Incomplete
Who: Veld, Duke.
When: tonight.
Where: their house, possibly after Duke sends Vincent to bed.
Rating: TBD.
Warnings: TBD.
Summary: And Veld hunts Duke out for a confrontation that's been a long time coming.
It was always dark under the plate. One could get sick of it very quickly, but right now, Veld found it almost comforting. The dark was so often a Turk's ally, and nevermind that his mind didn't logically comprehend what a Turk was - the old instincts were still there, shifting silently beneath the tide. Whispers of a life he had known, supposedly, things that slipped in and out of focus in his battered memories, stories without a context, lost and forlorn.
The dark made it easier to deal with that. In the dark he could shut his eyes, and though his mind had no idea what to do with the gun in his hands, but if he just let his eyelids drift shut, if he just let his hands move like this...
...Fingers ran over familiar grooves, faster than he could think. Ejecting the magazine. Stripping and disassembling. He ran the cloth over it, remembering and yet not remembering how he had done this a million times, until he could do it in his sleep.
Funny how the muscles remembered. Funny how things came back to him - he snapped the gun back together, flowing more than moving back into the basic gunner's stance. Squeeze the trigger. Splatter of blood across the mind's eye. Something in him flinched, but it was a distant, dull thing, accompanied by a flash of himself at ... had he been fourteen? Fifteen?
He hadn't thrown up. He'd been rather proud of that.
Splash of blood across the white corridor, and when he'd happened to glance to the side, because Turks saw everything, he remembered rust orange hair and a scared look and a junior employee all but crawling up the wall.
His eyes snapped open.
Funny that he should remember that now. He'd forgotten it, he was sure, but maybe the holes in his memory were dredging up things that he'd thought lost. Buried under the clutter.
The gun twirled between restless fingers, the smoking heat of the barrel a sting against his skin that he welcomed. It gave him focus, gave him a grip at a time when he felt that he was walking on nothing more solid than shifting, rolling cloud. It was like a dream; he could do it if he didn't think too hard about it. If he didn't look down, and down, and down.
Orange hair and a terrified expression, and himself, with blood in his hair and a corpse at his feet. He hadn't thought twice about that encounter. Hadn't recognised the face when the Chief had brought the boy into the department. Hadn't remembered, years later when he'd been shoulder to shoulder with the man they called Il Duce.
Hand on the gun, two of them laying down crossfire. They had worked together once.
Duke was the reason he was here, seated at the table alone in the dark, cleaning a pistol by candlelight. Duke was the reason why he wasn't by Vincent's side, by the side of the one he called partner.
Because Duke was 'partner' too; Veld remembered that much, remembered not wanting to say it, not wanting to encourage attachment, not wanting to turn him into another Vincent. They'd worked together out of necessity, and they could have been a great team - or so the broken fragments whispered, and he just didn't know anything any more. But there had always been that shadow between them, and maybe other things, like time and continents and a position they said he had held.
Duke had been a partner in all but name, and Veld peered into the dark, not needing to see anything to know that the evidence was all there now. That the dots were his to connect, now that he actually had time to sit down and think about it.
Are you jealous, Alex.
He'd awoken, disoriented and confused and in pain, and he'd been grateful to Duke for the rescue. For a familiar face and someone he somehow trusted to handle the job when he couldn't. He'd awoken a second time to home, and warmth, and the knowledge of safety, and he'd maybe smiled at Duke at some point and said thank you, in between the waves of nausea and pain.
It hadn't taken him long to remember, though. His memories of Purgatorium were clear, in infuriating contrast to his memories of Gaia. The events of the past few days unfolded again in his mind's eye: The reason for his death - or deaths; the feeling of something beyond fear, beyond any kind of description, as he stared into the eyes of the creature they called Chaos, and cursed Duke to a million hells for summoning it up, for breaking the seals. He'd wondered then why, why a Turk would turn on another Turk to this extent, why Duke, who wasn't a rookie, who wasn't an incompetent bungling ass, should have done something so terminally stupid as kidnap an already unstable man, push him over the brink like this...
...Why was becoming crystal clear, as Veld methodically sorted through the information that he had. Information that he'd been gathering over his weeks in Purgatorium.
It wasn't about Vincent. Perhaps it had become so, at some stage, but it hadn't started that way. Veld was sure of it.
He raised the gun, and the trail of steel across his lips was as cold as death.
It wasn't about Vincent, but it had involved Vincent. It had involved Vincent until a point where Vincent had snapped, where Veld had to make the choice that all partners hoped they never had to make, and put a gun to the head of the one he loved and pull the trigger. Put him out of his misery. Put him out of his agony. Take him down for the COmpany, because that was what they did.
He stood, and the world seemed to move beneath his feet. Shifting cloud. Shifting sand. Everything swirling and disappearing like mist, only to reappear again later, as infuriatingly vague as before. But it didn't matter. His past didn't matter, so long as he still had his partner.
But one person was attempting to take his partner from him. One person was attempting to destroy Vincent, and Veld didn't know for sure what the why was, but he could hazard a guess. Oh, he could so hazard a guess.
Are you jealous, partner.
Put a gun to his head and put him out of his misery.
It was what a partner did.
One step, two. He moved beyond the glow of the candlelight, slipping into the darkness to find his target.
When: tonight.
Where: their house, possibly after Duke sends Vincent to bed.
Rating: TBD.
Warnings: TBD.
Summary: And Veld hunts Duke out for a confrontation that's been a long time coming.
It was always dark under the plate. One could get sick of it very quickly, but right now, Veld found it almost comforting. The dark was so often a Turk's ally, and nevermind that his mind didn't logically comprehend what a Turk was - the old instincts were still there, shifting silently beneath the tide. Whispers of a life he had known, supposedly, things that slipped in and out of focus in his battered memories, stories without a context, lost and forlorn.
The dark made it easier to deal with that. In the dark he could shut his eyes, and though his mind had no idea what to do with the gun in his hands, but if he just let his eyelids drift shut, if he just let his hands move like this...
...Fingers ran over familiar grooves, faster than he could think. Ejecting the magazine. Stripping and disassembling. He ran the cloth over it, remembering and yet not remembering how he had done this a million times, until he could do it in his sleep.
Funny how the muscles remembered. Funny how things came back to him - he snapped the gun back together, flowing more than moving back into the basic gunner's stance. Squeeze the trigger. Splatter of blood across the mind's eye. Something in him flinched, but it was a distant, dull thing, accompanied by a flash of himself at ... had he been fourteen? Fifteen?
He hadn't thrown up. He'd been rather proud of that.
Splash of blood across the white corridor, and when he'd happened to glance to the side, because Turks saw everything, he remembered rust orange hair and a scared look and a junior employee all but crawling up the wall.
His eyes snapped open.
Funny that he should remember that now. He'd forgotten it, he was sure, but maybe the holes in his memory were dredging up things that he'd thought lost. Buried under the clutter.
The gun twirled between restless fingers, the smoking heat of the barrel a sting against his skin that he welcomed. It gave him focus, gave him a grip at a time when he felt that he was walking on nothing more solid than shifting, rolling cloud. It was like a dream; he could do it if he didn't think too hard about it. If he didn't look down, and down, and down.
Orange hair and a terrified expression, and himself, with blood in his hair and a corpse at his feet. He hadn't thought twice about that encounter. Hadn't recognised the face when the Chief had brought the boy into the department. Hadn't remembered, years later when he'd been shoulder to shoulder with the man they called Il Duce.
Hand on the gun, two of them laying down crossfire. They had worked together once.
Duke was the reason he was here, seated at the table alone in the dark, cleaning a pistol by candlelight. Duke was the reason why he wasn't by Vincent's side, by the side of the one he called partner.
Because Duke was 'partner' too; Veld remembered that much, remembered not wanting to say it, not wanting to encourage attachment, not wanting to turn him into another Vincent. They'd worked together out of necessity, and they could have been a great team - or so the broken fragments whispered, and he just didn't know anything any more. But there had always been that shadow between them, and maybe other things, like time and continents and a position they said he had held.
Duke had been a partner in all but name, and Veld peered into the dark, not needing to see anything to know that the evidence was all there now. That the dots were his to connect, now that he actually had time to sit down and think about it.
Are you jealous, Alex.
He'd awoken, disoriented and confused and in pain, and he'd been grateful to Duke for the rescue. For a familiar face and someone he somehow trusted to handle the job when he couldn't. He'd awoken a second time to home, and warmth, and the knowledge of safety, and he'd maybe smiled at Duke at some point and said thank you, in between the waves of nausea and pain.
It hadn't taken him long to remember, though. His memories of Purgatorium were clear, in infuriating contrast to his memories of Gaia. The events of the past few days unfolded again in his mind's eye: The reason for his death - or deaths; the feeling of something beyond fear, beyond any kind of description, as he stared into the eyes of the creature they called Chaos, and cursed Duke to a million hells for summoning it up, for breaking the seals. He'd wondered then why, why a Turk would turn on another Turk to this extent, why Duke, who wasn't a rookie, who wasn't an incompetent bungling ass, should have done something so terminally stupid as kidnap an already unstable man, push him over the brink like this...
...Why was becoming crystal clear, as Veld methodically sorted through the information that he had. Information that he'd been gathering over his weeks in Purgatorium.
It wasn't about Vincent. Perhaps it had become so, at some stage, but it hadn't started that way. Veld was sure of it.
He raised the gun, and the trail of steel across his lips was as cold as death.
It wasn't about Vincent, but it had involved Vincent. It had involved Vincent until a point where Vincent had snapped, where Veld had to make the choice that all partners hoped they never had to make, and put a gun to the head of the one he loved and pull the trigger. Put him out of his misery. Put him out of his agony. Take him down for the COmpany, because that was what they did.
He stood, and the world seemed to move beneath his feet. Shifting cloud. Shifting sand. Everything swirling and disappearing like mist, only to reappear again later, as infuriatingly vague as before. But it didn't matter. His past didn't matter, so long as he still had his partner.
But one person was attempting to take his partner from him. One person was attempting to destroy Vincent, and Veld didn't know for sure what the why was, but he could hazard a guess. Oh, he could so hazard a guess.
Are you jealous, partner.
Put a gun to his head and put him out of his misery.
It was what a partner did.
One step, two. He moved beyond the glow of the candlelight, slipping into the darkness to find his target.