered if this was the moment that regret would sink in.
It never did.
He wondered if he would start agonizing over the actions that had brought him to this moment, if he would start asking god for forgiveness.
He didn't.
After all, there was no god out there except for the man holding his death in one single, steady hand.
The match burned down. Rody didn't move.
Vincent strained against the pain, weak legs kicking at the floor to get away. Only then did life come back into Rody. He turned away from him, leaving out of the kitchen door into the dining room and Vince sacked against the cold wall, hands coming up to cradle the wound on his neck, a jagged slice that had pierced his shoulder.
He had been left with the evidence of his murder. The police would have a field day.
In the end, his only regret was that he hadn't been able to give Rody the food he had prepared for him. He would never know if love had truly been what his dishes had been lacking or if the critics had constantly spouted nonsense, a last resort excuse to put down his food in a fool hearted belief that nothing was perfect and thus a perceived perfect dish had to have flaws.
The door opened up again and he startled, blinking up at Rody who knelt before him, a tablecloth in his hands. A hand grabbed his collar and pulled him forward and he was forced to lean against Rody, his eyes pressed against a tense shoulder. He could feel the tablecloth being wrapped around him and he gasped when Rody tightened it, a painful pressure against his wound.
"Why?" he asked, barely a whisper.
Fingers glided into his hair and clamped around thick strands as his head was pulled back. Rody wasn't carrying the panicked, desperate look anymore. No, his face was cold and unyielding, a boiling rage that fascinated Vincent. His little waiter had fangs.
"You'll take care of your wound. You won't tell anyone about this. Remember that I have your life in my hands."
Rody stood up and Vincent hissed at the pull in his hair that forced him to stand up until he was stumbling after Rody.
His waiter opened the office and threw him inside. For a moment black colored his vision and when he got his bearings back, he was left in a dark room bereft of light beside the little sliver that danced from underneath his door. Clattering noise was audible, the wet sounds of a mop cleaning the floor from all the evidence of what had transpired in the last hours.
Vincent didn't stand up, didn't do anytging except for listen to his faint breaths, listen to the moment that the noises stopped and the door to his restaurant fell in. The light went out.
When he was strong enough to stand up and open the door, the food he had prepared for Rody was gone.
--
Vincent hadn't gone to a hospital. Instead he had managed to painstakingly schlep up to his apartment and replace the makeshift bandage with needle and thread. The image in his mirror looked almost unrecognizable.
He had experienced loss in his life, but the feeling of almost having something and yet being denied at the last moment was a taste so bitter and sour, he almost thought he had finally cured his lack of taste.
Rody's skin was between his teeth and there was still a chunk of his ear underneath his tongue and yet he still didn't taste it. Not the taste of blood, which was meant to taste salty and metallic. Not the taste of meat or fat or tissue. His mouth was bereft of taste.
Vincent's eyes landed on the pair of scissors in his medical kit. His bandages were bloody, his throat was itchy, his eyes were slowly drying but he did not blink, only staring at the scissors as he contemplated. He had tasted the flesh of a human so full of love- but still, his mouth was made of ash and his throat was filled with acid.
All of that and he still couldn't taste.
He stayed there, on the cold tiles of his bathroom floor until the sun peeked up from over the horizon, until the faint sounds of birds chirping slowly began to fade in, until the streets began to fill with the noises of cars and chatter.
Vince went to take a shower, change and walked down to his restaurant.
--
There was someone in the dining hall giving tickets to his cooks. They were all busy, shooting him furtive glances, some wary, some shocked at his messy look.
Rody had returned and was doing his job as if nothing had happened. When Vincent looked through the peephole, his guests looked happy and one exuberant waiter was running through the tables, dishes in his hands as he was picking up orders. A bandage was around his head, keeping his torn apart ear hidden from sight and he laughed and waved it off whenever a guest inquired about it. Most of the time he was out of Vincent's sight but Vincent could feel his presence like a knife against his throat. He briefly closed his eyes and swayed against the wall, his sleeplessness clashing with his paranoia into a cocktail of dizziness.
When he looked back up, his eye looked straight into a singular green one, red veins running through them with the proof that Rody had slept as much as he had.
"Go back to your job, Vince," Rody said, a low murmur that made the hair on Vincent's neck stand up. He didn't correct him on the use of his name because there was nothing that could rival the closeness and intimacy of attempted murder.
Vincent went back to supervising his chefs.
Sometimes Rody walked into his kitchen to throw out uneaten food left by unsatisfied guests, sometimes to throw out the trash. Not once did he look at Vincent or even acknowledge him. It wasn't the comfortable camaraderie, the easy chatter that Vincent had grown accustomed to. It left him feeling unnervingly wrong-footed.
He had no idea what Rody's goal was. Why Vincent wasn't in handcuffs yet. Why Rody allowed this farce to continue even though both of them knew what had almost transpired the previous night. Rody had taken Manon's meat with him and had implicated himself. If Vincent called the police now, he could spin a tale of complicitness, of partnership and equal interest in human flesh. Rody knew that. He must, no matter how ditzy he liked to portray himself as. They were in this together now and yet Vincent felt like he was in the grasp of a snake, slowly constricting around him.
Alain, his most disappointing chef, startled at a rat scuttling past and dropped the paprika he was holding, immediately bending down to pick it back up, putting it on the cutting board without washing off the grime and filth. Everyone held their breath, frozen as they watched Vincent. The air was static.
Vincent broke out of his stillness.
--
When Vincent had been seven, he had been utterly fascinated by the knife game. A proof of skill, of dexterity and bravery. The few, small scars on his fingers showed his dedication to conviction. The one, singular big scar showed what his mother had thought of it.
He watched dispassionately as Alain stabbed the knife into the cutting board, expertly avoiding his fingers despite how much he was trembling. A sob escaped his lips. His other chefs avoided looking into their direction, a habit born from experience.
"Faster," Vincent ordered and Alain whimpered, increasing the speed. A nick began to form and blood seeped onto the cutting board, staining the cut paprika. Alain looked at him as if it was enough.
"Did I say you could stop?"
The door to the kitchen opened and Vincent shuddered, feeling the heavy gaze on his neck even though his back was turned to Rody. Light footsteps approached them and a heavy arm wrapped around his shoulders, his throat, squeezing in warning. His injury screamed in protest and Vincent swallowed blood.
"What are you guys doing?" Rody asked and Vincent wondered if he was the only one who could hear how off he sounded, if he was the only one who could hear the beast lurking underneath that deceptively innocent voice.
Alain glanced at Vincent and Vincent sighed, sacking into Rody's grip. A chin was placed onto his shoulder as he was briefly pressed closer, a possessive gesture that made him look back at Rody in confusion. His waiter wasn't even looking at him however, instead he was staring at the cutting board in horror.
"Oh man, that's a shame. Shitty accidents happen, right, Vince? Here, let me clean that up."
The warmth pressed to his back left as quickly as it had come and he watched as Rody threw away the blood-soaked paprika before bandaging Alain's hand.
--
Vincent fired Alain at the end of the shift. Alain looked all too relieved.
He would not let himself be pushed around by Rody so easily.
--
Rody returned the next day.
Vince still had no idea what his deal was.
His waiter was doing his job as asked, a smile on his face and embarrassment coloring his cheeks whenever he messed up. He was being more touchy than before and Vince wondered if it was because Vince couldn't deny him or if it was to bother him. Or, the third, more unlikely option, that he actually wanted to be close. Maybe Manon had been the only person in his life and now that she was gone, he had imprinted on Vincent like a baby duckling.
He might have been inclined to believe that, had it not been for the brief flashes of darkness that haunted his waiter's gaze, the harder touches that we're meant as a reminder to Vincent rather than a call for closeness and the way he still kept his distance from Vincent, an emotional one in lieu of a physical one.
Vince had talked to him for one week and yet he found himself unsatisfied by the lack of meaningless chatter, of someone so much underneath his level, he hadn't even realized he should have been scared of Vincent.
Maybe the absence of fear, of respect had made him a vastly more pleasurable conversation partner than most people Vincent had the displeasure of talking to.
Maybe Rody wasn't the only one who had only one person to talk to.
--
"Come with me."
Vincent looked up from his bookkeeping to look up at Rody with raised brows. By now everybody should have left.
"And why, pray tell, would I do that?"
Rody rolled his eyes as if he was the absurd one.
"Because I'll kill you if you don't."
Vincent snorted and couldn't help the small grin from crawling on his face. "And get incriminated for two murders?"
"Manon was the only person I had. When I kill you, I won't stay on earth for any longer."
When, not if. Rody hadn't changed his mind to kill him, he had simply postponed it. How curious. He had to admit, he wanted to know what Rody was intending to do, what his goal was. Maybe that was the reason he wasn't reaching for the knife in his drawer to finish what he had started.
"Do you intend to torture me?"
"We'll see about that. Stand up."
"Or what?" Vincent raised his brows, interested in what Rody would do. His waiter had always been an easily embarrassed, clumsy mess and only when he had fought for survival had he unsheathed his claws. And what a beautiful sight that had been.
Rody stepped around his desk and grabbed him by his collar. Vertigo surrounded him as he was thrown over Rody's shoulder and he yelled when he felt his crude stitches stretch. Rody's free hand grabbed his legs to keep him from kicking out.
"Either you can come on my trusty horse with me or I'll carry you through the streets like this. You're the only one with a reputation."
Vincent looked at the swaying ground and hissed when the doorframe came dangerously close to his head.
"Fine, I'll go on your stupid bike."
--
They didn't take the bike.
--
"Your life is unimaginably sad."
Rody's bathroom was flooded. Everything was a mess. Empty takeout boxes were littering the floor, his wardrobe was open and clothes were spilling out onto the ground, his carpet had stains and his stove was blackened. There was a strong smell of burnt food in the air.
"Not everyone can be a rich bastard like you."
Vincent carefully leaned away from a spider web to look at Rody with an unimpressed glare. "Being poor is no excuse for this mess. Did your lack of money make you incapable of cleaning up?"
"Did your abundance of money make you incapable of empathy?" Rody asked.
"Abundance. Big word for a dropout."
Pain bloomed in his head when he was slammed into the wall. The spider web was uncomfortably close. He focused on the dark body of the arachnid, its long legs that shook in the web. Rody grabbed his face and forced him to look at him.
"You should really learn when to shut up. If you're even capable of doing that."
"As far as I remember, you were the one who kept bugging me with inane chatter those first days." He tried to turn his face away but Rody tightened his grip, keeping him contained against the wall.
"Is that the reason you went for Manon? Because I was annoying you?"
How quaint. Vincent rolled his eyes. "You're hardly the first person who annoyed me. Many people seem to share that charming trait with you."
He raised a hand to push Rody away but his wrist was caught and pressed beside his head. Too close to the spider. He felt its phantom limbs crawling over his fingers. Swallowing drily, he tried to shift to the side but the grip was unyielding and hard.
How funny that even now in this predicament he couldn't find himself regretting anything.
"You killed her because I loved her."
"We went over this already, Rody," Vincent sighed, his speech awkward through the fingers pressed into his cheeks. "I wanted to prepare the best meal for you."
"You killed her for your own ego," Rody said, matter-of-factly. "Because you were so fucking insecure about your own cooking."
Vincent glared at him, refusing to answer. Maybe his lack of answer was enough because Rody kept him against the wall for a few moments more before stepping back, as if to make a point.
"Why did you bring me here?" Vincent asked. It was an intimate thing, showing someone your living quarters, a reveal of your character, your personality. What you decided to surround yourself with, what was absent. Had Rody not realized that Vincent could read his entire being from one glance of his tiny apartment or did he simply not care? Maybe it was nonsense to care about that after everything, like the use of a nickname.
Rody stepped towards his kitchen and opened a cupboard, taking out a pan that looked like it had only been used once before gesturing Vincent towards the fridge.
"Bought some groceries from the money I stole from your cash register. And some I stole from your kitchen."
Vincent felt ice cold blood flood his veins. "You what?!"
"What, did you go deaf? And I thought I was the one with the ear injury."
Livid, Vincent marched up to him, feeling his fists tremble in anger. "You stole from my kitchen."
"And you killed my girlfriend. Get over it, you freak."
"Is your salary not enough to buy some groceries?!"
Rody looked pointedly at his apartment as if to say 'See?' "You pay me minimum wage. Now get the groceries or I'll use you for the main. And I won't be able to cook you right. You'd end up a burnt mess. And then I'd throw you away. Maybe give a piece to Miss Spider over there."
Vincent bit his tongue to keep any curses from escaping his lips and instead turned around to rip open the fridge. His breath hitched.
A croque-madame. Strawberry shortcake. Squid-ink noodles. Green onions.
Rody had told the truth. All of the food he had prepared for him was sitting in the fridge, untouched and yet not thrown into the trash. As if there to be admired with the eyes and not the tongue.
Dissatisfaction ran through his veins and he felt anger pulsating underneath his skin. "Was eating my food really worse than going to bed hungry?" A note of hurt had entered his voice but now he couldn't take it back, couldn't hide his weakness. The only thing he could do was hope Rody hadn't picked up on it.
"Maybe if I ate your loveless food, I'd end up as empty as you," Rody said with a shrug.
Vincent felt unimaginably tired. "Why am I here, Rody?" he repeated.
Rody lifted the pan. "I can't cook but I have the ability to love. You can cook but you're a monster in human disguise. Let's make some food."
--
Rody wasn't exaggerating in his tales of his incompetence. It took a special kind of talent to be this bad at cooking and if Rody hadn't told him about his nonexistent talent, Vincent would have thought he was doing it intentionally.
"Medium heat! I said slow cook on medium heat!"
"But if I put it on high, it's going to cook faster."
"That's not how it works!"
-
"You call this thinly cut?! You cut the carrot into three pieces! What do you understand under thinly cut?!"
"It's thin enough! We're just making soup!"
"You hare-brained, idiotic, airheaded, thick-skulled, embarrassment of a-"
-
"One pinch of salt! One!"
"But where's the fun in that? If you do everything perfectly, where's the joy in experimentation, in discovery, in- oh yeah ew, that's definitely too much salt. Vince, hey, Vince, how do you un-salt something?"
-
In the end they were standing over a pot of soup, Rody smiling brightly and Vincent on his last straw. After several years of overseeing eight chefs at the same time, this had been his most stressful cooking experience.
"Well, that wasn't as hard as I imagined!" Rody exclaimed and turned his back to Vincent to clean up the dishes.
Vincent held back the reminder that he had done most of the work and instead carefully grabbed the discarded knife, some minced garlic still hanging on the blade.
If he killed Rody now, maybe he could throw some of his flesh into the soup and try it?
Then again, he had already tasted flesh and blood and it had been as bland and tasteless as anything else.
Maybe he could weaken Rody enough to force-feed him the dishes that were left to rot in his fridge?
But what was the point of that? Even if Rody enjoyed them, he'd die with a lie on his lips just to spite him.
Maybe he could stab him and call the police to call it self-defense? Several people must have seen him being carried through the streets like a sack of potatoes.
But he imagined going back to his life, back to the same, ashen existence. Just this time without a chatty waiter. And this time with the knowledge that he had killed two people without anything to show for it.
Before he could make a decision, Rody turned around and took the knife from his hands. He stepped closer and gently ran the blade over his cheek, letting the sharp tip rest right underneath his eye.
"What do you say, an ear for an eye? I heard an eye is a delicatesse in some countries."
Surprising amusement made Vincent's lips tick up. "Revenge cannibalism?"
Rody shrugged. "Maybe I'm just interested to see what made you kill someone. Must be something really special."
"Human meat was disappointingly incapable of curing my ailment. Even flesh from someone like you."
With a sudden movement he was grabbed by the back of his hair and suddenly he found himself looking into a boiling pot of soup, forced to close his eyes at the hot steam. His hands flailed and grabbed the stove in panic. Close enough to feel the heat of the flame.
"You killed her for nothing!" Rody screamed. "You almost killed me for nothing! Are you fucking happy now?! Are you finally satisfied, Vince?! Shit, do you even feel in any way guilty or was killing Manon just a normal Tuesday night for you? I should have known you're a psycho when you did this exact thing to your chef. How does it feel like, Vince?!"
Vincent couldn't help it. He laughed even though the steam irritated the inside of his mouth, laughed even when Rody's grip in his hair tightened, laughed even when he felt the body behind him tense in anger.
Rody pulled him back, forced his head back to lie on his shoulder and his neck to stretch until he felt his stitches shift, and still pulled him back until Vincent was forced to stand on his toes. He took in gasping breaths, stuck between the stove and an unyielding body.
"You want to try it," he rasped out, grinning from ear to ear at the revelation. "You took the dish I made with Manon's flesh because you actually were interested, weren't you? But your morals kept you from eating her so instead you got me here. I'm a murderer, so it's okay for you to eat me. I killed your girlfriend. It's only right you get to eat me."
Rody's body was trembling, if in rage or anticipation he didn't know. What he did know was that he wasn't scared. Maybe this was meant to be. A man who couldn't taste, who craved the taste of anything, ending up as the meal of the person he had ruined. Vincent had pulled Rody into this darkness, it was only right he'd succumb to it.
Rody surprised him again. Instead of taking the knife and plunging it into his neck, instead of the escape of death, Vincent felt a hand on his stomach, wandering up his chest until it lay comfortably around his neck. It shifted upwards, cradling his jaw with such gentleness, he felt his eyes flutter, felt himself involuntarily relax.
Rody's head shifted forward and Vincent only had a warning of chapped lips against his neck before teeth sunk into his throat, hard enough to make him yelp in shock. Rody's hands kept him in place as he clamped down harder, hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to make Vincent's eyes sting.
"Wait- what-"
A tongue darted out to lick over the bitemark and Vincent shuddered, couldn't help but gasp when it trailed up his jugular, over his adam's apple until he bit down again, closer to his jaw. This time he stayed there, sucking at the tender spot.
Rody let go of his jaw, instead letting his hand trail down and play with the button of Vincent's shirt, not opening it.
Vincent closed his eyes, unable to determine if he was happy with this development or not. Mostly he was confused.
"Is this- is this how you- you treat all the people who kill your girlfriend?"
Rody let go of his hair, loosened his grip and Vincent whirled around, determined to gain back a fraction of power. No way would he let himself be steered around like a puppet, especially not by somebody as unnoteworthy as Rody Lamoree. But before he could grab anything to use as a weapon, he was pushed back against the stove, a knee between his legs as Rody pushed further into his space.
"Only the ones I want to consume," he said and leaned forward to catch Vincent's lips.
Vincent froze, too caught up in confusion to fight against the tongue pushing his mouth opened, against the teeth nibbling his lip.
Warm. It was warm with the slight tickle that came from salt, ashen taste driven off by pure warmth. If this was what taste was, he realized why people liked to eat to the point of overindulgence, how one could get high on this.
He did not want to get addicted to the taste of Rody.
Despite the last minutes he hadn't expected this to go into this direction. His hands came up to lie on Rody's chest, unable to push him away or pull him closer. It was a restless battle, this uncertainty of the situation and the certainty that he had lost all power.
Ever since he had been beaten, left alive only at the mercy of who should have been his prey.
"Are you trying to replace Mannon?" he asked against Rody's lips and leaned back to smile up at the infuriatingly unreadable man. "Can't eat her, but a replacement will do in both food and desire?"
Rody leaned forward to bite at his earlobe, pulling slightly as if to imitate what Vincent had done to his. His hands landed on Vincent's hips and gripped hard, keeping him in place with a possessive gesture. "You don't value your life, do you? Or maybe you want me to kill you."
"I won, didn't I?" Vincent asked. "One way or the other, you'll eat my food. You'll eat me."
"And yet you'll stay tasteless until you die," Rody said and caught his offended growl in another kiss.
Vincent broke off, pushing against him in anger. "That can't possibly be what you want!" he yelled, angry at how unflappable Rody seemed, as if everything Vincent had done hadn't been noteworthy in any way. Their worlds should have both crumpled down and yet it seemed like Vincent was the only one affected by the outcome of their confrontation. Human meat couldn't make Vincent taste. Rody wanted to try human meat, too curious to withstand. It wasn't fair that Vincent was the one breaking down while Rody stayed whole. "I killed your girlfriend. I almost made you eat her. What do you think you're doing?!"
Inscrutable eyes peered down at him, too close, too observant. "I do what you wanted me to," he said and lowered his head to sink his teeth back into his neck. "I'm devouring you."
Vincent suppressed a moan, resisted the urge to throw his head back. Teeth scraped against his neck as Rody repeatedly bit down as if to mark him and his thumbs were running soothing circles on his hips in a calming gesture.
Vincent hated it. He hated the unpredictable nature of this man, hated how helpless he felt with just a few touches, hated the way he hadn't foreseen any of this. He was blindly stumbling around a black room with no exit in sight.
Rody let go and Vincent took a breath of relief before he was grabbed by the wrist and tugged forward, yanked into the middle of the room until Rody suddenly pushed him. He let out a yelp of surprise when the backs of his knees met a hard edge and he stumbled onto the couch, Rody already over him, pressing him into the hard cushion. He didn't miss the hot soup bubbling behind him but at the same time he bemoaned the fact that the couch did not have any room to lean back, to escape from the brunt of Rody's hunger.
"Don't look like that," Rody smiled as he cupped his face. "You are the reason we're like this after all. I'm only doing what you made me do."
"I think I'd have remembered making you kiss me," Vincent said derisively and pushed against Rody. "Don't lie to yourself. You're doing this for your own desires."
Rody grabbed his wrists with one hand and pushed him further into the couch, using his free hand to slowly unbutton his shirt. "And yet I still haven't heard you say no. You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
Vincent scoffed and shuddered when the cold air met his naked chest. As if his pride would allow him to struggle, to yell for rejection that would ultimately go ignored.
"If you want me to beg, just say so," Vincent sneered.
"As you wish," Rody smiles and bent down to bite as his collarbone, trailing butterfly kisses down his chest until he couldn't go further without letting go of him. Vincent pressed his lips together, refusing to make any noise, to give Rody any satisfaction, any acknowledgement. Maybe his silence was enough though. He could feel Rody's smile against his skin, could feel the laughter in his chest. How humiliating, to be seen through so easily as if he were glass.
Rody kissed him again, this time deeper, with a ferociousness that made Vincent dizzy. He opened his mouth without realizing as if he was giving permission and whimpered at the tongue licking against his teeth, at the way Rody bit and sucked at his lip. Rody rocked his hips down and Vincent couldn't keep the moan, couldn't keep his gasp down at the sudden sensation.
He tried to get his hands free but a warning squeeze from Rody made him aware of the power difference between them.
He shut his eyes, forcing his trembling breath to even. Only to rip them open again when he felt Rody's hand brush over his stitches.
"Admiring your work?" he asked snidely.
Something like wonder crossed Rody's face. He leaned forward to press his lips against the stitches in a gesture that somehow felt more intimate than anything he had done before. "Mine," he whispered. "I did this to you. That means you're mine."
"And did Manon also belong to me when I did that to her?" He was searching for any last strand to fight against Rody, any emotional attack he could use to fling against him, anything to prove that he wasn't the weak one here. Not against Rody. Not against the man meant to dance to Vincent's tune.
It wasn't meant to be like this.
He wasn't meant to be the one unable to escape.
He could feel Rody's smile as he licked over his stitches. The stinging pain made him hiss, made him curl his toes in an attempt not to show too much weakness.
"You're quite pathetic behind that show you pull, aren't you?"
"Fuck you." Nothing seemed to work. And the only puppet left was him.
"But don't worry," Rody said. "I'll take better care of you than you took of me. Wouldn't you agree, chef?"
Rody ran his hand over his stomach, wandering down to his waistband, stroking the skin with his thumb in a teasing motion.
Vincent's cheeks burned and he felt himself become hard to his embarrassment, felt his hips rise involuntarily to get closer.
"You want everything to go the way you want it to, you need that fucking constant control over everything, over everyone around you. But guess what, Vince? I'm not your damn puppet."
His hand wrapped around Vincent's cock and he moaned, throwing his head back at the feeling of a hand slowly stroking up and down, lost in the way he was being played like a fiddle.
Rody let go of his wrists and instead grabbed him around the middle to pull him up until he found himself sitting on Rody's lap, one hand stroking his dick as the other wandered over his chest, his neck, squeezing slightly in a show of possessiveness.
"Rody," Vincent breathed and placed his head against Rody's shoulder, turning to hide his face in Rody's neck. Rody’s thumb gently massaged the space beside his adam's apple, right above his wound, and he sobbed when Rody rocked his hips, his hand gliding over his length stronger and faster.
His limbs were weak, he only existed to follow the rhythm of Rody's hands, of the body underneath his. A pure, unadulterated loss of control.
"Please," he begged and couldn't even bring up any feeling of embarrassment at having been made to beg, at being at the mercy of someone.
"Did she beg too when you killed her?" Rody asked and Vincent couldn't decipher if the note in his voice was curiosity or anger.
"Didn't-" he gasped and bent forward when Rody's grip became harder, a warning gesture and a reminder of who was controlling who. "I slipped- slipped something in her drink. She died without realizing. Please-"
The words were spilling out of his mouth and he couldn't control it, couldn't control the way his hips stuttered in Rody's hold, desperate for relief.
Rody let out a considering hum and pulled him back to hold him flush against his body again with the grip around his throat. His strokes became faster, harder before loosening again, an agonizing dance that he repeated until Vincent let out a sobbed plea.
"You belong to me now," Rody said and bit into his neck, another mark on Vincent's body.
Vincent whimpered and tried to turn his head away from the barrage, from the pleasure that threatened to take over. Rody didn't let him, instead grabbing his chin to force his head back until they locked eyes. Rody's were filled with an insatiable hunger, with a crazed desire that made Vincent want to hide.
"Say it," Rody ordered.
“Rody-” Vincent started, desperation making him break off.
Rody hummed in pleasure. “Yeah, like that. With my name. Say it.”
"I belong to you, Rody" Vincent repeated desperately.
"Again."
"I belong to you."
"Again."
"I- I belong to you."
Vincent came with a relieved sob and sank into Rody, completely bereft of strength. Rody let go of his dick and raised his hand to his mouth, licking at it. "You're salty," he said in amusement and wrapped his arms around Vincent, snuggling his face into his neck. "Maybe you'd be able to taste me. Next time then. Better than eating human flesh, don't you agree?"
Vincent couldn't answer even if he wanted to. He closed his eyes and pressed closer to Rody who let out a delighted noise at his acquiescence.
"You're not better than I am," was what he could finally string together when he was able to find his bearings.
"Between us two there's only one murderer."
"And only one who ate human meat," Vincent said. By now he was almost sure that Rody had eaten the dish he had prepared for him. Not only that but he had liked it. “You ate my food, you- you finally ate what I made you.”
“There really is only one thing in that head of yours, huh?” Rody laughed, arms tightening around him.
“You liked my dish,” Vincent repeated. “Tell me. Tell me what you thought of it.”
Rody sighed. “It tastes possessive. Like you were telling me that you owned me, like you were telling me there was nothing I could do about it. Obsessive, I could practically feel your stupid perfectionism as you try to make everything just right, as you try to create a masterpiece meant for someone else to consume, like you want to force-feed me your emotions. Your stupid food didn’t taste like love.”
Bitterly, Vincent closed his eyes and tried not to let his resentment show. All that and his food critics had been right. His dishes lacked love.
A choked off laugh escaped Rody. “It was the best damn food I ever had. I was eating my girlfriend but the only thing I could think about was how fucking good this dish tasted. I hated every second of it.”
How funny, that his cooking would end up saving his life in the end.
“I can make more. Her body is still in the freezer.”
“You’re sick, you know that?”
“Do you or do you not want my food.”
Rody nipped at his ear instead of answering. Vincent swatted at him.
“And all that after you acted so high and mighty because I killed her. And here you are, asking me for more. You’re not a better man than me, only a monster wearing a different disguise.”
It shouldn’t feel so flattering, it shouldn’t feel like he had discovered the missing piece in him. A person who loved his cooking not despite the lack of love but because of it, who whole-heartedly enjoyed his creations in their entirety. The first and only person who neither lied about what they tasted nor lambasted him for the lovelessness with which he cooked his food, as if love was the only worthy thing in a meal.
Rody bit down on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter now," he said. "You're mine. You can't run away from me now, not after what you did. Not after I devoured you. You're mine."
Vincent's head lolled to the side and he rolled his eyes at the dramatics. "Only if that means that you belong to me too," he said, mostly in jest since he didn't expect Rody to accept. A puppeteer had no reason to get on the same level as his puppet.
But Rody insisted on defying his every expectation. "Alright," he said against his neck. "That's fair I guess."
Vincent had walked into the apartment expecting to get tortured. Dismembered. Eaten. Instead he had been made to agree to a deal of possessiveness, one not as disadvantaged as expected.
"You're impossible," he said and closed his eyes.
"And you're a pompous ass."
"At least I know how to cut onions."
At that they both remembered the soup that was still on the stove boiling. They glanced at the pot that had overflowed, broth and several legumes staining the carpet.
Rody let out a sigh and let his forehead fall onto Vincent's shoulder.