Title: Dance with the Devil
Prompt: Prompt 4—"We're all in our private traps; clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps."
Character/Pairing: Vincent, Gil
A/N: Ahh, I'm actually super proud of how this came out?
Summary: He is eleven when he makes a deal with the devil.
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They are eight and nine, nothing more than lost, hungry children wandering the world. The streets are cold and dark, devoid of life.
Devoid of warmth.
Vincent clings to his brother. Every noise is a potential monster, every movement another attacker. They've already passed several towns this way, trying to hide Vincent's eyes. He closes them now, maybe he can pretend he's blind.
(But the curse is in his eyes, nothing can stop that)
"It's okay, Vince," Gil tells him, smiling down at him reassuringly. Vincent looks up, eyes wide and adoring. "I'll protect you."
His brother is a hero, a saint, a wonder.
"I won't leave you."
-x-
They are teenagers, trapped in a mansion that doesn't love them. The Nightray brothers (except for Elliot, except for stupidly blunt and always honest Elliot) hate them.
It's fine, Vincent is used to it. They are strangers and he doesn't really care about them.
The problem is that Gil doesn't love him either. Not like he used to, when they only had each other. Not like he did when they were adopted and the nightmare began, a hundred years ago.
No, now he flinches back whenever they cross paths. It's always reflex, always with an apology.
And it always hurts.
"It's fine," Vincent says, Vincent smiles. Maybe the red stains in his hand are as visible as the red in his eye.
Maybe his brother can finally see how pitch black his heart is.
"No, no, I shouldn't be doing that," Gil apologizes again, shaking his head. "I just…I don't know. It just happens automatically."
"Of course, why else would my dearest brother be afraid of me?"
He has every reason to afraid of Vincent.
-x-
(When they are young, Vincent never truly understood the stain he put on his brother. Not while in the circus, not while on the streets, not while in their brief, happy stay at the Baskerville manor.
It's only years later, hundreds and in the future, that he can see the chains for what they are. All encompassing, forever binding—his brother has never been free. Even without his memories, he can't escape the past, can't escape Vincent.
He heard once, that he was supposed to be cast into the abyss after Gil had inherited all the chains. Cast into the core and erased from existence.
If only that had happened.)
-x-
They are thirteen and fourteen, and his brother has seen him for the first time in years.
"You don't remember?" Vincent asks as they sit in bed together, Gil staring at him in frustration. They've been doing this nightly, now. These memory sessions where Gil tries and fails to remember a hundred years ago.
"No…" Gil twists his mouth, before lying down on the bed, giving up for the night. "What do you remember?"
"Not much." Vincent carefully skirts the past, always picking his words so nothing triggers his brother's memories. "Just sights and sounds."
"Really?" Gil turns to look at him, his golden eyes piercing. Vincent can remember, faintly, a time when the whole world looked like that, golden and pure. The abyss had never been as scary as it was now.
Another thing to blame himself for. Another horror he caused.
"Really," he replies, smiling. If he repeats the lie often enough, maybe he can believe it too.
-x-
He is eleven when he makes a deal with the devil. Eleven and he's terrified, so terrified, that his brother is going to die.
His brother, his protector, the one he has caused so much misery for already, is going to disappear. And it's all because of him. Again.
Miranda looks at him, a finger on her lips. She smiles, softly, and whispers a magic spell in his ears.
"You want to save your brother, don't you? It's easy." The devil points the way, her words a lifeline. "You just have to do one little thing."
He leaps headfirst into the void and doesn't look back.
-x-
They are young adults, in the cusp of their life, when Oz reappears. Gil is ecstatic, in a way he hasn't seen him look in years.
But then, Vincent hasn't seen him in months. Only at night, when his brother slips in and out of the manor, too ashamed to stay and too ashamed to leave. Only from a distance, where Gil tries to balance his duties and his desires.
It's fine, Vincent could wait. He has waited for so many years already, what were a few more? His brother would return eventually.
But that won't happen now. Oz, Gil's precious master is back. And wherever Oz goes, Gil will follow. They are walking to a world of light, a world of freedom.
It's a place Gil deserves to go.
Unfortunately, that's a place Vincent can't follow.
-x-
They are growing up, walking toward a destiny of their own making. Vincent takes his first step backwards, his first step to correcting their fates. His brother will have to walk alone from now on, alone and away from him.
His brother will never be dragged down by him again.
-x-
They stare at him, their red cloaks too bright for this dreary place. "You're that kid from back then?"
"It seems we both survived." Vincent smiles his business smile, his pleasant smile.
Lottie sees right through it. Tapping her chin, she ponders the situation. "We're Baskervilles, this was nothing. But you…" Her voice trails off and she reconsiders the proposition he gave before. "That explains why you want to do this."
Fang scrutinizes him and shakes his head. "It doesn't explain everything."
"No," Lottie replies, her smile broadening. "But that doesn't mean we can't use him. It's not like he isn't trying to use us."
Vincent says nothing, waiting for their agreement. They will, he knows they will.
And when they do, he can finally help his brother, can finally remove this curse of his own existence.
Vincent already shook hands with the devil once. He can do it again.