Chapter Text
“Mmm.” Alastor stepped closer, the scent of Vincent's soap carrying with him, curling into the kitchen and unsettling something low in Vincent’s chest. “And did you make it?”
Vincent hesitated, just long enough to feel foolish for it, then squared his shoulders again. “My cook prepared it this morning,” he said. “I reheated.”
Alastor grinned.
“Oh, I see,” he said, tone edged with delight. “So you don’t cook.”
“I can,” Vincent said quickly, heat creeping up his neck. “I just- don’t.”
“How very honest of you.” Alastor moved to the table and took a seat without waiting to be invited, folding himself into the chair with effortless grace. “At least you’ve the privilege and sense to hire someone who can.”
Vincent served him with exaggerated care, setting the plate down as though this were an audition rather than a meal. He adjusted the placement by a fraction of an inch, then caught himself and retreated to his own seat opposite. He picked up his cutlery, forced his hands to remember what they were for, and took a measured breath before cutting into his own portion.
He ate.
Not hungrily, not absent-mindedly, but with an awareness that bordered on vigilance. He tasted enough to know it was good - rich, properly seasoned, nothing he would be embarrassed to offer - but his attention kept skidding back to Alastor despite himself. To the angle of his wrist. The precise way he cut his food. The pause before the first bite.
Alastor tasted the food slowly.
The quiet stretched, thin and merciless, long enough for Vincent’s stomach to knot despite the fork resting between his fingers. He chewed, swallowed, and took another bite he barely registered.
Finally, Alastor nodded once.
“It’s good.”
The relief hit Vincent so sharply he nearly laughed. He managed to swallow what was in his mouth before he answered, though the breath that followed was unmistakably unsteady. “It is?”
“Yes,” Alastor said, cutting into the chicken with elegant precision. “Your cook is skilled.”
Vincent smiled despite himself, small and earnest, the expression slipping free before he could rein it in. He took another bite, and this time he actually tasted it, suddenly easier to swallow. “I’m glad it passes.”
“You’d be amazed,” Alastor continued, eyes lifting to meet his, “how many men with money assume that extends to taste.”
“I don’t,” Vincent said at once, then checked himself, colour rising too quickly to hide. “Assume, I mean.”
“Mm.” Alastor’s mouth curved, neither agreement nor dismissal. “Perhaps.”
They ate properly after that, the tension loosening just enough to allow it. Vincent’s appetite returned in cautious increments as Alastor continued without complaint, each unhurried bite easing something tight in Vincent’s chest.
Not hurried, and not in silence, but with the measured quiet of two people keenly aware of each other’s attention. Alastor’s appetite was exacting rather than ravenous; he treated the meal as something worth consideration, cutting carefully, pausing between bites as though the food deserved it.
When Vincent reached for the wine, his fingers closed around the neck of the bottle with perhaps more urgency than dignity. Alastor watched him with open interest.
“You drink?” Vincent asked, already pouring.
“I indulge,” Alastor corrected. “Pour.”
The silence that followed felt companionable rather than awkward. Vincent glanced toward the living area, then back again, hesitating only a beat before gesturing vaguely with his glass.
“Do you-?” He stopped, shook his head. “Come sit. If you want. It’s… more comfortable.”
Alastor’s smile deepened. “Lead on, Vinnie.”
“Well now,” he said, tilting his head. “Those are… impressive.”
Vincent’s eyes lit instantly. “My sharks?”
“What else?” Alastor replied dryly, studying the glow of the aquariums as blue light traced the sharp planes of his face. “Didn’t peg you for the aquatic sort.”
Vincent laughed, a real sound, already leaning forward as if drawn by gravity. “They’re reef sharks,” he said, words spilling out before he’d quite decided to speak. “Both girls. A blacktip and a whitetip! Completely different temperaments - blacktips are restless, curious, always moving. Whitetips are… lazier. They like corners. Sleeping under ledges. Very opinionated about their space.”
He gestured toward the glass, fingers tracing shapes in the air. “I had to import them individually. It took months of paperwork, all these quarantine permits and transport crates flown in from Florida because nobody on the West Coast would touch it. The aquarium societies said it was impossible.” His smile sharpened, pleased with himself even now. “Which, obviously, meant it had to be done.”
He barely paused for breath.
“The tanks are custom. Built after I bought the house. Had to reinforce the floors, reroute half the plumbing, bring in a marine biologist who wouldn’t stop warning me about electrical failures and moral consequences. Separate life-support systems, backup generators, temperature control, salinity monitors - all analogue, all finicky. I spent weeks waking up convinced something had failed.”
Vincent gestured again, softer now, fondness bleeding through the precision. “That one’s Pilot,” he said, indicating the large blacktip cruising the glass with effortless confidence. “She was the first. Temperamental. Likes attention. And the little whitetip is Vision,” His mouth curved without permission. “She’s dramatic. Will only eat crustaceans, and expensive ones at that.”
The words slowed as he abruptly realised he was rambling.
He stopped short, heat creeping into his face. “Sorry.”
Alastor was watching him with open amusement, cigarette forgotten between his fingers, smoke drifting unchecked toward the ceiling.
“Don’t apologise,” he said, voice warm now, unguarded in a way that felt deliberate. Pleased.
Vincent swallowed, something tight and unsteady drawing close around his ribs. He had spent the entire day deep in hunger, lust, and obsession - but none of it had prepared him for the way it felt to have Alastor’s attention settle on him like this, assessing and indulgent all at once, as though Vincent had revealed something worth keeping.
“So,” Alastor went on lightly, leaning back into the sofa, eyes following the slow glide of movement in the glass. “Sharks.”
“Yes,” Vincent said, too quickly.
“All that money,” Alastor continued, amused, “all that control-” He flicked ash neatly into the tray without looking. “And this is what you care about. Not ratings. Not networks. Not men in suits telling you what you can and can’t broadcast.”
His gaze slid back to Vincent, sharp and knowing. “Nice to see you’ve got somethin’ that isn’t television. Or me.”
Vincent laughed, the sound soft and startled, as though he hadn’t meant to make it at all. He took a sip of wine to steady himself and failed entirely; his pulse refused to settle, heart still carrying the accumulated strain of a day spent far too close to Alastor for far too long.
“I suppose,” he said carefully, “I like things that… are dangerous but respond when you attend to them.”
Alastor’s mouth curved, pleased in a way that suggested he’d heard more than Vincent had intended to say.
He turned back to the aquariums, head tilted slightly as the sharks passed in slow, elegant arcs. The room felt fuller with him in it. He watched Alastor watch them and felt something dangerously close to contentment settle low in his chest.
Vincent hesitated.
“There’s a guest room,” he said at last, already knowing the words were wrong even as he spoke them. “If you’d like it.”
Alastor turned his head slowly.
The pause that followed was unhurried. Deliberate.
“Why would I?” he asked mildly.
The question was casual. Its effect was not.
Vincent’s pulse kicked hard, breath catching in his throat. “I thought-” He stopped himself, the rest of the sentence collapsing under the weight of Alastor’s attention. He had no idea what he’d meant to say. Politeness, perhaps. Habit. An exit neither of them wanted.
Alastor stood.
He crossed the room without urgency, passing close enough that Vincent caught the scent of smoke and soap and something unmistakably Alastor beneath it all. He paused at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’ll take your bed,” he said, as though selecting from a menu. “If I’m staying, I may as well be comfortable.”
Vincent’s breath left him in a quiet rush. “You’re staying.”
“For tonight,” Alastor replied easily. He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes bright with satisfaction. “Don’t look so shocked, sweetheart. You’ve been anglin’ for it all evening.”
He walked up the stairs and disappeared into the hallway, unbothered. Entirely at ease.
Vincent remained where he was, heart thudding, the house suddenly too small and too full all at once. He had not been touched. He had not been promised anything. And yet everything felt irrevocably altered - warmer, riskier, charged with a possibility he would have denied himself only a day earlier.
Alastor had chosen.
And Vincent knew, with devastating clarity, that he would rearrange his entire life to keep him.