#vincente

NEWWWW CHAPTERRRR DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

(Minor spoiler, kinda moderate spoiler after cut)

I wanted to have a full piece before the actual chapter dropped but life is a bitch and I have adhd 😭😭 so instead have a sneak at what’s to come 😈

(Cantata created by the magnificent @fir-fireweed )

è non smettere

di credere

“I think it’s the thrall,” Mercutio says, even though he feels like he’s talking out of his ass. “Vanessa is the focal point… it’s like Jennifer… something happens, I guess, that makes everyone come around, it gets weird like this, and then they’re possessed enmasse.” Vincente glares ahead, watching as a group of teenagers come around the corner on skateboards and bikes, dead eyed with wide smiles, abandoning their childhood vehicles near the Dowarger’s fence to enter the quickly overrun yard. 

“And when… the thing, whatever it is happens… They’re going to eat her?” Vincente asks, and Mercutio almost wants to shrink away from the responsibility of confirming or denying such an outcome. 

“Maybe.” He decides to say, because he isn’t entirely sure, but it feels too likely to deny, especially when a denial might give Vincente hope he definitely shouldn’t have. He hasn’t seen her yet. He doesn’t know how bad Vanessa’s body has been damaged by the demon’s presence and aspirations for pregnancy. How it’s depraved misunderstanding about how babies are made, how they are born, has dealt Vanessa an injury that she should already be dead from. It will be devastating enough for Vincente to see her, to see her insides on the outside, to look at her and know that the woman he loved like a sister is gone… hope dashed on top of that is too much. 

“We’re going in there.” Vincente says and Mercutio sighs, resigned. “Sure. They’re not hostile, not right now anyway. Vanessa… whatever’s inside of Vanessa now isn’t going to turn all of these people on us when we could be more vessels for the demons coming up through whatever this dark-sided shit is. She said as much to me and Derek, that we’d be back.” 

“Why dancing? Why a house party?” Vincente asks aloud. 

“Shit man, I don’t fucking know. These demons, they’re different I guess. Maybe they’re from some special secret circle of hell we’ve never had the displeasure of meeting demons from where all they wanna do is party like it’s 1999. When Dorrance attacked me, he wanted to know what kissing was like, how to do it. Ms.Dorothy’s demon wanted to be her. None of it makes sense. Demons don’t want to be us, they think we’re trash, God’s worst idea, should’ve been left on the cutting room floor.” 

“Perhaps their opinions have changed.” Vincente guesses. 

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s a pretty big fucking paradigm shift after fucking eons of trying to fuck us up and get us to fuck each other up.” Mercutio does sink into the chair when Vincente urges the car to move closer to the house, his instinctual desire to hide himself from the radiating pulses of pain in his tattoos ruling him as they parallel park just beyond the house’s yard. He flinches and gasps when a hand smacks against the window and the face of Mitchell Coreworth appears through the glass, eyes dark and teeth chattering. His salt and pepper mustache has blood mixed in its bristly edges and his skin is jaundiced, made worse by the street lamp above them. Mercutio leans towards Vincente’s side of the car as Mitchell looks in on them and then around the car’s interior, blood and drool spooling down his chin. Mercutio suspects he’s bitten his tongue or broken some of his teeth somehow… his perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth gleam a little in the light when he decides to speak. 

“Nice…Car…Fellas…” He says, words muted by the windowpane. It’s another mimicry; Coreworth is a car enthusiast and has always been jealous of Vincente’s thunderbird. Mercutio recalls when they’d first moved into this neighborhood and Mitchell had noticed them, been neighborly and stuck around just so he could worm his way into asking Vincente if he could buy the car off of him. When the answer was a resounding no, he’d still come around to ask about parts, upkeep, upholstery. He had a friendship with Vincente that was purely car focused, and Vincente, gracious as Jesus calls him to be, was tolerant of the visits and questions and endless elderly, over-wrought suggestions. Coreworth bangs his hand on the hood twice, an imitation of a fond gesture for a beautiful animal if not for the way it sounds like he’s trying to dent the roof with his fist. He leans up again and wanders towards the Dowagers and Mercutio shudders out a breath. “There’s a huge area of effect. There’s no way all of these people have interacted personally with Vanessa, especially when she and Marcus had been staying home to take care of Kelly.” Mercutio says when he can manage to find his voice. “With Jennifer people had come by to see how she was, they were tight knit, and the priests were there to help her when they realized what she was experiencing was a possession. This is something else, more effective than the first couple runs I’m guessing. Vanessa’s some sort of beacon, opening people up to possession and once the hook’s in, she’s reeling them all here.” 

“Why aren’t we being reeled in?” Vincente asks after a moment. 

“Who says we aren’t? Just because we’re following our usual motivations to show up doesn’t mean we’re not being affected and drawn in. What I’m confused about is how are we not being puppeted by fucking demons ourselves at this point.” 

“Would we know? The priest from Jennifer’s case didn’t realize.” 

“I mean he was hearing voices, he should’ve clocked it. Have you been hearing voices?” “No. Have you?” 

“Not any unusual ones.” Mercutio tries to joke. Vincente glares at him, and he holds his hands up. “No, I haven’t been hearing voices, alright?” Vincente frowns even more at him, but carries on.