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What was wrong with him?
That's something Vinny asked himself often. Usually in that small, quiet moment inside his mind before he went to do something he had already decided minutes ago he was going to do.
Habit was somewhere behind him. Drawers slid open with a creak, while two pieces of glass clinked together softly, a noise Vinny assumed was Habit taking a recess out of the candy jar once again. The sounds moved through the house like they belonged there, uninvited but completely unbothered by that fact, of course.
Vinny didn't turn around.
He let the noise blur into a sort of mumble or static. Habit might have been speaking, knowing him he probably was. He always was. A steady stream of half-mockery, the kind that usually hooked Vinny's attention whether he wanted it to or not.
Not tonight.
Tonight, the words passed straight through him.
Because tonight he had something weighing on his mind like a boulder.
Evan.
For now, it was easier to stay unfocused. Easier to stare at the far wall and let his thoughts wander somewhere much safer and much quieter than the presence rummaging through his life a few feet away.
A drawer slammed shut.
Vinny flinched, shaking himself out of his own thoughts before whipping himself around to look at Habit, who was now standing at the counter fiddling with some sort of utensil and, most likely in Habit’s case, a weapon he had just found in the drawer.
For a heartbeat, Vinny forgot who or what he was looking at.
This was Evan’s body.
It had Evan’s posture.
And the familiar tilt of his head as he fiddled with the appliance between his fingers.
A crooked smile pulled at the corner of Habit’s mouth.
Vinny felt something drop in his stomach and at the same time something hit his head directly, making him feel dizzy and nauseous all at once.
The expression, just visible enough to him, was all sorts of wrong. What should have been soft, what used to be soft, curled into something sharp and hungry. A look that might once have passed for warmth now sat on his face like what could only be described as a Cheshire cat smile.
A snarl, thin and restrained, stretched across the creature’s face.
Across Evan’s face.
Vinny stared longingly.
Oh, how he hated himself for it.
His eyes moved before he could stop them, drawn upward, catching on the dark shadows that lay just beneath Evan’s icy blue eyes, heavy, almost bruised looking. They pulled his face down into something different, something worn through in a way Vinny couldn’t fully recognize.
Habit himself didn’t need sleep, although Evan as his vessel did.
Vinny knew that.
Habit knew that, although he cared far too little about the condition of his vessel, which was made obvious by many other things displayed on Evan’s body that hadn’t been there before, not just the bags underneath his eyes.
Vinny had learned this the hard way. Through those rare, fragile moments when Evan was allowed back in control of his own body, Vinny never got to spend much time with his friend. Most of that time was spent allowing Evan to get the proper rest his body needed instead of being conscious.
God.
Seeing him in this state hurt Vinny more than he was willing to admit.
This wasn’t the Evan he remembered. He knew it wasn’t really him at all in that moment. This was something using him merely as a human puppet.
He must have been staring too long.
Habit’s fingers stilled around the utensil.
Slowly, deliberately, his head turned up, his eyes meeting Vinny’s. A perplexed, overly, almost cartoony look came over his face.
“Jesus, Vinny, the hell's wrong with you? You’re all pale and shit. You look like you just saw a demon or something!” His sentence ended in a chuckle.
Vinny didn’t respond.
Didn't blink.
His mouth hung open slightly, unmoving, almost as if it didn’t work at all.
The silence stretched.
Habit’s smile shifted.
Understanding flickered behind his eyes.
“Oh… OH!!” he cackled again, eyes squinting slightly.
Before Vinny could move, Habit crossed the space between them.
Vinny barely had time to register the movement before his back hit the cold, hard wall.
Habit planted his hand on Vinny’s cheek softly.
Vinny swallowed.
“Habit… what, what are you doing?”
“You weren’t looking at me, were ya, Vin?” He lifted Vinny’s chin slightly, as if to get a better view of Vinny’s expression.
Vinny’s jaw tightened, and Habit sure as hell noticed it happen.
“You were looking at him.”
The words were gentle.
Almost kind.
Vinny’s chest stuttered.
Habit studied his face the way someone might study a reflection, testing angles and expressions. Adjusting. Then, slowly, everything about him changed. The tension in his shoulders eased.
His posture softened to be less looming, less sharp. The tilt of his head shifted into something smaller, something careful.
The snarl disappeared. In its place: that crooked smile. The real one. The one Vinny knew.
When Habit spoke again, the voice wasn’t his.
“Hey… Vin,” unthreatening.
The sound slid straight into Vinny’s ribs.
“Vinny, what’s wrong… why are you looking at me like that?” the man in front of him murmured.
The cadence was perfect.
The pause between words.
Vinny’s breath hitched before he could stop it.
Habit lifted his hand.
Slow.
Careful.
He stopped just short of Vinny’s cheek.
A deliberate hesitation.
The same one Evan used to make when he wasn’t sure he was allowed to cross that line.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
“I’m here.”
Vinny’s vision blurred.
For one reckless, fragile second, he believed it.
The man leaned in.
Slow enough that Vinny could have turned away.
He didn’t.
The kiss was soft.
Barely there.
Wrong in how gentle it was.
His lips brushed Vinny’s with a hesitant, uncertain pressure, careful, like a memory being replayed instead of a moment being created. It felt like him and Evan staying up all night to play video games, laughing the night away. Or even just the same comforting words he and Evan would exchange when this whole ordeal started.
Vinny froze.
His hands stayed useless at his sides.
For half a heartbeat, nothing else existed.
Not the drawers.
Not the candy jar.
Not the thing standing in front of him.
Only familiar.
Only him.
Habit pulled back just enough to look at his face.
To really see it.
The way Vinny’s eyes searched his like they were expecting something to be returned.
The way his breathing had gone shallow and unsteady.
The softness lingered one second longer than necessary.
Then Habit laughed.
Loudly and uncontrolled.
Right between them.
“Oh, Vinny…”
The gentleness drained out of his expression in an instant. His eyes sharpened. His smile widened into something pleased and unmistakably cruel.
The voice snapped back into place.
Habit’s.
“You’re really hopeless, aren’t you?” Habit said lightly.
He stepped away.
The sudden absence of him felt colder than the wall pressing into Vinny’s back.
Habit turned on his heel and wandered back toward the counter, whistling some sing-song tune to himself, already rummaging through another drawer like nothing had happened at all.
Like he hadn’t just reached into Vinny’s head and rearranged the delicate strings entangled up there.
Vinny stayed where he was.
Pressed to the wall.
Eyes welled up in tears, blurry and warm.
Staring at the empty space where Evan’s face had just been.