Disclaimer—Don't own em.

Written because Mako Headrush is too slow on True North, and I actually took time out of my Cloud/Reno multi-chapter to do this. So blame her.

Falling

I can't stop myself from callin'
Callin' out your name
I can't stop myself from fallin'
Fallin' back again
In the mornin'
Baby in the afternoon—Norah Jones, In the Mornin'

"I don't suppose any of you have a cold pack?" Once again Vincent had magically appeared as if out of thin air. This time, he managed to do so while hopping painfully around a rapidly swelling left ankle. His hair was twisted into a long wet rope down his back, and he cast an accusing eye out the bar window at the pouring rain. "I slipped."

Rude watched as Reno pulled one out of his work bag and handed it over. His partner had a terrifying assortment of first aid supplies on him at any given time. He had learned not to ask. "You don't heal extra fast like Cloud does? He doesn't even catch cold; it's annoying, yo." Gods forbid, Reno ever recognize a personal boundary. Vincent, though intensely private, never seemed to take offense however.

"After a fashion. This will be gone in a day or so rather than a week. That day will be vastly unpleasant without ice, however. Thank you." Tifa brought over a towel to secure the chemical pack to his ankle and he turned his attention to his hair. "One of these days I'm moving to the desert."

"Or the beach." Rude helpfully provided. "Here, elevate that. I'll get you a drink." Returning, he cast a concerned eye downward. "Are you sure that isn't broken?"

"Not really, no, but I'm not hopping back to the hospital to check, not tonight."

"How did you slip? I've never seen you do anything but land like a cat."

"Reno…" Rude was getting impatient.

Vincent smiled. Well, what passed for a smile. It was more a lightening of the eyes and a tiny tucking back of the mouth. "If you must know, it's the first time I've worn regular shoes in the rain. There is obviously more of a learning curve than I was led to believe. Satisfied, Reno?"

Suddenly, uncharacteristically awkward, he went off to the bar to pester Tifa, leaving Vincent and Rude alone. "He doesn't bother me that much, you know. He just doesn't have a lot of patience with social niceties. We at least have that in common. I don't know how they work, any more than I do shoes."

Rude allowed himself to laugh, then, although quietly. "Seriously? That's what happened?"

"Rude. I was a skinny nerdy kid when I was shot, experimented on, and put in a mako tank, then spent decades in a coffin, after which my choice in footwear was more tactical than fashionable, to say the least. These…" He held up his good foot, sheathed in a slim motorcycle boot of low gloss black leather, "are rather a different profile. I am in considerable pain and have little or no personal dignity at the moment, having just taken a slider in a rain puddle. And my wine glass is empty," he added for an extra touch of pathos.

Rude got up, adjusted the cold pack, and refilled their drinks. "What do you want to do tonight?" Their friendship had warmed considerably in recent weeks, to the point where Reno had been teasing him about the amount of time he spent with the ex-Turk.

Rude didn't mind; it gave Reno something to do. Taking a swig of his own liquid courage, he gently laid his hand across Vincent's leg just above the sprain. He noticed the gesture was not rejected. Instead, he was rewarded with a little one-sided quirk of the lips and a further softening around the eyes.

"How do you feel about The Loft? They have sofas, I could prop this up." The loft also had private nooks and cabanas, though the outdoor ones wouldn't be of much use in this weather.

"I'll call ahead."

Rude pulled his car around so that Vincent wouldn't have to walk as far. Tifa loaned him a cane—AVALANCHE was nearly as well stocked as the Turks on first aid supplies. On the way to the wine bar, Vincent tried unsuccessfully to un-knot his hair.

"I wish I could loan you a comb. I don't appear to have one."

"Funny, Rude."

"I try. I'll drop you off at the door." Thank Gaia the man had dispensed with the cloak as well as the metal boots; it would have been a disaster with a cane, Rude thought, as he watched him gently make his way inside. He soon joined him in a sofa nook, lit only by a soft lamp. There were already two bottles of wine on the table.

"Parked the car at the condo and walked since it's next door. All the parking on the street was farther away than that. I'll come back and get you if you don't want to walk that far."

"Good thinking. I think I can make it next door to my own home." Vincent's smile was warm, knowing. Rude drank his wine in silence until the waitress came by with a cheese tray. They sat perhaps a little closer than necessary, emboldened by alcohol and privacy. Rude stroked through the tangled hair and worked out the knots until he heard a soft moan. "Rude…that feels very nice. But I'm not sure doing it here is a wise idea."

"No?" He refilled their glasses.

"It feels very nice."

"Ah. Sorry. It's just that you seemed to be having trouble with it in the car."

"Don't apologize. Just perhaps, wait until we get back." That sounded promising, Rude thought.

"So it would be really unwise to do anything else?" His voice had turned rough.

"Unwise. Not, necessarily, unwelcome."

Rude's thumb slipped across from Vincent's hair, where it still lingered, and traced across the hollow of his throat and the tip of his collarbone. "This?"

Vincent switched the wine glass from his claw hand to his flesh one, which had begun to tremble. "I ah…broke a few of Tifa's wine glasses with my gauntlet once. I was distracted at the time. She was quite angry."

"What distracted you?" He began to stroke his neck and throat, stopping to sip his own drink. He was starting to get a little distracted, himself, and was relieved to see they were nearly done with the wine.

"You. Cloud still harasses me about it. Like he has room to talk. He and Reno are like teenagers. But I was a mess then, still full of angst and self punishment. Not that I'm far from it now, but...I doubt you would have been interested."

Rude remembered the sad, haunting beauty of the gunman well. "Don't be so sure." Of course, it was much better to have him writhing on the sofa of an upscale wine bar, the sheer curtains pulled for privacy, his head thrown back and throat exposed as if begging for a kiss, long sexy legs exposed in skinny jeans that went all the way down to leather biker boots.

Boots. Yes. Vincent had a sprained ankle. That was how they had ended up here, in the first place. Rude paused a quarter inch from the side of Vincent's arched throat, the two of them a tableau from some cheap vampire melodrama.

They really needed to get home. This was getting out of hand.

"Blast. Maybe you should have gotten the car, Rude." The condo had seemed much closer on the recent consumption of an entire bottle of wine, with his lust raging in his ears. Of course, prancing down the street in brand new boots in a driving rainstorm had seemed like a grand idea four hours ago, too. Look hot, Vincent! Live a little, Vincent! Get laid, Vincent! He'd get the hang of real life, eventually.

If it didn't kill him.

Tifa's cane was too short, too flimsy. She was no midget but she wasn't a six foot tall man either. "Put your arm around me." All right, now that sounded like a tasty idea. Rude was all warmth and muscle, and smelled nice. Old fashioned soap, not that fruity body wash everyone seemed to be using these days, and a little sweaty smell, not bad, what a man should smell like at the end of the day. "All right, we're here. Just through the door, now, and into the elevator."

Hmm. They could do it in the elevator. If he had two good ankles to stand on. Maybe Rude could hold him up. His arm was still around Rude's neck and he pulled him down into a kiss. Rude almost dropped him in surprise.

"Sorry."

"No, it's my fault. Life in general seems to have it out for me, the last sixty years." Which seemed suddenly absurd, and funny. So he laughed. He felt out of practice, like with the boots, but it hurt less. Rude looked at him like he was crazy, but when the elevator doors opened, he picked him up like he was a girl, and carried him down the hall.

He didn't really mind.

"I'm putting you down to open the door. Can you stay out of trouble?"

Vincent tried to look repentant; he didn't remember it being this difficult. He tried to remember what it was like when he made a lifetime atoning for his sins. Now he couldn't even look guilty for kissing Rude. Then again, he didn't really feel guilty, this time, either. Rude stopped in the process of opening the door, as if suddenly coming to some kind of agreement within himself, and gathered him up in a searing kiss that he felt down to his wrecked ankle. And then they were both pressed against the door, Rude because he was still trying to open it and Vincent because he was still holding on to Rude and it was warm, sticky, wine-drunk bliss.

This was more like it.

"Inside." Rude's voice had that nice, rough sound to it again.

"Gods, yes."

"I mean, inside the door."

"….Oh." He stood on one foot while Rude got the door open, and wondered if he were drunk or if the lust was just catching up to him. And Rude was all the things he loved and missed about being with another man—the hard responsive mouth, deep voice, clean bitter smell of sweat, flat planes of muscle beneath his hands, a shared hardness…oh yes, he had felt that, against the door. Wanted to pull it deep inside him, missed it with a hunger that was more than he had ever felt for food, for anything.

He hopped in after him, heading straight for the bedroom and nearly weeping with gratitude when Rude came behind him to lift him in his arms again. This ankle thing was getting old, and fast.

He didn't want to make Vincent feel like a cripple but he was tired of waiting on the man to hop all the way to the bedroom. So he just picked him up and carried him.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome." He deposited him on the bed and began to undress. When he was done, he noticed Vincent had only gotten as far as his shirt and one boot.

"Get the bad one, please."

"It's going to hurt."

"I know. That's why I want you to do it." As gently as he could, Rude stretched the leather around the swollen ankle. But in the end there was no getting around it, he bent the foot at an angle and swiftly pulled the boot off.

"Motherfucking pissbucket!" Vincent generally kept his profanity to a minimum, but there were special occasions, after all. Rude continued with the removal of his jeans, gingerly slipping them over the foot he had just abused. "This is just not how I imagined this going."

"And what did you imagine, hmmm…" The sight of Vincent, naked on the bed, even in near total darkness, was irresistible. He lay over him, touching and caressing whatever he could reach and taking up the kiss where he had left off at the door.

"This," Touch. Caress. Stroke. "Minus." Kiss. Lick. Bite. "Pain." Laugh. "Wait, while we still can think half straight." Vincent scooted over to the nightstand and handed a bottle to Rude. "My mental capacities are degenerating rapidly, I fear." An entire bottle of wine, plus whatever he had guzzled at Tifa's, wasn't helping matters.

"Vincent…do you…" Vincent answered in actions, rather than words, pulling Rude back on top of him and fastening his hand around his shaft, pulling him down between those impossibly long legs that he had been watching all night.

Rude got the hint. But hot naked flesh against his was doing things to his brain too. He took a moment while he still could and raised his head. Vincent's hair, still messier than he would ever allow anyone to see if he had any idea, was wild around him, like an animal pelt. His eyes nearly glowed with hunger and his lips were damp and swollen from kissing. He looked…primitive.

Rude ran his hand down his neck and chest, following with his lips where he could reach, reeling in the sense of hot skin and tensing muscle beneath. He let his hand continue down to the slim waist, hips, across to the hardness between them.

Vincent arched off the bed, eyes shut tight in passion now. "No…"

"Too close?"

"Gods." It sounded suspiciously like a gasp. "You have no idea." Rude kissed him then, reaching down between his legs and easing one finger up into him. Feeling Vincent relax into him, it was soon joined by another until he moaned with impatience.

His hands were shaking as he prepared himself, both with need and, he hated to admit it, with nerves. He had wanted Vincent since he could remember. Until their recent friendship, he had been forced to content himself with wanting the man from afar; recently, however, the sexual tension had driven him near mad. But now, they were here, in each other's arms.

Rude, gently, very slowly, entered Vincent, stroking his beautiful body, his slender white thighs. And very nearly losing his control when he looked up and saw that the face, once turned to the side in passion, was now turned to him and looking at him head on. "Rude," he whispered. He pistoned his hips, withdrew a bit and thrust slowly back into him, never breaking eye contact.

And again. It felt perfect, he had never been gripped like this, never stroked like this. He gave up any hope of lasting longer; he needed to touch Vincent, needed to bring him to his peak. He stroked him slowly at first, then harder as his own pleasure overtook him and he groaned in his release, coming inside Vincent with a warm rush. The slight change in tempo was all his lover needed as Vincent thrust up into his hand once, then again, and cried out, coating them both before arching off the bed again. Rude caught him up to his chest and held him, tight. Felt him gasp for breath. Felt him hold tight in return.

Vincent wondered what it felt like to drown. He was pretty sure he had getting shot down pat, and that was unpleasant as hell. But half lying, half sitting, Rude still deep inside him with his strong arms holding him up…

He was drowning, only in something wonderful. He turned his head and let Rude kiss him, then winced a little as he pulled out of him and lay down on the bed.

"Don't get up, I'll bring you a towel."

"Mmmm…" A bath sounds nice.

"Any way I can talk you into pouring us a bath?"

"Us? How big is your tub?" He realized belatedly that Rude had never been in the master bath suite. He'd be pretty impressed with the giant shower, too. Can't wait to try that out with him.

I want this again.

"Big." He used the time to hop in the kitchen and make himself another ice pack, and then back into the bathroom. It was exhausting.

"I'd have gotten that for you."

"Good, get the wine. I'll finish with the tub. Oh gods, my hair! Did it look like this at The Loft?"

"No, we messed it up a little just now, I think." Rude kissed him again. Rude was a nice kisser. But he was upset about the hair.

"Pass me the conditioner."

"No. I'll comb it out for you in the bath when I get back. Settle down, princess."

Princess? Oh, Rude would pay for that. He turned off the faucets and slipped into the tub, keeping his bad ankle out on the edge and letting the hot water ease out the aches from a day's worth of hopping and a night's enthusiastic sex.

Sex. With Rude. He'd just had sex with Rude. And it had been…awesome. A meal seasoned by hunger, perhaps, but still a fine treat. Rude returned with two large glasses of wine balanced in one hand and a bottle of conditioner in the other. He got in the tub and began to comb out Vincent's hair, one tangle at a time, rubbing the conditioner through it with his large, soft hands.

"Gods, this is erotic." He drank some wine and leaned back into Rude's touch. When he was done, he sat up and put the ice pack back on Vincent's ankle and raised his own glass. Suddenly he started laughing. "What?"

"This. Us. It's just…I don't know. I should have expected it, I suppose. Put down your glass so I can rinse you off."

He liked the sound of that. Rude poured handfuls of water over his hair and worked out the conditioner, bit by bit, until he was a puddle of goo under his hands. If he hadn't been so exhausted, he'd have been ready for another round. As it was, he reached for his wine glass and curled into Rude's body with a contented sigh.

"Vin. Next time, just try not to have any broken bones, or household emergencies, or anything, all right? Or at least not traction or a ventilator. I think I can work with just about anything short of a body cast."

"Next time?" He hated the needy way he sounded. But he wanted to know. It wasn't like he was an expert on functional long term relationships.

"Next time. Did you think this was all I wanted from you?" He could feel Rude's fingers pushing back his wet hair, soft from the conditioner, and he was starting to feel a little steamy from more than just the bath water.

"Rude. I'm high maintenance. Moody. A snob in the kitchen, and probably anywhere else. I'm not sure who I am yet on a lot of fronts. I'm a blanket hog. I obviously have issues with gravity. I'm likely to make impulse purchases. I have problems with phones. I don't like pets. I—"

"We'll work around it." Rude shut him up with a kiss, and carried him back to bed for the second time that night.