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"Going somewhere?" A man with a brown leather jacket, leaning against the brick wall of a barbershop, asked. The voice cutting through the bustling noise of the street was as smooth and potent as triple distilled whiskey and sent an unsettling tingle down Leo's spine.
"Mind your own fucking business, man," Leo muttered as he passed him, pushing aside the vague sense of recognition with a scowl. Right now, he had other things to worry about than to flirt with some guy.
Things had been tough ever since he'd gotten out of Five Lakes with Linda and Alex. Without any funds to build something new, and the constant fear that the cops were breathing down their necks, they were even worse off than they had been before.
He'd hoped that they could start over without their pasts weighing them down — at least that was the plan when he'd set out for that cursed heist — but some sins couldn't be that easily escaped. Killing a fed was something the U.S. government didn't take all too kindly to. The arrest warrant for him had been widened to all states and maybe even Canada. Everywhere they went, Leo had to be practically invisible.
Their current stay was an anonymous apartment complex where the community slogan was 'everyone for themselves'. Even though a trailer park had a worse reputation, at least there the neighbors looked out for each other. Here, a junkie sleeping on the stairs might as well be dead for all people cared. They were simply stepped over and ignored.
He never wanted Alex to grow up in such an environment, but it was the best they could do right now. And even that had come with the price of putting themselves into the hands of a loan shark so they had enough money for the apartment and get their son to school.
The interests were high, but with Linda finding a place that didn't dismiss her skills on the grounds of her not having a dick, they were able to afford the first payment just a little too late. Only, it meant that they had to live off Leo's unsteady income from auxiliary work for the rest of the month.
Linda never complained. She always looked out for the positive sides, and so Leo did the same for her. Keeping each other afloat when the sea seemed endless and the storm was chasing around them, that's just how they rolled. Leo loved her for it, he truly did, but the nights he laid awake, wondering how much more he could impose on her, were grating on his resolve.
A cashier put some money into the register as he passed the small flower shop that was sandwiched between an antique bookstore and a boutique. Dusty tomes, overpriced shoes, dead plants… Too many people had more money to spend than he would ever see in his life. He sighed and turned his attention elsewhere.
The opportunities to gain an easy buck seemed endless, but Alex had made him pinky-swear that he wouldn't return to thieving. He couldn't bring himself to break his boy's heart, even if it meant running around the city, begging people for work and ending up with nothing at the end of it.
The asshole from the barbershop had followed him.
"Leo," the man said his name with a mix of irritation and frustration that ended in an annoyed groan.
It hit Leo like a sucker punch to the gut, leaving him breathless and reeling.
"Vincent?" he asked, voice shaky from the lack of oxygen in his lungs and his heart hammering against his vocal cords.
"Hey," Vincent said and stepped in front of him, giving a little wave with his hand like he'd just returned from a round in the joint.
They stared at each other for a few seconds in stunned silence. More precisely, Leo stared. Vincent just looked slightly uncomfortable in his skin.
"Uhm… Don't worry. Still dead," the other man broke the awkward silence, pointing at himself.
Leo opened his mouth, blinked and continued to stare. "…What?"
Over the past weeks, he had failed spectacularly not to think about Vincent, and now it looked like his bad conscience had decided to manifest itself.
"Never mind." Vincent cleared his throat and sunk his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "So… How have you been?"
When it didn't have the desired effect of kick-starting Leo into responding, he continued. "I'm not here to arrest you, if that's what you're worried about. I'm—" he sighed and made the fruitless attempt of hiding deeper in his jacket. "Well, apparently I'm your guardian angel."
It was weird, seeing Vincent acting so not like the man Leo had known and come to depend on. Maybe this was the real person behind the rat that had tricked him into thinking of him as a friend — or his own insecurities reflecting back on him in the form of the cop he had shot.
But that would mean… He had gone insane.
The pressure of trying not to be a burden to his family had driven him mad because he knew for a fact that Vincent was dead. He had attended his fucking funeral.
Well, attended.
He'd been crouched behind the bushes so none of the pigs that had flocked to the other man's service in doves would notice him. The only reason he was there in the first place was so he could deliver the letter to Carol, since Vincent had forgotten to provide him with an address.
It was awful.
Vincent looked stupid with a cop 'stach.
"Alright, this is bullshit," Leo said finally, still keeping his eyes fixed on Vincent. "You're clearly not real. Just a figment of my guilty conscience, that's all."
The very much not dead-looking Vincent accepted his disbelief with a lazy shrug. "If you say so."
Leo straightened his back and scrutinized the manifestation in front of him. For someone made up by his mind, Vincent was pretty unconcerned about being real. It was a dead giveaway that he wasn't. Leo could turn around and not think of it again, and it would dissolve into nothingness, as it ought to.
Giving the specter a dismissive huff, he continued his way. He really needed to get his shit together.
After a few steps, Vincent caught up with him, bending his head to look at him with furrowed brows. "Ignoring me isn't gonna work, you know?"
Leo stopped in his tracks and flicked his wrist in a shooing motion. "Go away. I don't believe in you."
The only effect it had was that Vincent's face turned into a tired, entirely unimpressed expression. "C'mon, Leo. You can do better than that. Angels aren't fairies that disintegrate with a pout just because someone says they don't believe."
Leo clenched his left hand into a fist. Okay, fine. He would solve this issue his way, then. Trying to hit an illusion wouldn't make him any more crazy than talking to it, right?
His uppercut, that connected with Vincent's very solid chin a moment later, sent a wave of pain through his forearm. This and the lack of effect it had on Vincent made him jump a step back and take on a defensive posture.
Imaginary people should not be this real, dammit!
He carefully peered around the other man, just in case he had been a cleverly disguised mailbox all along.
He wasn't.
Shit.
Vincent rubbed his chin with a disapproving scowl. "That's your bright plan? What's next? You gonna try to shoot me?"
Leo made a grimace at the pang of guilt that pulled his chest tight.
Fuck that, he would not apologize to this asshole.
"Shooting you clearly didn't help to get rid of you," he lashed out instead.
This was all getting a little too much. An angel? A fucking angel? Was he serious?
Going by all the things that Leo had been taught about angels, he was pretty sure that Vincent didn't apply. Sure, he wasn't the worst person in the world, but definitely not angel material. "You can't be an angel. You're a lying bastard and a cheat. People like that don't get sent to heaven."
There was little hope that reason would get him somewhere, but it was worth a shot.
"Yeah…" Vincent drew a long weary breath. "But what do you make of this, then?" He took a step backwards to make room for a set of wings that showed no indication of having been folded behind his back a second ago.
The color wasn't exactly what Leo had expected from angel wings. Instead of a brilliant white, the smaller feathers at the top were some kind of reddish brown and the long ones on the bottom were a light gray. To top it all up, someone had poured a bucket of rusty water over them, sprinkling orange-red flakes all over the things.
Leo frowned and carefully stretched out a finger to test them. The smooth, silky texture was indeed very feathery and — admittedly — almost satisfying to touch.
"Shouldn't they be white?" He asked after the wings had failed to turn into smoke upon contact.
"Shouldn't the fact that they aren't convince you that I'm not sprung from your imagination?" Vincent replied, mild annoyance tainting his voice.
"I don't know, man," Leo said, thoughtfully. "What if you're a demon?" He let his hand glide over the wings again until Vincent pulled them out of his reach and looked like he wanted to hit him with them.
Leo flinched back before he could try. "Wouldn't be the first time you lied to me."
"You know what?" Vincent sighed exasperatedly. "Maybe you're right. Perhaps, getting a shitty pair of wings and having you as the only person to interact with is some sort of purgatory."
"Wait. How do you know others can't see you?" Leo looked around to observe his surroundings.
"You'd think that a guy spreading his wings out in the open would get at least a little attention."
Huh. Vincent was right. The other people on the sidewalk did their best to ignore the two of them. Since Vincent's wingspan took most of the space, everyone else seemed to tacitly agree to move to the other side of the street when they approached them.
If Vincent were just imaginary, they wouldn't care and just walk straight through him, right?
"So… Someone thought I deserve an angel, and they decided that it should be you of all people?" He asked, still not quite sure what to make of this.
Vincent gave him an amused smile and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Deserve? Really, Leo? I'd say you're in desperate need of one, but… Sure, you tell yourself that."
Leo's eyes narrowed at the flippant comment. If this asshole really thought that he could stomp into his life and play himself up as the savior, he was very much mistaken.
"Well, you're wrong. I don't need a fucking angel, and I sure as shit don't need you." He circled around Vincent and his stupid wings and continued his way without looking back.
The late afternoon had filled the streets with all kinds of folks returning from work. Now that Leo wasn't around the people repellent angel anymore, they had no trouble walking past him.
And into him.
A young woman with a green dress and a matching hat, who had almost tripped when running into his shoulder, stopped for a moment and considered him with mild confusion, like he'd just emerged from the mist. She mumbled a silent apology and turned to leave before Leo could react.
"Sorry, ma'am." He heard Vincent say a little behind him, and the woman answered with an even more confused, "What?"
The sound of another person reacting to Vincent made Leo turn around. The woman was frowning and looked anywhere but at Vincent, who had stepped aside to let her pass. Her eyes met Leo's for a short second before she shook her head and started to walk again.
Vincent, looking after the woman with a pensive face, and the respectful distance everyone else chose to give him, was a sad enough picture that Leo felt a twinge of sympathy for the other man. There was a profound sorrow behind his eyes, that seemed to extend beyond the continued ignorance of his surroundings.
It had been a few months since his death, had he been like this the whole time? Judging by the reluctance he'd come forward, it was certainly a possibility.
At least he hadn't lied about the visibility thing. And apparently it extended to him to some degree.
Which begged the question of how much distance he had to get between them to count as a person again.
Hopefully, this state wasn't permanent.
Behind the green hat of the woman who slowly vanished in the crowd, emerged another face that was looking straight at him. Two other men seemingly belonged to the first. At least their eyes all had the same target.
The scarred, broken nose of the longest of the three belonged to one of Dino Macchio's thugs, and the sinister leer with which he considered Leo didn't bode well for him.
His heart leapt up into his throat, and his shirt suddenly clung uncomfortably tight to his chest. What the hell did these guys want with him? He still had two weeks to pay the money he owed Dino.
And why were they able to fixate him so clearly?
Vincent, who had watched the scene with silent curiosity, raised his eyebrows questioningly. "New friends?"
The words were enough to spring Leo's limps into action. He swore and turned on his heels, sprinting in the opposite direction of the thugs. Vincent was either broken or Leo was far more confused than he initially thought.
He had been ready to at least consider the possibility of angels and that Vincent somehow was one, but that idea was clearly stupid. The fact that people switched sides was because he looked like a mad man speaking to himself, and not because of some heavenly intervention.
The woman probably thought he was a creep.
"Turn left," Vincent said, suddenly next to him, and very sternly elbowed him into a small alley.
It was a dead end, Leo realized as he stopped breathless in front of a large, solid concrete wall. There wasn't even a goddamn dumpster to hide in. Only a set of fire escape stairs with a ladder that was far too high to reach it by himself.
Leo circled the short space like a trapped animal.
Shit! It was too late to turn back out and run in another direction.
His eyes flew between the exit, the unreachable ladder and the fucking concrete wall.
He was suicidal.
That was the only reasonable explanation. He wanted all of his bones to be broken by the goons of a loan shark because he fucking deserved it. And just to torture himself, the person set up to doom him was Vincent.
Where the hell was that fucking bastard? He would kill him again before it was his time to go.
The sound of metal rushing downward stopped his frantic pacing, and he looked up to see Vincent on the stairs, lowering the ladder. "Stop wallowing in self-pity and get your ass up here."
The ladder was still high, but manageable. Leo took a running charge, jumped against the wall to give himself a boost and reached for the first rungs.
He shimmied up just as the thugs ran past the opening in to the alley. In the time it took them to stop and turn towards him, he had already retracted the ladder and skipped up the first set of stairs.
Vincent was already on the roof, watching Leo's ascent and the swears that came from the men below with interest. How the hell did he get up there so fast? Leo had neither heard nor felt the steps of the other man on the stairs.
Of course not. Vincent was just an illusion.
An illusion that could move ladders, a very observant voice in Leo's head, chimed in.
The roof was another dead end. Leo put his hands on his knees and gave in to another bout of despair.
There was nothing here to hide behind, or to jump down from. The only option would be to jump over the alley to the roof of the other building, but… He hesitantly looked down at the three men, working on lifting the lightest to the height of the ladder, until his vertigo made him take a few steps back.
It wouldn't take them all that long to get up here.
Fuck. Fuck! Leo raked his hands through his hair and paced back and forth. He couldn't jump that distance.
Considering the other side of the gap with a desperate panic, he wished that his brain would make Vincent manifest on the other side, reaching out with his hand. At least then he could pretend that he had someone to catch him, should things not go as planned.
"Remember when we jumped out of that plane?" Vincent's calm voice next to him made Leo jump and stare at the other man with wide eyes.
What the hell did this madman want now?
"That was fun, right?" The pointedly amicable smile Vincent had put on felt like a threat.
Leo flinched when the cursed wings came back up with a gust of wind. He opened his mouth to hurl some refined insults at Vincent, but all that came out was a high-pitched 'No.' that sounded too shrill in his ears. He suddenly had a very clear picture of what Vincent was proposing, and he absolutely didn't like it.
Especially since he still hadn't ruled out the possibility that it was just a metaphor from his mental illness.
Arms closed around his torso and Leo froze. He was going to die. That was all he could think of, when his intestines twisted as his feet lost contact with the ground. He brought them up around Vincent's waist instinctively and flung his arms around his neck, weaving himself around the other man with all his might.
Vincent's neck and his body were reassuringly solid and warm. Leo had his eyes pressed shut and wasn't planning on opening them until he had safe ground under his feet again.
This was a very strange madness.
Or maybe it wasn't.
Bullshit. Angels didn't exist. Heaven, hell, all made up fairy tales by bored, ancient people.
The wind streaking across his back, and the scary tingle that each flap of Vincent's wings sent into his stomach, begged to differ.
Fuck.
Leo tightened his grip around the — dammit — angel, and decided to stop pondering that topic further on the remote chance that Vincent would disintegrate with a pout at the worst possible moment.
"Could you be less bumpy?" He complained against the rushing wind because his nervous energy had to go somewhere, and screaming out his frustration had been a reliant coping mechanism throughout his life.
"Sorry," Vincent had the gall to laugh. "It's my first time, you know?"
"First time?! Are you serious?" Leo asked incredulously. "You didn't even know if you could carry us both?"
"Now that you mention it," Vincent said, conversationally. "Can you make yourself a little lighter? I think my left wing is getting a cramp."
"What?!"
Vincent laughed again. "Relax, Leo. We're doing fine."
"Relax? I'm either having the worst mental breakdown ever, or I'm being carried through the air by a dead man with chicken wings!"
"Just be glad they aren't actual chicken wings."
"Shut up!" Leo cried out. He didn't care if anyone down on the streets could hear him. "Just shut up! Every time you are near me, I have to deal with some goddamn heights! I fucking hate you!"
Vincent didn't comment on this, and the other things Leo threw at him to distract himself from the fact that his life was quite literally in Vincent's hands right now.
"Hang tight. I think I see a good spot," he simply said a little after Leo had run out of insults.
The good spot was apparently directly under them because they were falling.
Leo screamed against the horrifying weightlessness. He would die crashing into the earth because the man he'd murdered had come back from the dead as a vengeful angel — or demon — set on killing him.
Gravity came back with a sudden force, making Leo's stomach drop three miles below his feet. He bravely cracked an eye open, even though Vincent's wings were still doing their thing and being high up in the sky was still a possibility.
The city's skyline came into focus at a distance. Judging by the landscape, they were at one of the hills surrounding it. Leo dared to look down for a second and regretted it immediately. They were still high enough to break his bones if he fell down now.
"Shit!" He pressed out and wrapped his body tighter around Vincent's, burying his face in the other man's hair in the process. His hand found something to hold on to on Vincent's back, and he gripped it forcefully for more leverage.
That was a mistake.
"Leo, what—?" Vincent yelped in surprise, and the drop that followed a string of swears was too sudden for Leo to start yelling again.
A hard landing and a bit of a tangle later, he was on solid ground with a pissed-looking and dusty Vincent under him.
"Some guardian angel, you are," Leo scoffed, after finding his voice, and got up. Still suffering from a little vertigo, and legs that refused to support him, he stumbled backwards a few steps and landed ungracefully on his ass. "Ow. Dammit!"
Deciding that this was a good enough spot as any, he folded his arms around his knees and tried to regain his composure through shaky breaths before glaring up at Vincent. "What the fuck, man?"
"I told you this was my first time flying," Vincent grumbled. "Was my first landing, too."
"Great. Can you not skip angel flight school next time?"
The other man just let out a long and weary sigh before he got up to sort out his feathers.
Leo watched him trying to get his wings in order. Judging by the total lack of coordination, he really hadn't used them very often.
At a closer look, they weren't all that bad looking. Sure, they were still more the 'pretty bird' kind, than the 'angel' kind, but they fitted him perfectly. Even the rusty spots had a hidden beauty. They looked like smoldering embers when the light reflected off them at just the right angle.
"How the hell do you always manage to get yourself into trouble so fast?" Vincent asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"No. You first," Leo deflected the question. This wasn't about him getting into trouble. Or… Well. Maybe it was, but he would rather speak about the angelic elephant in the room. "Who did you piss off to become my guardian angel?" The possibility of him having developed some form of Vincent-shaped madness had been squashed by the fact that he was now a mile or two away from the city center, where he'd been just a few minutes ago.
Vincent tended to the dirt under his nails before answering without looking up. "Well… There was some sort of psych evaluation, and apparently I gave the wrong answers,"
"So, what? They slapped a pair of rusty wings on your back and shoved you back down here?" Leo put his elbow on his knee and rested his head on it. So far, Vincent had been pretty lacking in the sensible explanation department.
The other man glared at him. The looks of his feathery accessories were a sore spot, apparently. "Something like that."
Whenever it came to admitting that he was Leo's 'guardian angel', or whatever, Vincent had started to act sheepish. "Huh," Leo frowned, realizing what Vincent was doing. "You're embarrassed, aren't you?"
"What?" Vincent asked, narrowing his eyes at him.
"You said that I was in desperate need of an angel," Leo kept on drilling. He was on to something here, he knew it. "So… You volunteered?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Vincent grumbled, but his crunched up face was answer enough.
He was right.
Damn.
Leo honestly didn't know what to make of it. Normally, he would gleefully rub the fact that Vincent cared into his face, but he just didn't get it. He hadn't regretted that bullet right after his finger had squeezed the trigger, but now, a few months later, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe things would have ended up being better than his current situation.
"Alright. How does this work? Can you, like, make me win the lottery?" He asked finally. He didn't have the impression that he could refuse this service anyway. So, why not make the best of it?
"Afraid not." Vincent shrugged and turned towards the city.
"But you're sorta invisible to others, right? You can just walk into a bank and—"
"I'm not gonna rob a bank for you, Leo!"
Leo got up and stepped next to Vincent, considering him. His wings were gone again, making him appear just like the Vincent Leo used to know— thankfully, that included the goatee. It wasn't the same leather jacket and paisley shirt as the one he had borrowed from the old couple, but besides that, there was nothing to distinguish them. Apart from the fact that he was apparently invisible to everyone but Leo.
"What about picking up Dino's guys next time they show up? Just drop them in the river, or somethin'."
"I'm neither a leprechaun, leading you to fortune, nor your personal assassin, Leo." Vincent glared at him. "Besides, I can't really interact with anyone but you."
"Well, yeah. They seem to avoid you, but—"
"Touch, Leo," Vincent interrupted him and shoved at his shoulder. "I can't touch people!"
"Oh," Leo said, surprised. The picture of Vincent standing alone on the crowded sidewalk came back to his mind. "But the woman ran into you, didn't she?"
"Not really. She just didn't side-stepped me like all the others. Not sure why, though."
"So you couldn't have helped her up if she'd fallen?"
Vincent cocked his head, considering the question. "Maybe if you wanted it, too?"
"What? What's it gotta do with me?"
"I could move the ladder for you," Vincent shrugged.
"And if I'd want you to drown Dino's guys in the river?"
"Not gonna do it."
"Because you can't?"
"Because I won't."
"Wow. You're useless," Leo concluded.
These rules sounded like a load of shit and were inconsistent as hell. As far as he was concerned, Vincent was nothing more than an uncomfortable air taxi, and that was something Leo could do without.
"How did they see me anyway? I mean, I definitely didn't want them to see me," he asked.
Vincent shrugged again. "But they did."
"What?"
"It's a perception thing. The people on the street? You were just some guy to them. Typically, people don't pay a lot of attention to their surroundings. But Dino's guys? They were looking for you." Vincent turned his head and gave him a questioning side glance. "Who is this 'Dino' anyway?"
Leo's face darkened. Fucking Dino.
"Just some asshole who can't wait to bleed me dry."
It wasn't all that surprising that the sleazy bastard would tighten the noose around his neck at some point, but he hadn't expected it to be this early. They had scraped together enough and would be left with nothing again if they paid now.
Vincent hummed thoughtfully, having gotten the gist of what Leo was saying. "He gonna be a problem tonight?"
Leo's hands clenched into fists. For some reason, the continued questioning made him angry.
"I don't expect him to stomp down doors immediately, no." His voice was clipped, jaw tight, teeth grinding against each other.
What the fuck did Vincent care? He'd shown no willingness to help levitate his situation, but he kept on interrogating him anyway.
"Leo," Vincent said in a long, drawn out breath. Patient. Calm. Appeasing.
Leo stained against it like it was a physical rope, looping around his chest, reeling him in. He didn't need any help. Every time he had accepted it, nothing good had come from it.
"Despite what you might think, I'm not your enemy here," Vincent continued. "I never was."
"You sure about that?" Leo spat.
"I would have helped you."
Suddenly, they were back at the factory, having the same argument again. Vincent, pleading. Leo, raging, too hurt to listen — or believe.
"Helped me to a cushy nine-by-five room, huh?" He was shaking a little. Not because of Vincent. It was chilly up here and the sun was dropping low. Had he known that he was going on a hiking trip, he would have packed a jacket.
Vincent didn't answer and Leo closed his eyes, willing the wrinkles in his forehead to crease, the tension between his shoulder blades to loosen up. It was no use to dwell on it. Leo had played this argument over in his head almost every night since then.
What's done is done. All he could do was live with it.
Linda's words — not his — but somehow, they worked.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Warm. Solid. Reassuring. It left him with the sudden urge to lean in and catch his breath, like he had done too many times after a close brush with certain death.
"Let me help," Vincent said, voice deep, and soft, and soothing. Reverberating through his chest that Leo found himself steadied against. "I'm not that useless."
Leo huffed out a laugh and looked into the other man's face that stared at a nondescript point in the distance. "You're pretty useless."
The comment made Vincent's brows furrow the tiniest bit, lips pressing together nearly imperceptible. The familiar shadow of sadness flitted across his face again, making Leo wonder what nerve he'd struck with it.
Every person had tells. When it came to Vincent, it was the small things that made the most difference. Leo has had enough sleepless nights to ponder on the man's mimic — after the roof.
"Let's get you home," Vincent said before Leo could make up his mind to ask. "You think you can handle another flight, or would you rather climb all the way down?"
His eyes had a more golden, amber hue than usual. Or maybe that was just the setting sun illuminating them. Leo didn't have that many opportunities to consider Vincent's eye color in the sunlight when he had been alive. Paired with the wings, that still looked like they had caught too many embers, smoldering away the feathers, the sight was actually breathtaking. If he had any lingering doubts that the other man wasn't some sort of celestial being, they were wiped away at this moment.
"Vincent, your wings…"
Vincent let his shoulders hang until the tips of his largest feathers were hovering close to the dusty ground. "Yeah, yeah… Don't start. I know… Rusty."
"No— Well… I mean, they are. But they also look kinda nice. Looks like you're on fire, man."
Vincent tilted his head and turned his wings, regarding them with a doubting frown. "Don't be silly," he said dismissively.
After a few seconds of thorough inspection, he added with a hint of proud curiosity, "You think so?"
"Yeah. Don't let it get to your head, though. It's just barely above 'nice'," Leo replied to bring the other man down a notch. He wanted to make him feel better, not to make him start preening. "Stop fluffing yourself up like a peacock and get me off this damn rock."