Chapter Text
Chapter summary: An angered Vincent Whittman, his ego cruelly stung by the lack of an invitation to the network's celebration of a new sponsorship and his mind slightly clouded by whiskey, intends to watch the celebration as an irritated bystander. As he half-accidentally finds himself center stage, he speaks and drinks, and drinks, and speaks, and drinks, and drinks, and things get tricky.
Basically Vincent goes through Dostoevsky's "A Nasty Business" but it's somewhat different kinda yeah. Because I really like A Nasty Business and I'm a survivor of a violent incident of alcohol poisoning.
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Vincent absentmindedly rubbed the lapel of the light cyan suit jacket he held in his right hand between his left thumb and index finger, up and down and left and right, with his vision blurry and unfocused as he crossed his eyes in distraction. The fabric of the suit jacket was certainly some sort of fabric, and it rubbed uncomfortably between Vincent's fingers, as if it were softly stinging them, feeling like the uppermost crunchy layer of sugar on a French crème brulée, but it was, indeed, some sort of high quality fabric.
Having assessed that, Vincent was almost ready to wear the jacket and go back home after work at the studio. The vague sounds of steps and irritating voices in the hallways were audible, but Vincent's uncomfortable usual auditory sensitivity, spare naturally for applause and mindless acclaim, was distracted by the essential, precise operation that was to be carried before considering putting his arms into the jacket's sleeves. He took the jacket in both hands by the shoulders and straightened it in front of him, then shook it once, twice, and carefully inspected into both sleeves. He shook the jacket one final time before carefully putting it on, one sleeve at a time. He shivered, the fear that his usual inspection had not been sufficiently thorough overriding his usual composure. He could have missed a small mosquito, or a piece of dirt that would have apocalyptically dirtied his white button-up. That suit jacket had only hung around for the time Vincent had been working that day, but a spider could have started attempting at a cobweb, a small, frail piece of the bodily liquids of an arachnid hanging from one side of the internal fabric of the sleeve to the other, that Vincent would have broken apart with his own naked fingers. He swallowed. And what if he missed the spider? No, that had definitely fallen off when shaking the jacket.
Another revolting shiver stung Vincent as his worst fear crept in, the terror that a bunch of spider eggs could technically have had, or, rather, very likely had hidden between the sleeves and the shoulders. He furiously shook bathrobes around too when conquered by such fear, and it was naturally no different with a suit jacket. He looked at his hand, flexed his fingers once, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and finally took his suitcase in his right hand.
Done being hazily distracted by his little paranoid dance, Vincent focused on the faint sounds from the hallway and winced in irritation. The door opened. Vincent turned to a coworker with the fakest of tranquil smiles, then took a step to turn his body towards him as well.
"Whittman!" he called, "You won't believe, believe, believe, believe it."
He swiftly invaded Vincent's personal space, making him lead backward, and clasped his hands together before his wide grin. Vincent waited for him to elaborate, but it was getting unbearable to stay in that awful position in that awful silence. So, he hissed: "What will I not believe, believe, believe, believe?"
The nuisance spun around on a foot and sing-songed, his voice vibrating dramatically: "I’m going to get promoted!"
Vincent tilted his head, then smiled with his lips and eyes.
"How amazingly dazzling this information is, and how glad I am to be alive and well to hear it!"
"So, Whittman, I was thinking that we should have a drink to celebrate it. What do you think, my bestest best buddies of all buddies that have ever bestest of best buddies of all buddies?"
Vincent winced in disgust.
"Why, I am most delighted to have a drink with you," Vincent muttered through gritted teeth.
And so, though Vincent could have simply left for his place, he found himself sitting in a lowly, noisy bar with an inexplicably lucky untalented lazy irritating piece of nothing coworker, holding an annoyingly cold and damp glass of whiskey in his fingers and listening to him whine on and on about how horrible things were for him and how much greater they were going to be thanks to that outrageously undeserved promotion.
"And then, one day, Whittman, I will be so incredible and undoubtedly incredible that I will even be able to attend these celebrations like the one that is going on now, and drink with all those big guys with the big money and the big words over the big things... I will be all the way up there, you hear me..."
Vincent interrupted his sip of whiskey and blinked in surprise, gently setting the glass back down on the table.
"What celebration are you talking about?"
"For that new sponsor. Do you not know about it?"
Vincent shrugged.
"Apparently not. Enlighten me."
"We have a new sponsor, you know. One that will fund us to levels of success comparable to that of the most acclaimed radio networks."
"Funds are not everything..."
"And so, those producers and all those fancy people in suits are celebrating tonight, yes, tonight, drinking and talking and talking and drinking and such. Ah, I would die to be there."
Vincent looked down at his suit jacket and frowned. Irritation stung his eyes as he figured that despite being such a prominent figure in the network's most successful shows, and despite having built himself an audience that was undoubtedly one of a kind for a television star, and despite him being Vincent Whittman and everything that Vincent Whittman was, he had not been invited to that shallow celebration. And shallow it was, but Vincent's ego burned in scorching fury at the thought of not even having been let know of such an event. He, who would have likely been the one to promote whatever that so-called new sponsor was to the greatest extent. The whole thing did anything but sit right with him.
Vincent downed the rest of his whiskey and tapped nervously on the table. His right foot roughly slid forward and backward on the floor.
"What a celebration, would you not say..."
"Absolutely," Vincent’s coworker exclaimed, "One of a kind."
"Do you happen to know where it would be held? You know, since you will have to be present over there some day anyway, will you not?" Vincent asked with a malicious grin.
He laughed.
"Of course I will, why of course I will! It is not far: they booked the ballroom of the hotel right down the street. It is..."
Vincent stood up, bowed with an irritated smile and stormed outside of the bar. His coworker paid for both drinks.
Holding his suitcase tight in his right hand, his teeth clenched, his eyebrows furrowed and his pace quick, his mind ever so slightly foggy due to the whiskey and the anger, Vincent walked in the cold evening towards the hotel. He had no means to access the ballroom, but he was meaning to take a peek. He was eager to watch those pompous snakes who had not ever in their wildest thoughts considered his presence worthy of their little ball, to murder them with his eyes alone in his mind. And so, when he reached the hotel, he stepped in the main hall and looked around, then left. It was more likely to find a way to peek from outside the building, rather. So, he looked for a convenient window, but found nothing. He took back his previous idea in all due humbleness and returned in the hotel hall, showing the reception a badge demonstrating his adherence to the TV studio that was celebrating at the moment. He claimed a colleague that was attending the event had suddenly fallen ill and called for Vincent due to their close partnership.
Ignoring the reception's possible questions and doubts, Vincent quickly reached the ballroom door and leaned down to glue his right eye to the keyhole, his hands on either side of the doorframe. His eye scanned through the hall, and that coworker was right, all those morons in suits were drinking and laughing and celebrating the fact that there was a celebration in the first place. Watching made him only more irritated, and therefore he continued, shifting his position uncomfortably. There they were, all fancy and filthy and utmost irritating as they always were. The light shining on, from, and all around, and all around for the rest of time, the network was Vincent and Vincent alone, and for them to willingly ignore their star in favor of some cheap, unserious sponsorship was going to make all of them pathetically wither in the long run, of that Vincent was sure.
Vincent's eye narrowed and dilated in anticipation, his little game pleasing his fury more than he could have anticipated. And so, he watched, and watched, until suddenly his vision was interrupted, and so was his uncomfortable posture, as he immediately straightened up, but the interruption was someone opening the door and taking a step outside, meaning that Vincent straightening his back caused the two to bump their heads together and growl in pain.
Vincent rubbed his forehead and looked up at one of his most trusted and simultaneously loathed producers, Mr. Brownell. He quickly straightened his blue bowtie and let out an amused laugh.
"How great it is to see you here! I was just meaning to take a step in," Vincent announced, pulling Mr. Brownell’s wrist to yank him away from the door so that he could take one single stretched step inside. He straightened himself, both hands behind his back. "I apologize for my lateness which was not my fault in any case."
Mr. Brownell tilted his head in confusion. He likely had not known that Vincent was invited, since he was not. But Vincent had purposefully loudly attracted the attention of other attendees, which would have made it unnecessarily troublesome to urge Vincent to leave, making a loud fuss over something so trivial.
Vincent slipped away from the entrance and walked around the ballroom with his hands behind his back. His irritation had turned into slightly inebriated delight, since his eyes had gained so much more free space to wander around and capture every inch of that shallow masquerade. All things considered, there were not even that many people present, and fortunately there was no actual star, only those working behind the scenes. Had there been one of Vincent's closer colleagues and, inevitably, rivals, but himself only somewhat accidentally, the outrage would have been even more scandalous than it already was to him.
"Whittman," someone called, and, "Whittman," someone called again, and so on, until Vincent finally approached a small group of shady producers, sipping on their glasses and puffing on their cigars. He gently rested his hand on the beautifully dressed up round table and let his eyes take a brief walk scanning around his possible drinking buddies. There were four of them, with one smelling better than the other and one looking more and more like an ugly decaying corpse than the other.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he started, wincing embarrassed at his own social awkwardness, antecedent to such pretend suave and confident attitude, walking upright and looking down at everybody in that filthy ballroom, "What good of a time this is, am I right?"
The dismissive glances shot his way scratched uncomfortably right at his ego. One of the four men leaned forward on the table, a hand holding up his chin as if his head had any mildly impressive weight in need of support, and smoothly hissed: "An unexpected visit one could never, should stars align, refuse. You are here to urgently see whom?"
Vincent firmly but with all due gentleness slid the glass of champagne away from its respectful owner, who was silent and did not react, perhaps out of blurry drunkenness, but more likely out of pure slack. He brought the glass to his lips and sipped it with a smile. His narrow eyes scanned through the bored gentlemen sitting around the table as Vincent was still standing, but whatever glance he could scout was either bored and dismissive or venomous, save for the man on his right, the same one Vincent had borrowed the glass from, who seemed somewhat intimidated. He snarled for a single moment, downed the glass as if he were swallowing medicine, set it gently on the table with a soft sigh, and feigned looking around.
"I should be provided a humble chair, should I not? Simple courtesy better not be forgotten around my beloved network!"
That one man sitting to Vincent’s right stood up and walked to another table, and came back pushing a chair up until it was right next to where Vincent was standing. Filling the thin glass back up with champagne, Vincent gave the guy a snarky nod and sat down on the chair.
"It must be exceptionally relaxing,” he began, “To receive such dazzling news during these dark times. Is it not exceptionally relaxing, Mr. Brooks?"
He glanced at the kind man to his right with a flashing grin. And he intended to reply, but was interrupted by the cigar smoking Mr. Butler, who scoffed and sipped his own champagne.
"Times are only dark if you let them be so, Whittman. Are you lacking in control over your own life to such a degree? You just let times be dark? And dark how?"
Vincent clicked his tongue, frowning despite his bright grin.
"Days are so immensely bright on your part?" he snarled.
"Necessarily. I do not let my tranquility slip away from between my fingers."
The silence was more frustrating than it was any embarrassing. Vincent drank his wine through generous sips.
"Oftentimes tranquility is shot away from one without warning… and oftentimes we gather around at such welcoming ballroom events."
"Shot away," muttered Mr. Butler, "means what, really, all in all?"
Vincent dramatically sighed and crossed his legs, attempting to swirl the champagne in his right hand, but he had drunk it all already, so he gestured for someone to fill his glass, and someone did.
"Have none of you heard of the latest sentence from the Supreme Court of North Carolina? First degree murder, it has been decided."
"Since when are you so keen on the judiciary, Whittman? For the love of all things holy…"
"May I not finish speaking? Has this sort of rudeness really infected the entirety of my dearest network like ivy on a wooden shed? I resigned and gave you all my utmost clemency as I have been, in fact, provided somewhere to sit, but this is…" Vincent hissed, sipping on his wine, "... bordering on outrage. As I was saying, this Heller apparently shot his estranged wife dead under suspicion of infidelity. Her tranquil existence was very much shot away from her, would you not say? It might have been somewhat premeditated, but you hear me, it is all truly motivated by his own lack of sanity. No trouble of the heart is dismayful enough to be the catalyst to carefully planned murder."
"Very much so," one of the suited men gruffed in response. Vincent grinned.
"The gentleman admitted to having had the murder of his wife’s supposed lover in mind, rather than her. But who can resist assassinating one’s own wife? What truly stops one is the chance of getting caught like he was!"
Laughter howled all around the table. Some coughed and slouched on their chairs.
"Ha, ha!" Vincent choked out. "Ah, yes… And what do you know, he was executed."
"Executed!" that Mr. Brooks jumped.
"Oh yes, shut in a gas chamber like a parrot in a birdcage. He likely envied the sickest, most malnourished parrot in all existence at that moment."
"Executing someone," one of the four men, who had removed his suit jacket in disarray and inelegance, one Mr. Sterling, intervened, "is morally despicable."
Vincent frowned more in inquiry than in irritation.
"It does no good at all. It is pure sick, childish retribution. A tantrum that could end in tragedy, or, rather, most likely will."
"How is it tragic," Vincent muttered, filling his glass with just the right, delicate amount of champagne, "to execute the guilty of a planned murder? Rats preventing those infinitely better and more valuable than them from carrying out their duties should not be allowed on this Earth."
He swiftly downed his glass and appeared overly enthusiastic at the thought of rodents of the sort getting carefully brushed off the surface of this planet because of wrongdoing, because of irritating sloth, because of smug haughtiness. He batted his eyelids once, twice, three and four times, convinced that, as it always was the case, his blurry vision would stabilize itself and let him scan all around that table and beyond with loathing, but it spinned left and right, and Vincent struggled to locate his own hands. To know something like the back of one’s hand sounded like the most idiotic of sayings at that moment, and he had no clue why that came to mind.
And that Mr. Sterling made it significantly worse by continuing that discussion, arguing: "No one should have the right to take another’s life. Not a citizen, not a savage, not authority. When time comes, will they slaughter us all?"
"Well then," Vincent hissed, spinning around his empty glass in his fingers, a drop or two falling down on the floor, "when war came, was your mindset the same? Tell me!"
"Very much, yes."
"Ah! Look at this, look at this. And you would not execute a murderer?"
"What is it, eye for an eye? Are we going back to that savagery?"
"What is it with you and savagery, you insolent slacker?!" Vincent barked, frantically agitating his glass around, eyes piercing through the thick air, his body alert and tense and his left hand scratching down at its own palm. Startled, Mr. Brooks swiftly took the glass from Vincent’s right hand and filled it with wine, believing the risk of spilling the liquid all around the table would make Vincent less keen on spinning it around like an intoxicated madman. "And then, how about a living, breathing cacodemon who dared to violate another out of debauched turpitude… Would such a viper not be worth a gas chamber?"
"Whether he is worth a gas chamber or not can depend on one’s personal fury or compassion… Were that the case anyway, since you have mentioned your solemn clemency earlier on, I trust you know who was known for his clemency, yes, Caesar himself, and who tarnished, splattered venom on the entire idea anyone has of the Ides of March, today and tomorrow? Yes, mindless forgiveness does not aid the good, does not condemn the wicked. Yet, in any case, this is not about decapitating a wicked criminal with a scythe in the middle of a public square… It is rather about our legislation! Picture it written: ‘The State may murder its citizens if believed to be wicked enough’, something of the sort. Then, would a debauched viper not rather murder his victims after violating them, in fear of death, were the violence reported? ‘Death’ can and will sound infinitely more frightening than ‘imprisonment’, although many would disagree, such as the Marquis from the seventeen hundreds… Who was that man, again? Ah. Regardless, it would lead to further murders! Do you not loathe murders? Apparently not at all, Whittman. I should expect it, totally, that you do not condemn murder in the slightest, as we have heard, have we not, gentlemen?" The gentlemen reluctantly glanced away. "And are you aware, Whittman, that your venomous words betray your performance even further… in a way that shows that you do not condemn debauched violence enough, either?"
"How in the world?!"
"Clearly, unless you are clueless enough to not figure it out, violence is much more common in the same household or in romantic entanglements than in (said) public square. Would the son of a violent father be more or less likely to let anyone know of their throes, if they knew their beloved parent risked execution?"
Vincent had nothing to say. He knew, somewhat, that exactly that, precisely that, undoubtedly that exact way of presenting a case of debauched violence, would normally have felt like a slash to the heart, and made him unable to respond regardless, but his inability to process his opponent’s rhetoric, he acknowledged, was very likely related to the fact that he could not distinguish the table from the gentlemen’s button-ups, or the sound of his breathing from the one of chatter all around him, or the glass of champagne in front of him from the one to his right, left, up, down, left again, and right again, and his breathing was exceptionally loud — despite not being able to distinguish it from the chatter, he very much understood that, and his head beamed with spinning, spinning confusion and with expanding, contracting, scorching and freezing echoing waves of stinging discomfort. He muttered a breathy, incomprehensible remark: "How troublesome."
With a blink, two, and three, Vincent was flashed by a bright light that was not bright at all, but he had been keeping his eyes shut for quite some time, he guessed, it was bright in fact. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut, then slowly opened them again. He glanced left and right and realized he was lying down, so he supported himself up on his elbows with a quiet grunt. He was wearing the same suit as he last remembered, so he was likely not held captive somewhere.
"Ah… is everyone else here, too?" he muttered, and he did know that everyone else was not supposed to be wherever he was at all, but, instinctively, he wondered.
Regardless, he was yet to figure out where he was in the first place. He rubbed his forehead and sat up on what he figured was definitely a bed. He took a deep breath and looked around. His mind was still blurry. He raised his right hand to his eyes and his palm looked exactly like his palm had always looked, but the back of his hand was pierced by a miniscule needle, connecting him via a narrow tube to a blinking and beeping machine as if he were a dying senile patient. All things considered it was a hospital.
"What in the world, what in the world!"
He scrambled to quickly stand up. His head stung, a piercing blow of drowsiness that prompted him to sit back down with a huff.
"Heavens, who dared…"
But nobody seemed to have had injured him. It took Vincent another dozen of minutes, zoning out staring into the void, to understand that he had likely passed out due to the wine. He inspected his shirt better, taking the very end of it between shaking fingers, to see that it had been roughly cleaned after getting horribly dirtied. Who in their right mind would have dared to dirty Vincent’s clothes? His head spun and spun and he scratched his hair in blazing irritation.
He looked at his watch and it was four in the morning and his hands froze and his eyes shot open and he was in a hospital and he was connected to a machine with a tube and hours had passed since he last remembered being alive and he must have yelled out nonsense and he must have thrown up all over his clothes and those of others and someone must have cleaned that disgusting thing off him and he must have stunk like a decaying fawn in the most humid of forests and his breathing accelerated again and everyone in that idiotic ballroom likely saw and heard everything and everyone knew everything and he never could have ever again looked at any of them in the eyes, or stand next to them, or acknowledge their existence, and he wanted to snap that narrow tube open and die, but that machine was not keeping him alive at all, it was not that critical, but his mind was still warping and spinning and running and jumping and stinging and heating up and freezing and punching in all directions, and he was beset by such dreadful shame, and the mere thought of that ignominy made his guts shift and contract all over again and everyone knew it was him and everyone glared at him and winced in disgust, likely, definitely, and Vincent was at that point definitely, undoubtedly, unquestionably, ontologically an embarrassment, the most embarrassing of embarrassments, and he gripped his hair painfully, and it was because of his idiotic pride and his idiotic drinking and everything that had always been wrong about himself, and how nothing had ever gone the right way, except all the times that it did, and it was nothing for him to think about and the sky looked cloudy and his hand was stung all over the place because for some reason those incompetent nurses likely did not manage to poke in his hand properly the first or second or third time, and he really wanted to die, and everyone had looked at him and everyone had been disgusted and would always have been, until the end of time, and one single quiet sob clogged his throat as the machine beeped every second or two.