Chapter Text
Vincent’s problem was always the same: he wants.
He wants, he wants, he wants. And no amount of getting or receiving will ever change that fact, will ever close the cavern inside of him that always wants more. Getting was secondary, underwhelming in comparison to the thrill of wanting. Of chasing. When he found something he wanted, he pursued it single-mindedly. He made a plan, he pulled his strings, he put every piece of the puzzle into place. That was when he was on top of the world. Receiving his prize was little more than a participation trophy, and by the time he got it he had usually already found another want. Want, want, want.
He had been like this as long as he could remember. Before he could remember, actually. His parents loved to fondly (at least, he thought it was fondly) tell the same story at any opportunity they could: birthday parties, holidays, social gatherings. When Vincent was three or four, they took him to the aquarium in town for its grand opening. Vincent had plodded along happily until they reached the final exhibit, the piéce de résistance. The great white shark. Vincent had stood, transfixed, for over an hour (this felt exaggerated in his opinion, what three year old stood still for an hour?) before his parents forcibly dragged him away. Vincent then proceeded to throw a tantrum previously unseen by the likes of his parents or anyone around them, stating one request: I want. Over and over again he said it, he howled it, pointing at the shark with its toothy smile, its predatory gaze, so graceful as it circled around him (these descriptors were not in the retelling his parents often gave, but he often added them in his own renditions). His father had snatched him up, threatened him with an inch of his life; his mother had gone to the gift shop and bought him the largest toy shark they had, assuming that was what Vincent wanted. It wasn’t, and he had no problem letting her know that. He cried the entire way home, and the rest of the night, much to his parents' annoyance and, eventually, amusement.
How funny. If only his parents knew the extent of his wants, how the shark had only been the first stepping stone in unlocking this core truth of himself: that he was born with something dead already inside of him, and the want was what was keeping him alive. As long as he could keep that part of himself fed, he stayed alive. So he did. What he wanted, he got. If it wasn’t given to him freely, he took it. The fabled aquarium tantrum had been a one-time thing. He quickly learned that yelling and screaming and begging had a very low success rate in receiving what one wanted. He also quickly learned that he was rather adept in convincing people to give him what he wanted using other methods. The crooked, charming grin that he perfected very early in life hardly ever steered him wrong, especially with adults. The skill of smooth talking followed right after. He learned to talk his way out of (or into) just about any situation, and on the rare occasion that those two things failed him, threatening seemed to do the trick. That usually worked more on people his own age.
His wants had started out small, other than the shark, which was usually a place holder in his brain if he ever found himself without something to feed his rotting core for a few days. He’d daydream about the perfect way to steal a shark from an aquarium, bring it home, look at it everyday. Obviously that hadn’t happened yet.
But, other than the shark, he’d started small— toys, trinkets, shiny new lunchboxes his classmates proudly showed up to school with. Vincent got them all. He’d barter with them, offer them something so much better, make a deal and trade with them right on the playground. If he could sense someone was especially fond of a new item, he’d tease them about it. Relentlessly. Admittedly, this had been his favorite tactic throughout his childhood, especially when when he could get others to join in on the fun. They would look to him, awaiting his verdict, wanting his approval. It took a few days, maybe a week, to watch his classmates' joy and radiance for their pretty new object fade so quickly, to watch it turn into contempt and disgust until it was left discarded, unloved, waiting for Vincent to bring it home. Once he did, the thrill was gone, but no matter. He moved on to a new target.
As he grew older, the wants got bigger, but only slightly. Student body president, for example. That one had been easy— the charming smile and silver tongue worked wonders for him in that particular field. He’d stood in front of his entire high school and debated his opponent with such ferocity, such clean conviction, that he’d won almost unanimously. He didn’t even remember what he’d talked about, why he’d been campaigning for. Who cared? He’d won, and that was all he really wanted. His father had even said he was proud of him, told him he might have a career in politics. Perhaps. Vincent hadn’t given it much thought at the time, already moving onto his next want: prom king. He wanted to sit up on the rickety stage of his high school gym, wanted them to put that crown on his head, the crowd cheering his name. Vincent! Vincent! Vincent! This task was also pathetically easy, but so, so rewarding, and so helpful in unlocking another core truth of himself. As much as he loved to want, he also loved to be wanted. To be seen. To stand in front of hundreds, no thousands, no! Millions of people, all looking at him. Seeing him, wanting him, needing him. Well, maybe not seeing the real him, not the dead part, but the Vincent that he carefully constructed to be seen and adored and wanted. Vincent Whittman, America’s golden boy. That was what he wanted next.
So how did one become the golden boy of an entire country? The answer came to him rather quickly— the television! He loved the television, ever since his father brought one home when Vincent was a teenager and set it up right in their living room. It wasn’t unusual for his parents to come downstairs in the evening to find him sitting in front of the box, gaze wide and unblinking, or up on his knees, palms pressed flat against either side of the screen, forehead resting against it, soaking it all up. It didn’t even matter what was on (at that point in his life usually the news, boring stuff about the war effort or whatever), because Vincent wasn’t really watching it. He was watching himself. Sometimes he closed his eyes and just pictured what he’d rather be seeing. He was on the television, but not reporting things that put people to sleep like the news. He’d talk about whatever he wanted to. Talking was his specialty, after all. He could talk circles around anyone and anything. In this fantasy of his, teenagers were losing sleep over him, glued to their screens just to get a glimpse at him. Vincent Whittman. The Vincent Whittman show: all him, all the time, in this magic little box where everyone could see him. This fantasy lived in the back of his mind usually, right next to the shark one, something to pull out on a rainy day when other entertainment was slow. But after his brush with pathetic high school fame, after sitting on his throne and watching the entire crowd cheer and scream for him, after he came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had all of America, hell, maybe all the world at his feet screaming for him just like that, he decided to bring his television fantasy out of his imagination and turn it into a reality.
First step, get the fuck out of Connecticut. Easy. He had his pick of colleges, even though he wasn’t really sure he even wanted to go to college. Could one get a degree in television? Not the science of television, like his mother suggested one night over dinner, but just… being on television. Becoming the television, being the only thing people even owned the television for. Was there a degree in that? Of course not!
He settled for journalism.
He didn’t care about it, he didn’t even want to be a news anchor, but it was the closest thing he could find, much to his father’s annoyance. Though, Vincent supposed there wasn’t much he did that wasn’t met with his father’s annoyance, so what was one more thing? Journalism it was. In September of 1946 he found himself on a one way train to New York City, far away from the suburbs of Connecticut and the reproachful gaze of his father, which had always been present, but had worsened significantly the last few months he lived in his house.
College had been easy. Frustratingly, almost annoyingly easy, Vincent often thought, but he found that a lot of things in life were that way for him. It explained the dead, rotting part of his soul that was always hungry for more. He’d been born lucky, that’s what people always told him. Born into wealth, enough to not be bothered by that… depression people were always talking about in his childhood. Handsome and charming and smart enough to get pretty much anything he wanted, unique enough to stand out against the masses. Graduated high school just in the nick of time to avoid fighting in some stupid, useless war, and now, graduating college (in only three years!) at the end of a terrible decade, ready to usher in a newer, brighter one. The golden age of television, they called it. A golden age for a golden boy. How lucky.
Sometimes, late at night when he couldn't sleep, he wondered if his luck would run out, and when. What happened when he met someone he couldn’t charm or bully into giving him what he wanted? Who was immune to his silver tongue, his clever quips, his flashy smile or a flirtatious bat of his mismatched eyes? What happened when he took a risk that didn’t pay off? The thought should have irritated him, but more often than not it excited him. The thought of a challenge, of someone he really had to impress, filled his stomach with a faint warmth that he’d never really felt any other time. He knew he was supposed to feel it— on dates, or having sex, or whatever else was supposed to give someone those kinds of feelings that he read about in stories, but he never did. Vincent had long accepted that he didn’t feel things the same way other people did. The way normal people did. He kept it to himself, and he was a very convincing liar, so no one seemed to notice, usually. Sometimes his girlfriends noticed, but if they said anything about it, he simply ended the relationship. He formed relationships more out of convenience rather than want or need, though usually his friendships led to other things he wanted. It was a mutually beneficial relationship in his opinion: they got to claim being friends with Vincent Whittman, got to bask in his glory, got to say that they had captivated his attention for however long, and he got… whatever it was he wanted from their acquaintance in the first place. Sometimes he didn’t even necessarily start the relationship with something in mind. He had a knack for being able to pick out which people could give him things. Another one of his lucky traits, he supposed. America’s luckiest boy.
For example, his three year friendship with his freshman roommate, Tommy, had given him a very nice early graduation gift: an all-expenses paid spring break trip to New Orleans. He’d never been to New Orleans, probably couldn’t even point it out on a map, and really had never thought of it before coming to college and meeting Tommy. He spoke with the strangest accent, the first thing Vincent noticed about him. It was thick and raspy, nothing like the polished voices everyone Vincent had grown up with used, but it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Sometimes he just said entire words or phrases in another language, which Vincent had never tried to decode. He was the son of someone important down there, a mayor or governor or something, and had been begging Vincent to come home with him on every school break since the end of their freshman year. Vincent always declined for one reason or another. It wasn’t that he even necessarily didn’t want to go, he just liked to hear Tommy beg. He liked to hear anyone beg. He liked to string them along, placate them with we’ll see and maybe next time, pal, and wait for their next proposal that they thought might woo him. So, when Tommy had made his final pitch, Vincent had to say yes. What kind of person would he be if he didn’t, after all these years of Tommy pleading? Besides, he’d made quite the compelling argument. Firstly, they would be graduating in two months, and who knew where their lives would take them after that? Tommy was due to be married in June, and Vincent would probably be changing lives on television by then (this was flattery, he knew, but he didn’t mind it too much). Secondly, their spring break aligned with something called Mardi Gras, which Tommy described as some kind of giant, debauched festival-celebration-party thing. He’d heard him mention it before, and had never paid much attention, but this time he noticed the absolute elation in his face when he spoke about it. He made it seem like this was a once in a lifetime experience that Vincent absolutely could not miss. He found this odd, but intriguing nonetheless. He liked parties as much as the next person, and if it lived up to half the expectations that Tommy had built up, it would be enjoyable. So, he finally conceded to his friends’ ceaseless begging, and that was how he ended up flying halfway across the country to a city he’d never once given an ounce of thought. New Orleans.
He’d done some light reading the week before their trip, just to get a picture of what he could expect. He didn’t like to be caught completely off guard in situations if he could help it. The general picture he got of the city was some sort of backwoods, spooky ghost town with alligators crawling around and jazz on every corner. How ridiculous! He wanted to ask Tommy if these stereotypes were true, but Tommy was prone to never shutting up if asked about something he was passionate about, and he was very passionate about his precious hometown, and Vincent honestly wasn’t in the mood for his rambling. So he’d sat quietly on the plane and read his newspaper and tried to ignore the want that was clawing in his stomach.
What did he want? There was nothing pressing him at the moment. Graduation was coming, he already had an internship lined up at a studio in the city, and he had a number of girls’ numbers saved in a notebook back in his dorm room if he got lonely. Clear progress on the golden boy project. What else could he want? Maybe that was the problem. The dead thing inside of him was hungry again. Did it grow bigger, he wondered? He’d always imagined it the same size, the size of his stomach maybe, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. Maybe it grew, little by little, always wanting more. That made more sense. He was twenty-one now. How much would it have grown by the time he was twenty five? Thirty? Forty? Would it eventually swallow him whole? Devour the very thing that had been feeding it all these years? He couldn’t say he minded the thought much. It seemed only fair. Much like when he would lay in bed at night and fantasize about when his luck would run out, when he would meet his match, it excited him in a way. Maybe he had no match. Maybe the only match was Vincent himself.
The captain came on to announce their descent and eventual landing, and this pulled Vincent out of his thoughts. Tommy was already staring at him with that shit-eating grin he wore when he was excited about something, and Vincent placated him with a flash of his own smile. He didn’t like the feeling of the plane landing, so he was all too eager to jump up and grab his suitcase from the overhead compartment once they reached the ground. It still took an annoyingly long time to get off the plane, and an even more annoyingly long time to navigate the airport to the car that was waiting for them. Then came the most annoyingly long time yet: getting to Tommy’s house.
Vincent quickly realized what none of his research had told him: New Orleans moved slower than time itself. It was as if the people, the cars, the fucking trolleys that rolled by were all moving in slow motion. Vincent’s life had always gone fast. His father was always in a hurry, always in a rush, like if he’d sat down and spent any more than sixty consecutive seconds looking at his son he might just fall over and die. Similarly, Vincent moved with purpose everywhere he went. There was always something to do, something to get, somewhere to be. No one in this cursed, muggy city seemed to share that sentiment. The car had left the airport at a leisurely pace, Tommy talking to the driver as if they were old friends, which they must have been. They stopped at a cafe, which honestly Vincent had been fine with because they’d woken up quite early for this flight and he couldn’t sleep on the plane, but he assumed they’d be taking it to go. They always took coffee to go back in New York. But of course not! Tommy even looked at him like an idiot when he inquired about it. So they sat by the window in the cafe, Vincent and Tommy and the driver, and apparently the whole fucking city of New Orleans too, with the amount of people who came up to talk to them. Apparently Tommy was his own kind of golden boy, and had been very well missed. Vincent didn’t know why this irritated him as much as it did. He liked Tommy fine, he supposed, as far as his ability to like people went. It made sense other people would like him, too, especially if his father was as important as Vincent had been led to believe. Still, the discomfort he felt watching person after person come up and hug Tommy and pinch his cheeks and ruffle his hair was growing by the minute, and it was all he could do to just sip on his (incredibly strong) coffee and stare out the window. Was one big party really worth an entire week of this? He supposed he would have to stick around and find out. Surely there was something he could get up to in this city. Tommy had promised him fun, excitement, and debauchery. Not sitting here watching him greet his adoring fans in some cramped, dimly-lit cafe.
The sun was starting to set by the time they finally made it to Tommy’s house. Hadn’t their plane landed at noon?! He was too tired to care. Tommy lived in what Vincent could only describe as a mansion. There were gates at the front, which opened onto a sprawling, lush estate and a white manor that seemed to glow with warm light from every window. There was a woman on the front porch waving at them— well, probably waving at Tommy. As soon as the car was parked Vincent watched him bolt out, run up the steps and wrap the woman in a tight hug while she fussed over him. His mother, obviously. How charming. He was never met with such excitement on the rare occasion he came home to visit. He usually spent his breaks at school, or with one of his girlfriends. Vincent grabbed both of their suitcases before the driver had a chance to, walking up the steps and giving his best sheepish smile at the woman surveying him. Older people liked that, when he looked a little uncertain or nervous around them. He'd learned that early in life. She wrapped him in a similar hug to the one she gave her own son, which was unexpected enough to draw a blush onto his cheeks, and then led the two boys inside the house. She and Tommy were talking about something, maybe the thousands of people who had gathered at the cafe to welcome him home, but Vincent didn’t pay much attention. He stood a little ways off from the door and simply took in his surroundings. The house was nice, very nice. Maybe decorated a little old fashioned for Vincent’s tastes, but he could appreciate fine things when he saw them. Tommy obviously hadn't been lying about his father's importance. The only word he could really use to describe the house was opulent. Everything from the floor to the ceiling dripped with money, with old money, and Vincent felt that very unfamiliar feeling of jealousy creep up his spine again. Why was he jealous? He was well-off. He always had been. He'd lived in a nice house, in a gated neighborhood, in a nice suburb his entire life. What was there to be jealous of? He heard someone calling his name and blinked, finding Tommy and his mother standing in a doorway that seemed to lead to a living room and beckoning him in.
“Come on, Vincent. We’re just in time for Alastor’s show!”