Demon!Vincent x Angel!Scott

To Earth

"Please... please..."

The ghost of a child grabbed at the leg of Vincent's torn pants, begging before falling behind into the endless stream of ghosts trapped here without rest. Old legends had it that they had not paid the riverman to get through to the next world, and we're stuck as punishment. But the truth, Vincent and Scott knew, was that they hadn't lived life on Earth. They weren't good enough to go to Heaven or bad enough to go to Hell. Or otherwise, they had died a death for which there was no justice. There were some Earth adults, sure, but sadly it was mostly children that were stuck here.

"This place depresses me..." Scott brushed away a child's hand, looking guilty. "...it sucks the life out of me, like--"

"Like you'll never be happy again." Vincent sighed, tiptoeing around a crying baby, still with a hospital band around its wrist. "Sometimes I'd get sent here, as an intern, to... t-to..." He looked up at the sky for a long time before mumbling "Hell is an awful, awful place."

Scott and Vincent made their way through, children pulling away from their path. Small droplets of crimson blood dropped to the ground from Vincent's back and sizzled.

"You know what I think?" Scott smiled up at the sky. "I think if I get back to Heaven, I'm going to have kids. Kids from Earth." He paused. "I-I mean, when I get back to Heaven... when."

"You're gonna bring some of these kids up to Heaven?" Vincent looked around. "... that's... that's really nice."

"Hey, Misters!"

They both turned and saw a young girl running up to them with a frayed old teddy bear in her arms.

"The kids here promised they wouldn't tell on you. Patches does too, right?" She made the bear's head nod. She smiled up at them. "You're very brave... you're gonna go to Heaven together, right?"

Before either of them could reply, Vincent looked over to Scott and grabbed his hand. A faint red mist was spreading across the ground. "We need to go." He mumbled.

The girl waved, still naively positive as the clouds rose above her ankles. "Bye, Misters!"

Scott began to run, and Vincent followed after. Nobody would want to stay for the hell that was in store for this land.