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The phone falls from his shaking hands and the freezer key weighs him down heavy in his pocket.
Manon still wasn't answering, after all this time.
She had left him for Vincent, and Vincent had left her.
And Rody was left in the leaving.
Manon wasn't answering, she wasn't-
His shift is long the next day, and the key seems even heavier in his apron.
He knows Vincent watches, knows the pale man had met him eye to eye through the peephole in the wall.
There was no one else with eyes as dark as Vincent's.
Manon’s had been lighter. The color of the chocolate he couldn't afford, and the rust on his microwave.
Vincent's matches the darkness that blinds Rody whenever he wakes up earlier than the sun, the shadow's he'd see out of the corner of his own eyes.
Vincent was unsettling, with a gaze that could cut you to the bone, a gaze that made Rody feel like cattle.
Like he was nothing but meat.
The thought made his head ache worse than it had been already, lack of sleep and a proper diet finally catching up to him.
Manon had told him he needed to learn to live right.
Or was that Vincent?
The Vincent behind the peephole, and the Vincent who'd given him his umbrella felt like two different people.
-And Rody kept that umbrella by his door, an odd excitement creeping into the thought that it had once been Vincent's before.
When it's finally time to close, and the kitchen staff had long gone home, Rody finally finds himself standing in front of that freezer.
The lock made him uneasy, left him sick with a feeling he couldn't place. A deja vu that didn't seem right for the occasion.
He just needed to see-
To check.
To stop those damned dreams.
If he could just open this door, find nothing but vegetables and normal meats-
The metal is cool under his fingers, and he twists in the key with shaking hands.
There's no rust on this door.
Rody’s trembling fingers cast dark shadows over the handle he can't bring himself to grab, the lock now clattering to the floor with a jarring thud.
Manon hadn't answered his calls.
“Looking for something?”
The voice causes Rody to yelp, Vincent's hand wrapping around his still shaking wrist, and suddenly he's pulled away from the door.
“So this is where my spare went?” The Chef sighs, glaring down at the redhead in front of him.
Rody suddenly felt stupid.
It was just a freezer.
“Sorry I-”
“It's fine.” The words are so unlike him, so definitely not Vincent, that Rody freezes.
The Chef takes that that time to lock the cooler behind him.
“Don't let it happen again.” Rody watches the key slide into Vincent’s pocket. “Did you bring an umbrella today?”
Broken from his sudden haze, Rody realizes for the first time that it's raining, and that they're the only ones left in the restaurant.
“Ah, no, I-I forgot.” He mumbles sheepishly, face flushing in embarrassment.
He had been so stupid.
“You took mine last time, so I don't have another to give you.” Vincent hums, arms crossed, and Rody looks away. “Just come upstairs, you can go home after your shift tomorrow.”
“It's fine I can just-”
“You didn't have any problems before?”
The grin on Vincent's face is chilling, and he jerks his thumb towards the cooler door behind him.
“I'll be in your care then!” It comes out rushed, and his laugh is awkward, but Vincent motions for him to head up anyways.
The chef follows him, leaving Manon’s remains to rot on the counter.
He already heard Rody admit that he hadn't been eating any of his cooking.
Overheard him mention it to another chef.
Vincent's preparations had already gone to waste, so that woman could follow his failures to the grave.
The trash really.
He would throw the rest of her away in the morning, his plans had changed.
If Rody didn't eat the meal he'd so carefully prepared, the meal he'd made out of love, he would just find a different way to devour him.
Manon wasn't the only one that idiot could love.
He shuts the door carefully behind him, listening to Rody ramble about work.
He'd already seen everything the man was talking about.
He knows Rody had seen him too.
And that was just as well, kept him in the waiter's head.
He pushes the closet by his front door closed quietly, it had only been slightly cracked, and he didn't want to chance Rody finding the other umbrellas he'd began to keep in there.
Not yet.
Rody would love him, because Rody loved like it was breathing.
And Vincent would be the only one there to pick him up when he inevitably fell.
Because with Rody-
With him maybe-
He could taste what Manon had felt.
Take her place in his heart, and consume all of Rody completely.
Manon wouldn't be in the freezer by the time Rody would have the chance to check again, and the redhead would be none the wiser.
Her disappearance was sure to bring them even closer together-
Vincent would help him look for her, comfort him when he was down-
-And he'd be the reason Rody would never find her.
He'd have to buy more umbrellas when Rody leaves, buy things the man might like, soften his decor.
It wouldn't be the last time the man would be visiting him, but it would be the last time he'd visit Manon.
Even if he hadn't realized she was really there.