jamie

Vincent kneels across from him and copies the grip unprompted—base hold, steady pressure, straight up. Out of the corner of his eye Alastor watches him pull root after root, knee still going, eyes still flicking—

"Al."

"Mm."

"Al."

“What.”

“Al.”

"WHAT—”

He looks up into…

 A flower.

It's not the verveine they are after. He knows what it is before his eyes have finished arriving at it—he knows every green and growing thing for forty miles in any direction, because his mother knew them all and pressed their names into his mouth before he could read, the names and the uses and the lies they tell. 

Lobelia cardinalis. 

The cardinal flower.

And then Alastor's hand comes over his.

Vincent shuts up.

His hand. On Vincent's hand. 

On the spoon. Adjusting the angle—slow, even, from the outside in, like this—and the kitchen is small and Alastor is right there, the warmth of him all down Vincent's left side, and the smell—

His pulse goes loud in his throat.

He turns his head slightly. He can’t help it.

Alastor is right there, even closer than he'd thought, and those hazel eyes come up—accounting for the fraction of height difference. Alastor’s looking up, he’s looking down, there’s lamplight in them, and he’s close enough that—

His chest does the thing again.

"Well," Alastor says pleasantly. "That was rather dramatic, don't you think?"

Everybody loves somebody sometime…