My Dirty Little Secret

Secret Seventy-Six: Didn't I Tell You?

Fire. 

Flames. 

Burning. 

Heat. 

Red. 

Orange. 

Black. 

Smoke.

Isn't it beautiful?

The fire doesn't care about anything but itself, it just consumes, eats away. Vincent smiled, dancing around in the flames. He didn't care if he got burned, he didn't care if the flames hurt at first. This was his own heaven, or his own hell.

If that was true, then why wasn't he engulfing himself in the flames? Why was he still maintaining a safe distance from them? As if trying to runaway...

Something was off, a nagging in the back of his mind, a voice telling him he couldn't die. It was strange, but his life wasn't his own. And that nagging was protecting him, from himself.

Interesting expression it is, 'taking your own life' but to take if from whom? Once it's gone, it isn't you who suffers from it, no. The people around you, the lives you've impacted. Those ones, are the ones who truly experience the pain. They are the ones that suffer.

Vincent knows this, better than anyone in fact, for this was the reason he has lived till now. But today, today was different, death was within his grasp, he could almost feel it. Was this finally his time to die?

'If it doesn't matter to you, whether you live or die, I want to buy you.'

Vincent thought he heard a voice, the nagging sensation in the back of his mind had begun to speak. It was odd, having your own mind speak to you, but there wasn't a thing he could do about it. There wasn't a thing he could do to stop this from happening, his mind had rebelled.

"Why am I thinking of this now?" Vincent complained aloud to the flames, "this was my time to die! It was finally here, but why am I thinking of this? Of that? Of him..."

'Be mine, live for me, and I'll reward you, by taking your life.'

"You liar! You won't kill me! You can't kill me! Stop talking!" Vincent replied to his own thoughts.

'Do you know why I'm 'The Undertaker'?'

"STOP IT! Just stop talking! Stop. You can't be here. You aren't even sane anymore! You're locked away, screaming on a table someplace else entirely, leave me alone. Just leave me alone!" Vincent pleaded with his own memory. The fire was closing in on him now, even though he had managed to keep a safe distance from it. This bedroom was gigantic, it wouldn't take long before he'd be engulfed and burned alive, now that the fire had already reached half-way across the room.

'It's because I was a mortician, I took bodies and made them beautiful. If The Butler is a demon, than I am a reaper. So, entrust your life to me, if you aren't doing anything with it anyway...what do you have to lose?'

"Why?" Vincent cried, "Why do you want it anyway?! Why do you have to haunt me so?"

An image showed itself in the fire, a dark figure emerged from it and walked towards Vincent. He stood stone still, confused. It wasn't possible for The Undertaker to be here. Was this his mind again? Playing tricks?

"Because," he said, "he loves you," Vincent blinked, it wasn't The Undertaker. It was Diedrich. Was he seeing a ghost? The shape that appeared to be the doctor pushed Vincent back with a gust of wind, the windows opened and he fell from the second floor into a bush, saved from the flames, with barely even an injury. This was a miracle!

No, this was Diedrich.

...

Vincent groaned waking up in his temporary room at The Basement. It was semi-fancy despite being a part of a gang's hideout. The male sighed and sat up, his bare chest exposed now. The air was cold and he shivered a bit, curse his habit to sleep without clothing. Grabbing the nearest pair of pants on the floor he struggled to put them on under the warmth of the covers. 

"Mission accomplished," he announced cheerfully to himself, "but now I actually have to get up," he sighed building up the motivation to leave his comfy blankets.

"I'm very disappointed with you," a voice said from underneath his bed. The individual showed themselves and stood up, "I was waiting since early this morning for you to get up and show me that lovely ass but look at you! Did you somehow know I was here?!"

"Hanji! What the hell?! You're a married woman! Stop sneaking into other people's bedrooms! I'm not one of your Titan experiments!" Vincent complained throwing a pillow at Hanji's face.

"Ah, I suppose I deserved that," she said, her face then grew grim as she showed Vincent the newspaper article. He took the paper and looked at it, people were already writing about the fire and death of Chlaus and Rachel, "this was you wasn't it?" she asked.

"Oh? Was it now? I don't remember," Vincent scratched the back of his head feigning ignorance.

"So it was," she crossed her arms frowning, "you tried to die again. Not only did you use their deaths as your motivation, but you also killed off the leader of The Basement. Do you know what that means?" she pointed her finger at him.

"That I'm in big trouble?" Vincent shrugged, ignoring the comment about his suicide attempt.

"That you're the leader now by default. What are you going to do? You didn't want to go back into the underworld, did you?" Hanji sighed, shaking her head.

"Oh, dear me, I forgot about that rule," Vincent sweatdropped. Now that he was the leader of a gang, there was no way he'd be able to go back home and see Ciel. Hopefully his son wasn't too concerned about him, well, that was impossible his son always worried about him, with good reason.

Changing the subject Vincent asked, "what about the cure?" 

It was Hanji's turn to sweatdrop now, "ahhaha, about that," she laughed nervously avoiding eye contact, "there is a cure," she began.

"But?" 

"It only cures those who aren't fully Titans yet...Lenny and I haven't created a strong enough cure for those like..." Hanji paused.

"The Undertaker? I see," Vincent pondered what that meant for a few moments, "well at least you're halfway there," he smiled.

"We'll keep trying," Hanji assured him.

"Thank you," he said, "ah, but, Farlan and Isabel, they are cured now, yes?" she nodded her head to the question. Vincent leaped out of bed and grabbed some clothes, running out his door to go look for the two.

He was the leader now, and that meant he could do what he wished with the gang, with little complaint. So his first move would be, to free the ones that didn't belong. Those semi-innocents, like Farlan and Isabel.

A/N: Annnnnnd there goes another stolen line from Sherlock. Indirect references are the best *sweatdrop* 

You guys were all commenting about The Undertaker saving Vincent but...that is entirely impossible considering he is still suffering from the drug. Smh. 

Reader-Chan: Bruh, how is that any more impossible than having a dead guy's ghost save Vincent?

*nervous laugh* I know what I wrote. 

This story arc (if you can even call it that) is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Srry 'bout that. But don't worry, I always have a happy ending 80% of the time and I've already figured out which ship to torture next...I mean...uhm...

So anyway, thanks for reading (suffering)! c: