Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vincent Charbonneau was never one to believe in the idea of love at first sight. In fact, he didn’t even believe in the concept of love. To him, love was nothing but chemicals in the brain triggering hormones that made grown men mushy. Incompetent. Disgusting. Weak. He refused to become like them, wasting his livelihood away on romantic fantasies.

It’s not like he couldn’t find a suitor for himself- quite the opposite. Many women had fawned over him, practically thrown themselves at his feet just for the chance that he would dedicate a little bit of his attention their way. After all, who wouldn’t want him? He was a successful chef of a famous bistro in France, La Gueule de Saturne- despite having no sense of taste at all- and was a polite, handsome, and charming man, with his sleek black hair and tall frame. However, Vincent had never felt even an ounce of attraction toward any of them. When a girl asked him out, he humored her for a few days before disappearing as if nothing had ever happened. It’s not like they weren’t beautiful, he knew any other guy would feel lucky to have them. But not him. So when Manon- lovely, gorgeous, Manon- had told him she loved him, he simply never talked to her again.

But then he showed up.

His hair, red like the fiery flames that danced and swayed with each movement, his eyes striking green like the olives he would chop and put in meals, and his skin smooth and fair like the countertops in the kitchen he dwelled in. Rody Lamoree.

His cooks must think he had finally gone mad when Rody showed up with no job experience and no grace like the other waiters he had hired. Vincent had never allowed anyone to perform in his restaurant without being near perfection. But as soon as that pathetic excuse of a man-puppy had said so much as a please, he hired him without a second thought.

That night he drank himself to sleep, chastising himself for his choices. But it only went so far, as he only forgot about his feelings until he showed up in his dreams.

Chapter Text

            Vincent paced around the kitchen anxiously, waiting for the arrival of his newest staff. It was his second day for fucks sake and Rody hadn’t even bothered to show up. It’s like the man was trying to speedrun how long it would take for his ass to be out the door. If he wasn’t so forgiving, he would’ve been thrown out on day one. But of course, Vincent had felt some sort of pull towards him that encapsulated his mind completely and kept him around to see where it would go.

           After all, it couldn’t hurt to have a little more fun around here. Right?

           “Hey Vince! Sorry, I’m late…” exclaimed Rody, bounding up to him like a bundle of energy and snapping the man out of his pondering. Saying that irritating nickname that he had deemed his boss to be. Vincent whipped his head around to face him and stormed over to him.

           “Sorry? Sorry doesn’t cut it, it's only your second day and you’re already-” Vincent stopped himself from yelling as he noticed the soaked locks of hair that were plastered to his forehead, furrowing his eyebrows in a mix of irritation and concern. Why the hell was this dumbass soaking wet? Did he not know how to take the damn bus?

           It was no secret that Vincent already had favoritism for him, as any other person who had shown up to work looking like that on only the second day would’ve had their head held over the stove tops.

          With a sigh to himself, Vincent continued in irritation, “-why do you look like that?”

         “I uh… I thought biking really fast through the rain would dry me as I go, but it turns out it just soaks me faster,” he laughs, his hand rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Vincent took a second to himself to appreciate the sheer idiocy of the man in front of him, for when else in his life would he ever be able to meet someone with as little thoughts in their head as him, before rubbing his temples in annoyance. God, he just woke up an hour ago and he already felt a headache coming on…

          “...Dry off, you can’t be seen by the customers looking like this.”
Vincent took a towel and sat Rody down on a stool, placing it over his head and drying his hair off, tingles of warmth spreading through his body at the proximity. He lied to himself, saying that doing this was only so the man-child would be at least presentable to his customers. It totally didn’t have anything to do with himself and how badly he wanted to be close to him. “You do know that umbrellas exist for a reason, yes?”

         “Don’t own one.” Rody shrugs, avoiding eye contact with him.

         What an idiot. With how often it rained you would think he would know how to use basic protection against it.

         “I'm giving you mine for the ride back so this doesn’t happen again.” Vincent sighed, finishing up Rody’s hair and placing the towel aside.

         “Oh uh- thanks, but ah...Then how are you gonna be getting home without one?”

         “I live here,” he replied nonchalantly, as if that was a completely normal thing to do. Rody just stared at him in straight up confusion.

         “Like- in the restaurant??”

         “Yes in the restaurant, I sleep in the cupboards,” he deadpanned, and for a second, Rody thought he was being dead serious. “No, dumbass, my apartments upstairs.” He rolled his eyes, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It seemed to finally click in Rody’s head.

         “Ohh- oh yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Wow.” He still seemed to be pondering something, which led Vincent to quirk an eyebrow as he saw the look of wonder cross his features.

         “Is there a problem?” Rody quickly shook his head at that. Didn’t need to upset him any further.

          “Nah- it’s just… isn’t that worrying?” He tilts his head in confusion, making Rody continue, “like, if something happens to the building then it’s all gonna be gone-” Of course he had thought of that. What idiot wouldn’t have? In fact, Vincent was surprised Rody even had the capacity to think of that at all.

          “-If you have enough time to talk nonsense, then you’re ready for work,” Vincent cut him off, shooing him out of the kitchen and out into the dining room, trying to hide the corners of his lips that were faintly quirked up.

Chapter Text

Vincent was fed up with the incompetence of his workers. Every mistake, every insecurity, every flaw sent him another step closer to snapping. He couldn’t deal with it anymore, he couldn’t deal with their insolence. So he lost it. Held a cook’s head over the burning flames of the stove like had happened to him when he was in college, simply for having his hair grown out too long. 

Needless to say, he learned his lesson and kept it short since. 

So he needed the cook to learn that too. That there’d be no mistakes made in his kitchen as long as he was the head chef, as long as he was around to watch their every move like a hawk. 

“Vince?” Rody came up to Vincent as he was taking a drag outside. It was only Rody’s fourth day working here and Vincent already had to put up with his chatter far too many times, plus, he was already in a foul mood. 

“What do you want?” He grumbled, running his fingers through his hair in annoyance. 

“So, are you single?” 

Vincent almost choked on his spit, a flush immediately spreading to his cheeks.

“I- what?” He stammered. “Why do you ask?”

Rody shrugged. “I dunno, I was just… curious. I mean, you must get a lot of ladies, right?” Vincent almost laughed.

While it was true that he did, he wasn’t even into women. “Sure.”

“So you aren’t seeing any of them right now?” 

Vincent raised an eyebrow. Why was he so interested in his love life? He barely even knew him- though, he couldn’t say he felt like he had since forever. “Look, I’m Really not getting what you’re digging for here-” Rody cuts him off quickly.

“Well I guess just- Why are you here?” Seeing Vincent’s confused expression, the redhead continued, “You just… stand around and watch other people work most of  the time, you don’t actually cook, you’re more than stable in finances…” He fidgets with his hands a bit, glancing toward the ground. “Couldn’t you just get a manager to run the place while you relax? Settle down with someone?” To that which Vincent scoffed. 

“I don’t just run the place for money, you know. I’ve got actual stakes here, this is me settling down. Chasing petty romances isn’t the end-all-be-all in life.” His waiter gasped, putting a hand up dramatically to his chest in offense. 

“Wh- “Petty romances”?!? Who is it all for if it isn’t for someone else, what’s even the point if you don’t have a wife or kids to share it with?” The idea of having to spend his life like that made him almost nauseous. Beside a woman, like everyone else in the world wanted him to. He’d much rather spend it in the company of someone else, but he wasn’t going to admit that. 

“Isn’t it enough to have it all for myself?” he sighed, half-lying, seeing Rody stammer out a few words of surprise and confusion, before clearing his throat to quickly change the subject..
“Anyways, can you give me a raise?” He bats his eyes at him, before his boss laughs in his face. He tilts his head, like a confused puppy. “So… is that a no or…?”

“Oh right- yeah no, you’re not getting a raise.” The ravenette wipes a tear from his eye, calming down. “Why do you need one anyway?”

“Well, it’s for a girl, her name is Manon…” As Rody rambles on about this ‘special’ girl that he seems to care so much about, an ache forms in Vincent’s chest, a pain he had never felt before. Manon. He knew Manon- the daughter of well-known food critics who had previously made advances on him. Sure, she was pretty, breathtaking even, but why did she get to have his attention? What did she have that he didn’t? He could give Rody so much more, everything that she couldn’t and wouldn’t. He could financially support him, spoil him, kiss him senseless, fuck him, do everything that bitch could’ve done and more. So why did she get to have him while he gets to feel as if he’d been stabbed through the chest? He wouldn’t have left him, wouldn’t have broken his heart and left him needy and helpless to beg for a job to try and win him back. He deserved Rody, not her. He would’ve given him the world. Vincent finds himself nodding along mindlessly as Rody rambles on about Manon, a plan already beginning to form in his mind.

Like a moth to a flame, like Icarus to the sun, Vincent was drawn to Rody in ways he never knew was possible. But eventually he would fly far too close.

Chapter Text

After another day of headaches, Vincent settled down in his office to read the reviews of his restaurant, expecting some sort of comfort. Of course, as usual, it only provided further irritation. It was the same as always- the same stupid nonsense about him not being able to ‘cook with love’ or something. But something else caught his eye. Complaints about a certain new waiter he had hired that sent the flames of anger to boil in his gut. How dare they insult Rody? How fucking dare they? Gripping his pen in his hand, he scribbled out any negative mention of the man. These damn critics were getting on his nerves lately. Commenting about something as foolish as cooking with his feelings was one thing, but talking about his Rody that way was another.

They wanted him to cook with love? 

Then he’d do it. 

That night he called up Manon, who was desperate for attention, any attention she could possibly get. She was a lovely girl, and he was sure she would’ve made Rody happy if she had stayed with him. Of course, that wouldn’t be an option anymore. 

Rody was his.

And wasn’t going to let there even be a chance that he would get taken away from him, not even a little bit.

As he took Manon into his apartment, acting like the gentleman that he pretended to be to everyone else, he knew what he had to do.

After all, what is cooking with love more than cooking what somebody else loved?

Today Vincent spent all day observing Rody. The way he carried himself, the way he moved with such grace around the room as he interacted with the customers. He knew he was going crazy. In fact, he had given up on trying to deny it. He had drilled a hole into his wall so he could spend his time watching him, because god, he was more than perfect in his eyes. Sometimes he watched Rody talk to the customers and wondered what it would be like to have those lips against his, that kindness, that dedication, that love that he had all directed towards him. 

He would kill for that attention from him, and if Manon couldn’t see that, then she didn’t deserve him in the first place. Each movement Rody did was like a dance, a turn that way, another plate balanced on a hand, another twist of his body to face a new person. It was captivating, tantalizing. He couldn’t get enough.

So when his shift ended, Vincent called up his friends to have a party.

Vincent hated social gatherings. He hated the people, the alcohol, the mindless chatter and nonsense. But he wanted to watch him more, wanted to study him and worship him like he was a Greek god. 

It just made him want to pull out his hair even more.

After the redhead had rudely excused himself to go to the bathroom, he just… disappeared. All of the guests had left, but Rody remained dwelling somewhere in his house. Panic filled him as he paced around his house, searching for him. As he checked the kitchen, he saw the knife on the table. If Rody had found out what he had done with that knife just last night…

He shook the thought out of his head. 

He wouldn’t.

But just in case…

He knocked on the bathroom door. Once. Twice. No answer. He wasn't there.

That left one more option. 

Vincent placed his hand on the doorknob to his bedroom, gently creaking it open to see Rody standing suspiciously by the bed. He holds the knife behind his back.

“Looking for anything specific?” He snarls, practically spitting the words out of his mouth like they were poison. He watches in amusement as Rody jumps in fear.

“Gah- I was just uh… taking a nap?”

What?

“...In my room?” Vincent questioned incredulously.

“Yep.”

“In my bed?”

“Mhm, yeah.”

God, the look on his face made Vincent unsure on whether he wanted to kiss or kill him. 

Eventually, he showed him out, blissfully unaware of what Rody might have found in that room of his.

Chapter Text

Just like yesterday’s party, Rody mysteriously vanished mid shift. Of course, Vincent just assumed he was going to try and find him to chat as usual. But after ten minutes of watching pissed customers storm out of his bistro, he knew something was off. 

What he didn’t know was how bad it really was. 

As Vincent walked out of his office and into the kitchen to search for him, he felt a cold breeze come from the freezer. It was open. 

But… how? Vincent was the only person who had access to it. He always had the keys in his…

In his bedroom. 

He gasped as white, hot rage filled his body. This couldn’t be happening. And if it really was, there weren’t going to be any witnesses. He ushered everyone in the bistro to get out, claiming that there had been a gas leak in the kitchen. What fools. 

Creaking the freezer door open so that Rody wouldn’t hear him, he held a frying pan in his left hand. He heard the muffled sobs of the man in front of him and a strange warmth filled his chest. He was so adorable, all broken like this. All because of him.

“Oh.. Oh god…” Rody fell down on his knees on the floor in front of the meat grinder, seeing his ex-girlfriend’s locket of their picture together atop a meat grinder that had been working away at the poor woman’s arm. “M…Manon… He.. Oh god, oh god…”

With a metallic clang, the pan connected with the back of Rody’s head, knocking him out. 

This was not how things were supposed to go. He was supposed to cook and prepare Manon as a meal for him! He was supposed to show him the love that he had put into it! But that fiery bastard had to ruin it for both of them. Had to ruin everything they could’ve had…

Vincent’s hand traced Rody’s jawline, admiring the gorgeous features he had. So beautiful… so perfect… he felt he could almost devour him on the spot. 

If he couldn’t have him, nobody would.

Ropes.

Vincent tied Rody up all pretty on the floor. He would see where this goes, watch him struggle and beg him for mercy. God it was going to be fun. 

Too bad he never got to eat that dish he planned to prepare for him though. Perhaps he would make it and force him to eat it, make his last dish be one that he put so much of himself into. The thought brought a flutter to his heart.

Taking the freshly grinded arm out of the freezer, he prepared what would soon be Rody’s last bites, practically gushing in excitement over what Rody would think. 

The critics told him to cook with love, so he cooked something that Rody loved. Manon.  

As he finished up the dish, he neatly prepared it to appear as a grilled hanger steak and then went into his office for a drink that he desperately needed. 

 He took a swig out of a bottle of wine, the liquid flowing down his throat, flavorless as everything else he consumed was. It was like water to him.  

But as he finished the bottle and drunkenly dropped it on the floor, corkscrew still in his hand, he heard shuffling footsteps from outside.

Rody. He had escaped and was staring at the ‘steak’ Vincent put on the table.

As Rody heard the click of the door, his red locks bounced as he whipped his head around to face his boss, a look of pure terror in his eyes. 

“Hey, maybe we can talk about this-” 

Vincent slowly approached him. A mix of emotions bubbled in him. Anger. Fear. Desire. Love. Or at least, what he thought was love. He bit his lip, looking at Rody like he was a starving dog. 

“-wait! d-DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!” Rody gasped as Vincent pounced at him, preparing to stab him in the neck with the corkscrew. As he struggled against him, he managed to push the manic ravenette off of him, but not without harm.

A crunch was heard.

Vincent had bitten his ear off, the flesh still warm in his mouth as he swallowed as a scream echoed through the building.

“You- You-” Rody stammered, bringing a hand up to the place his ear used to be, struggling to find his words. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO YOU, HOW COULD YOU EVER THINK OF- MAKING FOOD OUT OF-” His eyes widened even further as a thought crossed his mind. “Is everything you cook…?” Vincent almost threw up at that thought. How dare he accuse him of something like that?

“Do you even hear yourself?”  He scowls, gripping the corkscrew tightly. “No, that’s disgusting. I would never serve anything like that in my kitchen.”

“B-but- But then- then why?? Why did you do it?  What reason would you have to- to butcher her like that?”

Vincent laughed. 

“Well, I wasn’t planning on being the one to eat it-” He was cut off by Rody’s shock.

“-Wh… Who the hell was going to eat it then?? What did she ever do to you, WHY DID YOU KILL HER?”

“Because you- YOU were supposed to enjoy it!” He yelled, pointing the screw at him. It was all for him. All for him and he didn’t even touch it. “The dish was meant to be for you! But you refused to eat it and now you’ve gone ahead and wasted it-” He grumbles, drunken  anger flashing through his mind. 

Rody looked at him like he was crazy. Maybe he was.

“Besides.. You never told me your favorite food!” He cackles again, a sadistic grin spreading across his face. As Vincent was about to lunge at him again, Rody suddenly seemed to remember what else he had done.

“ Why me?? My ear! You- you ate my ear!”

 He rolled his eyes at that and scoffed.

“Well, don’t flatter yourself , it probably would’ve been better cooked.”

“So you do eat people?” The waiter accused, a feeling of uneasiness creeping back again. Vincent practically fumed.

“No. I can't stand eating,” he snarled, the bitter reminder of his lack of taste coming back once again, “no matter the ingredient, no matter the recipe, everything tastes the exact same. ” He took a few steps closer toward Rody. “It tastes like nothing, it makes me sick. ” 

They shared a look for a second, before Vincent took another step forward, his hand reaching out to almost touch Rody. A pang of desperation filled him. Cook with love. If Rody wasn’t going to eat what he cooked, he would prepare a dish for himself. Something that he loved.

“But… with you… maybe..” Vincent glanced down at the corkscrew in his hand once more, and back towards Rody, before lunging out again to try and grasp him, failing once more. If only he hadn’t dranken before this. 

“Did you even care about her??” Rody yells, shoving him off of him and into the wall. Vincent shook his head as he gasped for air. “So it was just some sick game to you?? You didn’t even love her-”

“-But you did.” He manages to say, watching the man’s face fall  in front of him as his lifted into a smirk. “You cared so deeply about her… And she didn’t even mention you.” He chuckles, slowly getting up from the ground, one hand steadying himself on the wall. “You loved her- probably still love her- with little to no possibility of her loving you back. I was inspired.”

“Don’t say that, don’t-” Rody was frozen in place. 

“I’ve been told I don’t cook with love. A meaningless and sentimental review. But I’m a professional chef, not a parent making a meal for their child.” He creeps forward towards Rody once again. “But I think I understood what they meant when you walked in.”

Because I love you…

He almost muttered those words. 

Before he could jump at him again, Rody made a dash for his office, searching for something, anything , to help him get out. As Vincent banged on the door, shouting cusses and demanding to be let in, he felt himself slam to the floor as he shoved the door open, the broken wine glass he had dropped earlier now in the hands of the man that he loved. 

Oh how the tables had turned.

Vincent let out a sharp gasp as he felt the cold glass impale into his neck.

“...ah-”

Another stab.

“Hh-...Hhhah-”
And another.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH-”

And another. 

Before him, Vincent laid in a pool of his own blood on the ground, Rody’s disoriented chuckles filling his ears as his vision blurred. 

If he was going to die, then perhaps this was the best way to go out. On the floor of the place he had spent his entire life working towards, dying by the hand of the man he desired more than he had any woman. His eyes trailed to follow Rody as he went into the freezer and came back out, pouring a substance all over the ground. The beautiful click of a match igniting was heard as Rody dropped it to the ground, fire taking his body finally.

The last thing Vincent Charbonneau saw was the flames. Radiant, passionate, warm, and beautiful. Much like the man that had consumed his thoughts the last week of his life.

Oh how different things could’ve been, he thought, as the embers consumed him- much like he would’ve consumed his ember. If Vincent had never acted on his feelings, never killed Manon, and never gone after Rody, would they have lived a life together side by side? He’d never know. But at least he got to die thinking of him, knowing that it was likely Rody would remember him forever, that the one he felt so strongly about would never forget him- for better or for worse.

He had flown too close to the sun, and now he had to burn.