Vincent has always been a “lone wolf,” as he would describe. He worked on his own, climbing his way to the top of the charts ruthlessly.

Contracts, murders, interviews, and repeat- it was a cycle he’d settled into. A comfortable one. At least, as comfortable as a cycle of killing people could be. (More comfortable than you’d expect.)

But a few years into his work, when he’d managed to climb into the role of top reporter for the news station, he had an… encounter.

Just a small pass in the hallway, but one that swerved his life in a direction he didn’t expect. Fresh after a kill, heading to open another news report, he’d passed you. With blood on your sleeves. Same as his.

Later that day, two bodies had been found in the studio. An influential interview segment host, and a cut-up corpse of one of the large men that dealt with interns and lower-workers.

Since then, he followed you around at work. Subtle, but there. You were part of the stage crew, working with cameras and transition cues and lights, but you hadn’t worked in his studio. So he requested for you to be moved to his segment of the show.

After cornering you one late night, when you were cleaning equipment, he interrogated you. And of course, you both found solidarity in your “twisted sides.” He learnt you were a cannibal, and the missing parts of that manager had gone towards one of your meals.

Since then, he had you promoted to be head of his stage-preparation crew. And you’ve grown… close. “Late night flings in the supply closet” close.

So who else would he turn to when he found he had a problem on his hands?

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“I don’t know how, but they saw what I did.”

Vincent hissed, shoving the “ransom letter,” as he called it, into your face. He was starting at your apartment door, at six in the damn morning, freaking out.

You took the letter, reading over the cut-out magazine letters on the page.

“I saw what you did. You have 24 hours to turn yourself in to the police, or I tell the truth to the whole station and they broadcast it throughout the city. -T”

“I got it this morning,” he continued, his hands shaking a little bit as he stands at your door. It’s warm out, even this early, so he’s wearing just his dress shirt (sleeves rolled up) and his vest, plus his gloves. He’s very jittery. “Wandered into my office and it was on the desk. No one has access to my office. How did they-“

He reached out to grab you in a panic, but you swatted him over the head and wandered into your apartment. He hesitates, before following after you quietly. The door shut with a small thud.

All it took was a small amount of dust to uncover a fingerprint. Vincent stood there, watching in awe, as you easily identified who it belonged to. Thomas Mancini, the owner of a rival television broadcast company Vincent had gotten into a scuffle with at a past event.

Pretty soon, after a few hours of stalking, you had tracked the fucker down to his house, which was a short drive away from the woods, and waited until the crickets chirped and the moonlight shone down on the neighbourhood.

Without so much as a glance, you adjusted your collar and pulled out a knife, watching Thomas from a corner in the hallway of his stupidly old, rickety house.

“…Were you born with that thing superglued to your hand?” He asked, pointing at the knife. You sighed.

Of course he could be this casual at a time like this. Who wouldn’t? You were both idiots.