Author's notes: This story was supposed to end with the first installment but it grew to be a very short multichaptered story. I think that if I'd written Contact with the Tifa that I use now, it probably would've sounded something a little more like this. I can't complain about the results though.

This story exists because darknightdestiny poked me to write it. So I dedicate it to her in all of her awesome-ness.

This is for Dark. Everyone else, enjoy.

"Desire is the very essence of man."

Benedict de Spinoza

Asphyxiation

It started with a kiss when we'd both been drinking. You were this ethereal presence in my life before that, coming and going between towns. The jaded part of me told me that I was cheaper and more practical than an inn. The younger diehard hopeful part of me – the one that willed me to look at Sephiroth without flinching and throw my first punch - told me that some part of you wanted to be here; wanted to be amongst people that you knew, even if sometimes it was only me on my lonesome. Me and the children.

I never asked you if you had any family, Vincent. Brothers and sisters, maybe. I think that you would've made a good older brother.

Years don't matter very much to people like us, do they, Vincent? No, I don't think that it's pretentious to say 'us'. You, Cloud and I, we're the ones the one who really lost in all of this, aren't we? Barret's lose was an old one and Yuffie was too young to understand hers. Even then, theirs weren't as … personal, were they? Barret lost a wife to the Shinra but gained a daughter and Myrna's death was incidental. Yuffie didn't lose anything more than all of her other countrymen. Ours were more… intimate. We are the project, Vincent. It burnt down my home and murdered what was left of my family, stole your life from you, and turned Cloud into an echo of someone that he hadn't wanted to forget.

I reached out to him because – because – because a sixteen year old me had loved that boy and when you have nothing else you hold onto things like that. I loved him – and I still love him – but Aeris was the first to teach me that love happens in a thousand different colours. Cloud and I, we're attached like two beats of pulse … but that doesn't mean that we'll ever need to be together that way, the way that people expect us to be. It took me years to understand that, Vincent. Years.

But years don't matter very much to people like us.

We'd been sitting on the floor with our backs against the sofa, something silly that I hadn't done in ages. That red cloak of yours was strewn all around you, like some bit of cloth that had fallen off of a seamstress's table. We'd been drinking red wine, some biting vintage, and I'd been talking to you. You, you'd been listening in that all-encompassing way you have, making me feel like I was being devoured whole. Oh, if I didn't know you, Vincent Valentine, I'd assume what most people do about you. If I didn't know your tiny secrets – that you love a good pasta, swear when you cut your fingers accidentally, and spend as much time watching the stars as anyone else – maybe then I'd make the same mistakes that everybody does. But I never could, Vincent. Not after what we've been through.

I laughed at something - hopefully not my own joke - but red wine always goes to my head. I lurched a bit too far forward and you, frighteningly attentive reflexes that you have, caught me. Hands right on my shoulders, that claw of yours grasping just a bit more lightly. Always so careful, Vincent Valentine.

I caught your eye and kissed you then, all brilliant irises and steady hands.

I feel it Vincent, like a pulse that keeps me connected to everything else. You're like a thrumming under my skin. You're, you're – you're better than breathing.

You were the one that stopped it, of course. Those hands that had been two inches from pulling me closer went rigid and you pulled away. You were breathless – not afraid but your eyes were wide and I swear that I could feel the pulse in your fingers.

A younger me would've been ashamed or frightened by what I'd done but this older me knows better. So much expression, Vincent … can you feel me under your skin too?

You stood so fast – but it felt slow – and looked down at me still sitting on the floor. I didn't stand in part because I wanted to sit looking up at you.

Unapologetic, Vincent Valentine.

You swallowed and your chest heaved and I watched you try to shake off the touch that had ripped open your skin. Like two murmurs in the same whisper, Vincent. That's what it feels like.

When you turned to leave, I stood because my sensei had taught me to be a fighter. Whatever my life has made of me, I'm still that.

"I'll still be here, Vincent," I said to your back, voice crisp and clear in my empty home. A voice to shake the ground, maybe; or at least attempt to ground you.

You turned your head halfway so that I could see the profile of your face. That and nothing else.

You left after that.

I'm going to teach you that you're still human, Vincent Valentine. It's not some silly project or delusion or pity. It's true and I won't rest until you can see it too.

I can feel you under my skin now and that's not the kind of touch that goes away.