#Me and my friend proceeding to drop the best bangers before dying

[nostradel]

on our way to the victory royale

[vincess-princess]

ex malo bonum

Chapter 8.

Word count: 7091 Warnings: murder, blood, violence Author’s note: can’t believe we’re here, guys. A year and a half later, we’re here. At the end of this fic. I got so used to it during this time, I don’t even know how I’m gonna cope without it. But I do hope you have a good and satisfying reading :)

“Alright, alright,” Nikki raised his hands up in surrender. “Do it yourself, if you wanna. Don’t blame me when you fuck your hair up, though.”

Vince pulled off a hairband and shook his head, disheveling his hair. He liked it more framing his face in a loose way, but couldn’t handle constantly noticing the black that had already conquered more than a half of his hair length. Noticing it now, he shuddered - since he had last taken a look at it, it had added two more inches. It’d only been a week or so, with him trying to act as angelical as possible. Then why did it spread so fast?

“If I’m going to do it often, I need to learn how.”

“Fair,” Nikki shrugged. “Okay, now get your hair wet. See that thing looking like a telephone with holes in it?”

“I can recognize a shower head,” Vince rolled his eyes, holding his breath at the same time – would Nikki care? Would he get angry? After a second or two he exhaled quietly – his little trick went unnoticed. Or unpunished.

Vince reached for the shower head and turned on water. It was cold, but he didn’t want to wait for it to warm up. It trickled down his back and shoulders, leaving trails of goosebumps on his skin.

“Yeah, I gotta admit you’re making progress pretty fast,” Nikki nodded. Oh, yeah, Vince remembered, they had been carrying on a conversation. “Now, get the dye out of the package and mix it.”

“With what? Water?”

”No-no. See, you need my guidance.”

“With what?” Vince repeated, ignoring the last reply. He was going to do everything himself in this one. It was already too much that Nikki bought it for him. He couldn’t owe him even more.  

“See this little bottle?” Nikki fished the bottle out of the package and handed it to Vince. Vince took it, careful not to touch Nikki’s fingers. “Pour the liquid from it into the cup and add dye from the tube. Then mix until it’s homogeneous.”

“Homo-what?”

“Homogeneous. I swear, you only think about one thing.”

“Hey, you said this word first!” Vince protested, and this time his stomach sank not so shamefully deeply, maybe a little, but it was something.

“Maybe so,” Nikki waved his hand. “Okay, did you make the dye? Yeah, you’re supposed to mix it. No, not with your fingers!”

Oh no, Vince’s stomach shrunk, he did it wrong. He didn’t know, but he still fucked up. Fucked up-

He looked up at Nikki’s face, searching frantically for signs of anger, or annoyance, or fury, or- anything, just anything negative. Anything that would justify Vince running out of the room and crawling under the bed in his bedroom, shaking and panting. He had become an expert of reading that face on that night. He should have seen something.

But there was nothing. Nikki’s eyebrows were slightly raised, and his mouth was a little bit open, with a smile starting to form on his lips. It was in its very initial stages, but Vince could see it. Nikki wasn’t far as good at reading Vince’s face as Vince was in reading his; he couldn’t see all the bugs of terror and panic crawling under Vince’s skin.

He probably though they were friends. Enjoying each other’s presence in a totally normal, friendly way.

Vince exhaled in a short, sharp movement of his chest and throat. “Why not?” he grinned, the grin fake but plausible, then especially slow put his finger in the cup and started mixing the dye. Nikki’s eyes went wide open, he made a disgruntled “Hey!”. Vince considered licking the finger to make Nikki even more exasperated, but that was probably too much for his already battered body – he was sure the components of this dye were far from safe. Vince’s scars have healed already, but he was still getting spikes of pain at every sudden movement, especially from walking and sitting. He eventually came to a conclusion that the pain was going to stay with him for life.

Maybe that was for the better.

“Mixed it?” Nikki leaned closer and checked the cup. “Hm. Probably should be enough. Now, where is your hairbrush?”

“I don’t have one,” Vince reminded. He hadn’t brushed his hair since the day he cut it. It hung in messy curls and knots around his face.

“Yeah, you don’t,” Nikki muttered. “We should definitely take you to the store and buy all the stuff humans use on their bodies. Not that it’s necessary but helps keep the body in a decent shape. And – attract a lot of chicks,” he winked. Vince had to suppress the urge to kick him in the smug face.

“I swear, you only think about one thing,” he uttered instead.

“Hey, that’s my phrase!” Nikki exclaimed indignantly, and satisfaction blossomed in Vince’s chest. He wanted Nikki to realize he couldn’t bug him and not expect anything in return.

“Okay, so I need a hairbrush,” Vince said before Nikki managed to come up with something else. “But I don’t have one. What, are we going to the store or something?”

“No, you’re not going anywhere looking like this,” Nikki waved at Vince, got up and left the room. For a second Vince really thought he was going to go to the store right there and then, and he wasn’t ready to wait for so long. Everything inside him itched and twisted to get rid of that beastly color on his hair tips. But then Nikki returned, a hairbrush in his hand. “Here, take mine.”

“Uh,” at first Vince reached out to take the hairbrush but Nikki’s words made him stop in his tracks. Realizing how stupid he must have been looking, with his hand hanging in the air, he quickly dropped it. The corner of Nikki’s mouth twitched, and Vince froze mid-inhale, but Nikki said nothing. “Uh… won’t the dye spoil it?”

“It probably will,” Nikki shrugged. His hand was still hanging in the air, holding out the hairbrush, and the atmosphere was quickly growing awkward. Why doesn’t he just lower his hand, Vince prayed silently. Why doesn’t…

“Thank you,” he mumbled and grabbed the hairbrush, again trying his best not to touch Nikki’s fingers in the process. The hairbrush’s wooden handle retained the warmth of Nikki’s hand. “Okay, okay,” he attempted to calm his quickly beating heart. They were living together, when will Nikki’s mere presence stop making him fucking fall to pieces? “We’ve got the hairbrush. What’s next?”

“Put the dye on your hair.” Nikki’s face was perfectly indifferent, but his eyes gleamed triumphantly, the same they had when Vince accepted the box of cheap hair dye fresh out of the store. Vince wanted to kick this expression out of him. There was nothing victorious in it – on the contrary, it was a collection of Vince’s defeats. “Use the brush to get every strand,” Nikki continued. “Your shell is blonde from birth, so you only need to dye the tips.”

Vince carefully, like he was holding something fragile, brushed the front strand of his hair and smeared the dye all over it.

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” he asked while evenly distributing the dye to the rest of his front strands. This white cream smelling of chemicals didn’t seem to be powerful enough to obliterate the all-consuming black.

Nikki shook his head. Vince couldn’t help but glare at him from under his wet hair. Was he going through all this for nothing, damn it? “But we can at least try,” Nikki added, but not very reassuringly.

“Yeah,” Vince’s shoulders sunk, but he kept applying dye to his hair. There was still hope, right? It could still work? Then he had to try it.

Finished with the front of his hair, he proceeded to brush the back and realized that dying it was going to be way harder than the front. But he was going to do it himself, even if the possibilities of fucking up were going to be sky-high. Vince reached for the cup to grab another portion of dye and realized he definitely needed to use less or he would run out of it quickly, or some part of his hair could just as well remain undyed. Fucking great. Of course, they could always go buy more, but he didn’t want to ask Nikki for that. He hadn’t asked him for the dye in the first place. But he accepted it, nobody forced him to, besides, maybe, the uneasiness in his stomach appearing at the sight of Nikki getting even mildly annoyed. So now he had to get through all this.

Still, there also was a possibility that it’d work out.

Nikki soon got tired of watching Vince dying strand after strand, slowly and carefully. “Call me when you’re done,” he ordered and left, and the atmosphere in the room immediately got less tense. Vince even sat down on the edge of the bathtub and began murmuring a song under his breath that got stuck in his head. And she’s watching him with those eyes, and she’s loving him with that body, I just know it… He’d heard about love, of course, a divine feeling when channeled towards Him and a dirty, filthy feeling when channeled towards other people, especially in an animalistic, sexual way. It was interesting also, how humans could fixate on one person so hard they could only think and dream about them. Maybe that song exaggerated it a little, after all.

Vince had heard a lot of songs during the week that passed. Having nothing else to do, he was glued to the record player in the main room, listening to a record after a record until he ran out of them. That was a tough moment for him, because he had to either just go through what he had again, of which he was already very tired, or ask Nikki to share his collection. Tommy helped – or, rather, fucked everything up but in a good way, - by dragging Vince into Nikki’s room so that Vince had to stand there with his ears red and listen to Tommy explaining Nikki the problem.  Nikki did share, and his collection did have a lot of “bangers” – that was the word Tommy used once – in it. And halfway through the thick stack of records Vince had almost forgotten it was Nikki’s music. Almost.

Dying his hair was a slow and painstaking process, but Vince even enjoyed the thoroughness of it. Also, it was repetitive – take some dye, put it on a strand of hair, distribute evenly, repeat – and let him think his own thoughts but without getting too deep down, where his demons lurked. So Vince was even disappointed when the last strand was covered and added to the slimy bundle on his head. He looked into one of the pieces of the mirror he shattered – the biggest one was left until the mirror would be repaired, - and chuckled. He looked funny, with his hair sticky and put up in a sloppy bun. This way even the roots, which were still blond, looked darker. Maybe that was just the way the dye looked like while doing its job, Vince tried to calm himself down. Or maybe this cheap dye just couldn’t get through to the demonic black. Either way, he had to finish what he started.

He headed to the door, peered out and shouted: “Hey, I’m done! What’s next?”

Nikki stepped out of his room, cast a look at him and started laughing.

“What?” Vince raised an eyebrow. He thought he would never be able to hear Nikki’s laughter and not shudder again, but him laughing like this, open and sincere, relaxed something very strung out inside him.

“You look like a wet rat out of a sewer,” Nikki told him though laughter. Vince had no clue how rats out of sewers looked like, but, since Nikki meant it as an insult, he assumed they didn’t look very attractive. Good thing he didn’t care about Nikki’s opinion on his looks. Even more, every time he remembered Nikki call him pretty in that sleazy, lusty voice, he wanted to disfigure himself so that Nikki would back off at his mere presence. Not that Vince was actually going to do it, but a man – or a demon, rather – can dream.

He still didn’t really understand the concept of beauty; he hadn’t seen that many people to make his own judgements. The only description of himself came from Nikki – “pretty”, a single world that could mean anything in other contexts. Vince spent hours looking into the fragment of mirror, trying to single out beauty in his own features and realizing with disappointment it was too early for him to judge his own appearance according to human standards. But he also took his time to explore the vessel he was now bound to stay in it for the rest of his life. He didn’t have a chance to thoroughly study it before, apart from catching its reflection in shop windows and that one time in a club bathroom where he overdosed on heroin.

Once he did pay attention, he noticed a lot of interesting things: the way the left eye was a little bit lazy, an old burn on his elbow, the faded lines of tan on his hips, the dry, cracked skin on his knuckles, a mole on his inner thigh. His own markings, what made his vessel- no, his body different from others.

He barely noticed any people during his stay on Earth, blinded by grief, so he could only compare himself to Nikki, Tommy and Mick. Nikki, of course, claimed to be gorgeous, with all those attracting-chicks comments of his, but his features were completely different from Vince’s – boyish yet delicate, absolutely not matching his tall, muscular body. How was it possible that Vince and Nikki, looking so different from each other, were both considered good-looking? Tommy was just a little bit taller than Nikki, but had a slimmer frame and more sophisticated, chiseled-out features. He was, as Nikki confided in Vince, also “drop-dead gorgeous.” Yet another inconsistency. Tommy’s vessel was the youngest of the three of them and still bore traces of teenage clumsiness. It matched well with his light-hearted, careless, a little bit immature character.

Mick was way older than the three of them combined, but his exact age was hard to define. It was possible even he didn’t remember it – years start to fly by faster the older you get. His shell, though, was middle-aged, as wrinkles gathered in the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and visible lines traced across his forehead. Mick’s frame was frail, he was even shorter than Vince, and his shoulders were constantly slumped – Tommy revealed to Vince in a dramatic whisper that there was some illness going on. But the grace with which Mick walked, the precision of every his movement couldn’t not convince Vince that the end of his days was still so far in the foreseeable and even unforeseeable future that the three of them, being lower-caste demons, couldn’t even dream of reaching it.

“Hey,” Nikki interrupted Vince’s train of thought, waving his hand in front of Vince’s face. Vince snapped out of his thoughts so quickly he blinked in confusion – too absorbed in his thoughts, he forgot Nikki was talking to him. “Earth to Vince.”

“Yeah?”

“You done with the dye? Great. Now just wait. Half an hour should do. And don’t get the dye everywhere!”

“Maybe that would motivate you to clean the house,” Vince muttered, turning around, and he could say he didn’t want Nikki to hear it, but why would he lie? It was supposed to be friendly, and Vince did try to play his part well. The fact that he tensed up so much and bit his lip anxiously, waiting for Nikki’s answer with dread building up behind his ribs, was of little importance.

“Whatcha say?” Nikki squinted at him, but his mild indignation was obviously and purposefully feigned. So Vince flashed him his widest smile, so wide it balanced on the edge of creepy, and went back to the bathroom. He could turn on hot water and sit in the bath for some time, maybe wash himself again. A feeling of something sticky and warm slowly seeping down his legs and random spikes of pain in his lower part of the body returned every day, and only a good bath or a shower helped get rid of the feeling and soothe the pain for a while.

Vince returned to the bathroom, checked that the door was locked twice, turned on water and got rid of his clothes – same Tommy’s shirt, same Mick’s pants, already slightly stinky. The hot, almost burning water began to fill the tube, and when Vince undressed and stepped carefully into the bath to check the temperature, it already covered his ankle. Whatever, it could fill up perfectly well with Vince already inside, so he submerged himself into the bath, lay down into the thin layer of water and sighed with pleasure. The water slowly climbed up a few inches and the cool air of the bathroom was creating nice contrast on the skin of his legs. Vince loved contrasts: they let him explore two different sides of an often the same thing. But were there just the extremes, or there was something in between, he asked himself, and the answer came after reading a lot of books from Mick’s personal library - the whole linear representation of “good” and “bad”, which he was taught in Heaven, was actually a spectrum. Contrasts were still necessary, by the way - he needed to be able to see the extremes but not be lured into them.

Vince dipped his hands in water and splashed it onto the bare skin of his legs. Cold immediately replaced by heat, then cold again once the water flowed down, leaving only a couple of droplets on his skin. Vince did it again, and again, and again, relishing in the sensation. Sensations – even as simple as this one - were new and exciting. Some of them were pleasant, and they made life worth living; some of them – not so much, and the pleasant moments became even more delightful after that. In Heaven it would take him an entire year to feel the enormous variety of feelings and sensations he could feel here in a single day.

Heaven. Vince bit his lip and leaned onto the side of the tube, careful not to rest his head on it. He didn’t miss it, he kept telling himself and everyone else around him. What was there to miss? Endless service just for the sake of it, with no promotion, no reward, commanded by someone Vince, His own child, hadn’t seen once in his long, very long life? With no explanations and not a single answer to the questions a lot of angels, including himself, undoubtedly had? What was there to miss, again?

Still, Vince kept waking up in the middle of the night seemingly for no reason, the sense of a tremendous loss fresh and poignant in his heart. When he asked Tommy about it, Tommy denied it pointblank. And of course, he did, Vince was one hundred percent sure he was told to behave as demonically as possible so as not to lure Vince back to God’s side. But Vince could see it in the depth of his eyes, in the very feeble tension in his voice, that it was there, that it still haunted him sometimes. One who knew this incredible sorrow could always recognize it in another.

Tommy was here, on Earth, for little less than half a century. Very young for a demon, the equivalent of a human toddler. What he and Nikki had found in common remained a mystery for Vince, but the evidence was there: they were thick as thieves, always hanging out together, throwing parties and getting in trouble. it was Tommy who was getting all the trouble though, Nikki was a mastermind behind all of it. He kept insisting he was “too old for that” to actually participate. How old Nikki was exactly remained unknown, but he was definitely much, much older than Tommy.

And because he had spent so much time in this cruel, animalistic worlds, Nikki’s angelic features faded. His sorrow for Heaven had long ago turned into bitterness, and bitterness then - into hatred, the same hatred he poured out onto Vince. You see, it’s not so much about you personally, as about you being an angel rang in his head. Vince squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands onto his temples, massaging them. Slowly, slowly Nikki’s grinning face from that night faded in his mind.

Though Vince was not exactly fond of Heaven already, he couldn’t imagine how much time would have to pass for him to start actually, sincerely hating it. It was his home, after all; it disowned him, threw him out into this cruel human world, but it remained his home, the place where he lived and served. His former home, he corrected himself hastily. Now his home was this place, this small house in the middle of Los Angeles (how ironic), this room with a bed soaked with his blood. They changed the sheets, but the mattress was still the same, and Vince hadn’t slept on it once, preferring the awfully uncomfortable leather couch in the living room. He didn’t particularly like this home he was staying in, after all that happened to him under its roof, but he had nowhere to go. After Nikki and Tommy told him about angel hunters he became even less eager to leave. The longer he stayed inside, the more time passed, the less the possibility that they would come back for you and try to kill you, Nikki told him. The transformation will have finished and you will be much stronger by then.

When this moment would come, Nikki didn’t specify; Vince just wanted it to arrive as quickly as possible.

The water had already reached Vince’s ribs, so he turned the tap off. He splashed the water onto his bare chest and straightened his legs, which were just long enough to reach the other end of the bathtub. The steam rising from the water covered the walls of the bathroom with tiny drops of water. Vince traced his finger down the wall, gathering the drops on his fingertip.

One of the strands of his hair broke free from the mess on his head and slid down his back. Vince tucked it back into the bundle, his fingers smeared in the dye. It was of a dirty white color. Vince washed it off in the water of the tube. Then it occurred to him that he probably had a trace of dye on his back from the loose strand, so he plunged into water so that only his head was above it, hoping the stain would wash off.

The abrupt knock on the door startled him, and he almost dipped his head into the water as well.

“Vince!” Tommy shouted from the outside. “Get out, I gotta pee!”

Vince sighed. As long as Tommy was around, he wouldn’t get any peace in this house.

“I can’t! I’m in the bath!” he shouted back.

“I don’t give a shit!” he heard from behind the door. “Open the door, asshole!”

Vince rolled his eyes. He could, of course, ignore him, but Tommy would totally find a way to take revenge on him for that. It would probably be better if he just let him in.

“Okay,” Vince said, getting out of the bath. He didn’t bother to wipe the water off or cover himself - Tommy had seen all of that anyway - and left a trail of puddles behind him. If Tommy slipped on them, that’d be his own personal problem.

“What’s up with your hair?” Tommy said, casting an appraising look all over Vince’s naked body and smirking. Vince didn’t like the smirk, but Tommy didn’t do anything else besides that and headed straight to the toilet. While he was unzipping his leather pants, Vince got back into the bath. The water had already lost a lot of warmth, but he didn’t turn on hot water again, though he wanted to. But it was time to get out - half an hour had probably already passed, and Vince wanted to see the result.

“Dying It,” Vince shrugged. “Nikki said I gotta wait half an hour, so…”

“What color?” Tommy flushed the toilet and zipped his pants back up.

“Blonde.”

Tommy cast him a long look over his shoulder. “You can’t escape your demonhood like that, y’know.”

“I’m not,” Vince murmured, staring at the water rather than at Tommy. “I just look better with blonde hair.”

“Well, that is true,” Tommy nodded with a stupid grin, his seriousness gone as fast as it had surfaced. “I have yet to see a guy rocking blonde hair the way your vessel does it.”

“Thanks… I guess,” Vince leaned forward and pulled out the bath plug. “You done? Get outta here.”

“Okay, okay, boss,” Tommy laughed but did get out… leaving the door wide open.

“You little shit!” Vince shouted into his back. Tommy laughed and sped up, hiding behind Nikki’s bedroom door.

Goosebumps went down Vince’s chest when he got out of the bath again to close the door. The comparatively cold air entered through the open door and made Vince shiver. Closing the door didn’t help much - it was already much cooler in the bathroom – but at least he was no longer on a display of everyone passing the corridor.

Vince sighed and reached for the towel. He didn’t know whether it was Tommy’s or Nikki’s, but did hope they would eventually wipe their faces with it.

After the body came the turn of his hair. Vince washed it thoroughly, making sure all dye was gone. His hair did look a little lighter, but not light enough, and Vince’s stomach sank. He had to remind himself that wet hair always looked darker than dry.

“Done?” Nikki asked when Vince peered into his room, with wet chunks of hair around his face being in dire need of brushing. Nikki and Tommy were drinking, beer bottles in the hands of each.

“Wanna a drink?” one of them pulled a beer out of the package and threw the bottle to Vince. A week or so ago Vince wouldn’t be able to catch it, but his reflexes improved since then.

“No, thanks,” Vince threw the bottle back, aiming at Nikki’s head. Nikki caught it without even looking at it. “Now what?”

“Just wait for it to dry,” Nikki said. “Wait, I have a hairdryer somewhere.” He got up and began rummaging in his closet. Something long and pink fell out, and Nikki hurriedly shoved it back into the closet. Tommy burst into laughter. Vince watched him in confusion. “Here. Just plug it in, it’ll start working. You can change the power with that slide.”

“Okay, got it,” Vince accepted the offering and retreated into his room. The hairdryer turned out to be incredibly loud, but the wave of hot air it was sending forth felt nice against his face.

As he finished, Vince put down the hairdryer and pulled out Nikki’s hairbrush. His hair was still slightly wet, but his patience had run out. He brushed his hair quickly and hurried to the mirror. What if it didn’t work, what if it-

It did, and surprisingly well. Now it was almost impossible to tell what his hair color had been. Vince was blonde again, exactly like he had been when he had just fallen. No trace of that beastly black on his hair! And if it grew more, the dye would hide it!

Vince grabbed a fistful of his hair and brought it up to his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t that platinum blonde his vessel had, it had warmer undertones, almost golden. But it wasn’t black, and that was enough for him. He didn’t really care about good looks of his vessel, as he didn’t even know how good looks were supposed to, well, look. He hated to admit that Tommy was right, but he was: it was all about hiding his demonhood, like one would hide a crazy relative in a tower so they would never be seen again.

So what? What was wrong about it? It harmed no one but Vince himself, so he was going to continue. He would dye his hair again and again, install a lock after a lock on the door of this tower. Nikki warned him that constant use of hair dye would fuck his hair up, but Vince preferred not to think about that now.

Someone rang the doorbell. Quickly, impatiently, pressing on it way more often than necessary. Someone in a hurry. Weird, they weren’t expecting anyone, and Mick had his own keys. Tommy shouted “Coming!” from the other room, and Vince almost stepped forward to stop him, but then braced himself. Some stupid friend of Tommy to go pick up on the girls, surely, or a junkie coming for Nikki’s heroin. Something mundane.

He heard the lock click. Tommy asked something, probably “who the fuck are you,” because the voices at the door were unfamiliar. Vince couldn’t hear Tommy well, but he sounded more worried with every second. Vince put down the hairbrush, tensing up.

Then Tommy shouted. His shout was abruptly cut off with a shot. Regular weapons could do nothing against a demon, just irritate him more. If this one worked, it wasn’t a regular weapon.

Vince’s fingers weakened, the brush fell out of his hand and onto the floor. The noise it made was exceptionally loud in a post-shot silence.

The demon hunters had come.

Vince sprang onto his feet, his heart beating so fast it as though wanted to get out of his chest. Did they kill Tommy? Were they already in the house? And where, god damn, was Nikki?

That very moment two shots were fired in the corridor, and then two unfamiliar voices began to scream, right behind the thin door of Vince’s bedroom. Seconds later their screaming sounded more like gurgling, as they probably were choking on their own intestines. Nikki could be quite inventive in those matters. Still, there were way more than two of them. And they had their magical anti-demon bullets.

A drop of sweat slid down Vince’s spine. He wasn’t a coward, and he was always ready to fight, but he had just begun living his life here, enjoying it, in a sense. How fucking unfair it was of the demon hunters to come right now to take it all away from him. So fucking unfair.

Vince darted to the dresser in his room, pulled out the bottom drawer and upended it above the bed. Not much there, Vince didn’t have time or desire to hoard things, still confused by the concept of private property. But the thing he was looking for, his only actual possession, was there, hid under the false bottom. Tommy persuaded Mick to give it back to Vince, vouching for his loyalty.

“He can’t even do what you ask him to do,” Mick said to Tommy then. Vince, who was eavesdropping behind the door, bit his lip anxiously. “I mean, good for him for going against the authority, that’s what I put a blade in the cupboard for.” Vince automatically reached to touch the scars, jerking his hand back halfway as Mick’s words dawned on him. Oh, so it was Mick. Oh, how smart. “But he can’t be trusted with weapons yet.”

“But the hunters are out for us,” Tommy said then, almost desperate. He was the closest to Mick out of the three of them – somehow, the youngest and the oldest managed to find something in common. But even he couldn’t cross some lines. “He needs to protect himself”.

“Then what the hell are you here for?” Mick said tiredly, but there were no stern notes in his voice, no prohibiting undertones. Tommy also recognized that and beamed so brightly Mick was utterly and completely defeated. Vince heard the sound of a drawer opening, and the next second Mick opened the door and looked down on Vince sitting on the floor right behind it. “Next time you want something, just ask for it yourself, okay?”

The double bottom fell out, revealing the holy blade. Vince picked it up carefully, trying not to touch the steel. It started to warm up, reacting to the demonic presence. His demonic pre- fuck, Vince stopped himself, there was no time for this brooding now.

Vince shoved it into the pocket of his jeans, hoping it wouldn’t burn a hole in them. Mick promised to rip his heart out if something happened to his jeans. Well, figuratively, Vince hoped, though he was absolutely sure Mick could actually do it.

He flinched at three gunshots fired in the other room, accompanied with shouts. Something heavy rattled across the floor. The thin wall shook under someone’s full weight thrown into it. Vince just hoped it wasn’t Nikki’s body. He tried not to think about Tommy.

He should go and help Nikki. Yes, he had only a “toothpick” and they had guns; but here or there, he would die anyway, and he’d rather do it in the middle of a fight. He absolutely should. Should he?..

Yes, he cut himself off and dashed to the door.

And almost collapsed into it, as it opened right in front of his face.

Vince froze. The hunter right in front of him did the same. It lasted barely seconds, but for Vince it felt like hours. Hours of just standing there and watching each other. Blue eyes, freckles on the nose, ragingly ginger long hair with darkened tips. And a rifle pointed right at Vince’s stomach.

Vince stepped back. Just a little.

Then he was pushed in the chest so strongly he lost balance and fell onto the bed. The hunter straddled him, making his hips jerk with pain at the movement, and his rifle was pointing right at Vince’s forehead now. It was so close Vince could feel the warmth of the barrel.

This hunter has already killed someone.

They looked at each other, silent. The hunter was examining his face so thoroughly as though he tried to see past Vince’s expression. Then he released the rifle with one hand and ran his fingers through Vince’s still slightly wet hair.

“It should be black,” the hunter murmured in confusion. “Enough time has passed, it should be black! You should be a full-scale demon now. Why isn’t it black?!”

Vince exhaled slowly. That was his chance.

“It never darkened,” he murmured. Congratulations on your first lie, demon. The hunter was so fixated on Vince’s face he didn’t notice his hand moving oh so slowly towards the back pocket of his jeans.

“Show me your nails,” the hunter ordered. Vince stretched out his left hand, hoping desperately that the blood under his nails, the blood he couldn’t wash out hard as he tried, wouldn’t make them look sharper.

The ginger grabbed it, looked it over, even smelled it. But, judging by his face, found nothing suspicious “They should be longer, sharper,” he whispered. His own nails were pointy and long, just like Nikki’s or Tommy’s. Vince suppressed the desire to tear his hand away from this grip.

But then – the hunter hit Vince on the head with the rifle handle, so strong the world lost its color for a moment. There was only black and white, and white was so all-encompassing Vince squeezed his eyes shut.

Vince knew why the hunter did it – it was his last check. Demons’ eyes darkened at a very strong emotion or feeling, revealing their true selves in the toughest moments. Nikki’s black eyes after he’d been stabbed, Vince’s own blackness seeping through his eyelids when he was beating up Nikki – all of that happened to both of them at a very emotional moment.

But pain could no longer elicit emotions from Vince. He had so much pain over the last couple of weeks it became inseparable from his entire being. It was almost mundane now, an every-day little inconvenience.

The hunter stared at his perfectly light, hazel eyes, and his grip on the rifle weakened.

“You’re an angel,” he whispered so quietly Vince had to strain his hearing. “A real goddamn angel.”

Vince slowly, very slowly began moving his right arm down.

“How the hell could these stupid demons mistake a real angel for a fallen one?” the redhead hissed. “They never were smart, but this… it’s beyond comprehensible. Why are you still here, with these despicable creatures? Did they imprison you?”

Maybe because you wanted to shoot my brains out, Vince wanted to say but didn’t.

“Yes,” he said instead. “But all is in His hands. We cannot change our fates, and if mine is here, with this demons, I will be here for as long as He tells me to.”

The redhead kept hovering over Vince, but he put away the rifle – unfortunately, not far enough to not be able to reach it in a second. His hungry look wandered over Vince’s body. Hunger as not lust, but the crave of remains of angelic grace, a trace of angelic beauty.

The hunter hovered over him again and grasped his shoulders – not with an intention to hurt, more like a drowning man clings to a lifebuoy. “Do you hear Him? Do you hear Him still?” he asked, his voice shaking.

A slow nod and an honest look into the eyes of a hunter – and he released him and sat on the bed, his back turned to Vince. Vince raised his hips slightly to fish out the blade from his back pocket. He squeezed it in his hand and got up as well, settling near the hunter on the bed.

“What does he say?” the redhead asked. “I haven’t heard from Him for so long. I-“ his voice dropped, - “I miss Him.”

“Me too,” Vince said gently. “But He always cares about all His children. Even those who chose the wrong path. Especially those.”

“I thought he left me,” the hunter lowered his head. “I though he left me alone, after I fell. To this cruel, evil and sin-infested world. World full of demons. How could one defeat all those demons? Are they free to roam the Earth for or against his wish? I killed many demons, but with every one I kill, two more appears. I’m tired, angel. I want back. I want back so much,” his voice quivered, and Vince could even feel a spark of sympathy for him. But only a spark. His hand gripped the handle of the blade.

“What is your name, brother?” Vince asked.

The ginger frowned. “I don’t remember. Nobody remembers, don’t you know that?”

“I do. I mean, what is the name that you picked for yourself? You can’t go nameless in this world full of identical people. You need your own label.”

“I…” the hunter swallowed loudly. “I’m Axl. But why?”

Vince smiled his most kind and compassionate smile. “So that He knows who to reward there, in Heaven. You’ve killed so many demons, you deserve it.”

“What?” Axl’s face lit up. “You can tell Him about me? You can ask him to take me back?”

“It’s even better,” Vince put his hand on Axl’s slumped shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for you here, and these demons were your trials. You passed them successfully.” He squeezed Axl’s shoulder maybe a little too tightly. Axl’s breath accelerated at these words, his cheeks reddening with anticipation.

“You’re going to meet him,” Vince said finally. Then he reached to embrace Axl, the blade in his hand slightly vibrating. Axl trustfully leaned into his open arms. Oh, how damaged he was, how naïve. “You’re going to meet Him very soon, Axl,” he whispered and drove the blade up to the handle into Axl’s back.

Axl flinched, for a second not understanding what just happened. Then he did and looked up at Vince in such shock and disbelief that shame waved over Vince – but just for a second. Then Axl exhaled sharply, still looking at Vince, and started to fall down. Vince carefully lay him down across the bed, pulling the blade out in the process.

“I’m sorry, Axl,” he said quietly. “Go, meet Him. For me.”

***

“There’s blood on your hands,” Tommy noticed immediately once he appeared in the doorway. “Are you hurt?”

“No. His.” Vince nodded at the lifeless body on the bed, soaking sheets with blood once again. His ginger hair spread in a circle around his head looked like a halo. “And you should worry about yourself instead,” he added sternly. Deep bleeding gash – he could even see bone through it - across Tommy’s temple where the bullet grazed him was more urgent to fix.

“Ah, this?” Tommy dipped his fingers in his own blood and licked it off them. “It doesn’t even hurt. It wasn’t a silver bullet. I just pretended it was, so that they would leave me and go for Nikki. And how did you manage to take him out with that toothpick of yours?” he nodded at the blade still in Vince’s hand. The weapon didn’t heat up anymore, only vibrated slightly – it was no longer hungry. For a while.

“I think he didn’t complete his transformation,” Vince said, wiping the blood off the blade on his own shirt. “But why does it the fuck matter?”

“It does,” Nikki’s voice sounded from the corridor. Soon he was in, limping and holding onto his side, his face covered in blood – Vince sincerely hoped it wasn’t his own. But if he could walk and talk, he was probably going to be alright. “The first murder – it seals the demonhood in you. No coming back anymore.”

“My demonhood was sealed long ago then,” Vince murmured more to himself than to the demons, but Nikki heard him.

“What?” Nikki leaned forward, stepped on the hurt foot, yelped and would definitely fall down if Tommy didn’t catch him. But he didn’t break eye contact with Vince even while falling. “You say this- this is not you first-“

“What do you think I fell for?”