Chapter Text
It was, as they say, a dark and stormy night.
Not that this came as any surprise to Vincent. The clock in front of him very plainly read 00:17, a time of night that did have the tendency to be rather dark, and the audio channel he was tuned in to gave regular weather updates. But it felt oddly appropriate. Perhaps too much so.
If you had turned around to him and said, “Say, Vincent, if you were asked to argue for the existence of some higher power interfering in your life — be it God, or fate, or whatever else — what would you use as evidence to back this up?”, he could very well have pointed to the sheer frequency with which the weather seemed to match up perfectly with the situation at hand.
Of course, such an argument would immediately pall in the face of such things as “coincidence” and “confirmation bias”, but even so, Vincent didn’t like it.
Such wandering thoughts had not, however, prevented him from keeping an eye on the road. As he flicked the indicators on and began slowing the car down, he sensed the figure in the backseat perk up. Perhaps out of curiosity; he had been driving in the same direction for rather a long time. But now Vincent started to make the turn onto the tiny country lane, one of those nigh imperceptible types that give delivery drivers hell. The headlights, the only things guiding him, illuminated the surrounding hedges and the steadily falling rain.
Did this last stretch seem to be taking longer than usual? Who knew. But he made it eventually, of course, the outdoor lights the first thing to catch his eye as he pulled into the driveway. He definitely hadn’t turned those on when he’d left, having been a little preoccupied at the time. Bless you, Victor, he thought.
Then he ground the car to a halt, and, without turning off the ignition, reached up and hit the light switch. The pounding of the rain and back and forth swish of the windshield wipers were reduced to background noise as the car was bathed in illumination, the sight of Vincent’s home lying just in front of him replaced by his own reflection. Suddenly it felt as though the confines of this relatively small vehicle encompassed the entire world.
A rather claustrophobic world.
But it didn’t, of course. So he simply breathed, in and out, and turned to face his new . . . guest.
“My apologies for the truly dreadful weather. I have gotten us as close as I can to the entrance, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to make a run for it.”
The aforementioned guest simply stared back at him. Or such was the impression Vincent got. He really couldn’t be sure, given that the man’s eyes were entirely veiled behind a pair of sunglasses that it seemed he genuinely didn’t ever take off.
“Um. Okay,” Winston Loomis said at last. “That’s . . . okay.” He had a particular way of speaking, one that seemed to involve stumbling over a lot of his words. He hesitated, then asked the question that he had to have been wondering all night: “Who, uh . . . are you, though?”
Most people would probably have asked that right off the bat, but then, most people would probably have asked a lot of questions that Loomis had yet to. Since his release from captivity, so to speak, the man had done very little talking, and rather a lot of bewildered looking glancing around.
But glasses or no, it had been very obvious that he’d spent much of his time scrutinising Vincent through the rear-view mirror. Like someone trying to crack the puzzle of a face they know is familiar, but also cannot possibly be who that voice at the back of their head says it is.
You are far more right – yet far more wrong – than you could possibly know, the voice at the back of Vincent’s own head whispered. In one brief moment, he became aware of the noise of the storm and the thrum of the engine and the once comforting but now too harsh glare of the car’s indoor lights. Then he banished that voice with the yank of a car key, the shove of a door. And as the howling of the wind intensified and the rain began to pour in, he plastered a smile on his face and tried not to think about anything much at all.
“My name is Vincent Edgeworth. If you don’t remember me, I’m the lawyer who got you thrown in prison. Now, don't you say it’s about time we started running?”
*
“May I take your coat?” Vincent asked, removing his own suit as he did so. It didn’t feel that damp, not to the touch, but the uncomfortable manner in which it had been clinging to his body just moments before told another story.
His new companion seemed to just stare at him for a moment. Which was rather understandable, given the state of the shirt Vincent had been wearing underneath. While his shirt and suit alike were soaked through with a bit more than just the rain, blood did have the tendency to announce its presence a bit more on white than on black.
But Loomis just shook his head. An array of water droplets clung stubbornly to his glasses, which were also rather fogged up. He didn’t seem to have any intention of taking those off, either, and Vincent couldn’t help but wonder if he could even see.
“Well, suit yourself. Come with me.” He checked to make sure his guest was following along before continuing. “You'll have to forgive my . . . current appearance. I would go clean up, but I wanted to show you to your room first, so you can get settled in. You have your own en suite, and you can get something from the bar or the kitchen whenever you like. If you need anything, or have any questions, do ask.”
Vincent came to a stop outside one of the guest bedrooms, the one he’d set aside for this particular occasion. “Well, here we are. I hope you will find it satisfactory.”
He paused.
Talking to people was, in so many ways, an art. Take eye contact, for example. You couldn’t just talk to people; oh, no, they didn’t like that. You had to look them in the eyes, too, else they’d start drawing all sorts of conclusions. Just not all of the time, because the only thing people liked less than not being looked in the eyes was being looked in the eyes for too long.
This only became even more difficult when you were talking to someone whose eyes you couldn’t actually see. Vincent had opted for simply looking where he presumed Loomis’ to be – if he even had any at all, because who knew, at this point – and hoping for the best.
So now he turned to fix his gaze upon the other man, pretending that he saw anything there other than condensation and tinted glass. Pretending that it would matter to him if he did.
“Though, given where you just came from, I doubt you'll find much to complain about. Wouldn't you agree?”
*
When they’d first met, Victor had been something of a night owl.
So had Vincent, but of course, that had been different; staying up late to actually study was not even remotely the same as staying up late just to go partying, or so Vincent had spent far too much time trying to convince himself. But a poor sleep schedule was a poor sleep schedule. Eventually he’d realised that showing up to class feeling like he was about to pass out from exhaustion wasn’t doing his studies any more favours than his roommate’s nights out were.
These days, however, Victor rarely went to bed any time after midnight. Vincent rather wished he could say the same of himself. But it was only a little past one when he slipped into the bedroom, deciding to at least attempt to sleep.
By then the grumble of thunder had made itself apparent, but Victor was out cold, as was to be expected; the man slept like a log. Nevertheless, Vincent was still careful not to use much force in shutting the door. The lamp on the bedside table obscured the view from outside, and he once again found himself blinking back at his reflection, only briefly interrupted by a flash of lighting.
How funny it was, he sometimes thought to himself, that light could blind you just as easily as it could help you see.
Then the sound of a ferocious, damn near deafening thunderclap wrenched its way through the sky, jolting him as surely as if he'd been hit by the preceding lightning strike. On the bed, Victor began to stir. Not even a log could have slept through that one. On a tangentially related note, Vincent hoped that none of the trees outside were currently smouldering.
“Mmph,” Victor pronounced. “You scared me.” He had begun to sit up slightly, but now opted for planting his face directly onto a pillow.
Vincent raised an eyebrow, anyway. “You do realise that I am not responsible for the weather?”
“Mmmmm, no, jus’ . . . saw you,” came Victor’s muffled, sleep addled reply. “Didn’t know ‘twas you. Thought . . . my sleep paralysis demon finally ‘cided . . . t’ show up.”
“You very clearly just sat up. What part of ‘sleep paralysis’ do you not understand?”
“Hmmmmmph. I’m still . . . half asleep here, y’know. N’t my fault all my . . . cogn’tive processes ‘n’ what not aren’t . . . one hundred percent up t’ speed . . .”
“Well, I can certainly see that,” Vincent remarked, but Victor must have heard the smile in his voice, because he laughed.
“Mmm. Come . . . bed, Vinc’nt,” he mumbled. So Vincent came to bed, and whether he chose not to or was simply too tired, Victor didn’t ask where he had disappeared off to that day. He simply rolled over, wrapping an arm around Vincent. Somehow, the cool grasp of his prosthetic arm seemed to balance out against the unnatural warmth radiating from Vincent’s skin, rather than just making Victor's touch feel even colder. And Vincent lay there, and thought about things, and didn’t think about things, and despite everything found himself beginning to drift off to sleep; after all, if you wanted to wipe yourself out, orchestrating a prison break was certainly one way to do it.
The last thing he would remember was reflecting that even if Winston Loomis decided to brave the storm outside and make a run for it, he’d soon find that his new residence was not quite so different from his old as Vincent had perhaps led him to believe.