I've not written in a long time, and the many threads I once held seem to have unravelled as time goes by.
I was listening to 'Never Let you Down' by Lykke Li and Woodkid, and I was inspired to write something short, for my favourite pairing.
Enjoy!
It wasn't a fight he would remember for the sweetness of the victory. Nor was it of note for a display of wondrous marksmanship, or swordplay. He would remember it always as a turning point; A change, a catalyst for something much greater.
Their exact location unknown, some miles away from Rocket Town in dense forest, the ground underfoot slick from the persistent rainfall some three days long. They were cold and wet, downtrodden and exhausted; collective in their misery though not united.
Cloud had been silent for much of this leg of the journey, and his introspection induced tempers to surface from the likes of Barrett, who it seemed was not a lover of overlong blackouts of communication.
Vincent, for one, was with Barrett. The group's morale was at an all-time low. Cloud wasn't telling them something alright, and aimlessly trudging through rain for what felt like an age seemed a pointless crusade, without that something to complete the picture and compel them on.
Camp was an equally miserable affair, tents pitched in near silence, reluctant fires coaxed to life by an impatient Yuffie plus fire Materia.
A stern word in Cloud's ear compelled him to disclose their destination; north, to the sleeping forest. To reach it, they first needed to travel some miles on foot to the Northern most point of the continent, in order to seek passage aboard a vessel.
How exactly he came to know this as Aries's location, they didn't know. Vincent had been observing their troubled leader along their journey, between scouting duties. It were as if he was following something, or someone, unseen by all but him.
The marksman didn't like it.
The rain didn't let up for the next two days.
Encountering monsters was gradually becoming more problematic as they trudged toward the coast, not only because the encounters seemed to be gradually increasing in frequency, but because the terrible conditions were also compounding their struggles; Joints ached, lungs racked with coughing, brought forth by the damp and the cold. Concentration dipped, and exhaustion hampered stamina and the ability to perform magic.
On top of it all, supplies were becoming troublingly low, Vincent observed.
The gunslinger trudged ahead of the main group for about half a mile, before doubling back and following at a distance, to limit dangers chanced upon from ahead, and also from behind. His path was circuitous, ruby eyes wide and wary, hearing troubled by the relentless rain drops falling onto the tree canopy overhead.
"You must be exhausted," Tifa had intoned to him once, trudging ahead with him on one of his scouting sojourns. "You've walked as least twice as far as I have."
"It is vital we remain vigilant," He responded, gaze darting from side to side, not daring to relax for even a moment. "I'm not certain, but I feel as though we are being watched."
"Who'd be following us in this rain?" she was attempting to be light-hearted, though he sensed her go rigid beside him.
"Not sure. It's just a feeling. But I've learned to trust my feelings." Neither said anything for a short while, Vincent becoming aware that he might have given her cause for concern, when her mind was already troubled with Aries' recent disappearance and the effect that was having on Cloud.
"I apologise, Tifa…" He stopped walking, though it took her a few steps before she realised, and came to a halt. "I did not wish to burden you with my paranoia."
"Once a Turk…right?"
He felt something akin to a smile skew his lips upward. "Right, exactly."
"I hope you're not smiling, Mr Valentine? This weather does not warrant amusement, surely?" She did that thing that he noticed she did when she was teasing people; tilt her head to one side, interlace her fingers together and gain a sudden sparkle in her warm amber eyes. Only she'd never looked at him this way before.
"Apologies, it won't happen again."
"On the contrary, I'd love to see it more often."
He resumed his onward march, ignorant to the sudden buoyancy in his step, whilst Tifa lingered to re-join the main group.
In some ways, he had been right. Something had been following them.
Surely it must have been considered an impossibility that the weather could worsen, but worsen it did. A northerly wind bringing warm air from the south brought storms, gales, and a battering downpour that drove the party to seek shelter in a dense patch of undergrowth.
Misery paramount.
There was no let up. Shelter much more adequate must be found, lest they rot or drown or worse in this – what did Cid call it again? Ah- 'shithole situation'.
The terrain had driven them several miles westward of where they needed to be. Correcting their course could prove fruitless, should they encounter no true shelter soon.
A Behemoth was a tough fight at the best of times, and for one to show up now, in their darkest moment for a long while, was nothing short of – another Cid-ism coming up – Fucking Ironic.
The battle could be in no way described as organised. Frantic scattering ensued, struggling boots fighting to gain purchase on the muddy terrain, to avoid tripping roots and rivulets of rainfall.
"Regroup! There's a clearing up ahead!" Vincent shouted, limbs frightened into activity by the sudden arrival of their latest nemesis.
Bullets flew – Barrett presumably – though sparingly, what with so little certainty around the position of friend or foe in the forest.
Vincent burst into the clearing, heart racing and gun drawn, shortly joined by Red and Yuffie, the most nubile of their company. He cast a few defence boosting spells with what time he calculated he had until the Behemoth joined them in the clearing.
The creature crashed into view, slowing at the approach to an open space where certainly it perceived the threat that lay in wait. Barrett and the others were attempting to flank it, though from the distant cursing, Vincent perceived them to be some distance behind. Its sudden burst into their camp had caught them unawares. Perhaps it was for the best they had been scattered so.
The rain induced steam to rise from its stormy purple hide, flanks heaving with the low growl of its snarling breath. The sheer bulk and weight of the creature worked to its disadvantage in the loose mud beneath their feet, yet it spread that weight over four legs versus their sets of two (minus Red of course).
"Yuffie, Red. We need to run circles around him. Keep him busy; I'll draw his attention with direct fire." He ordered them into position with low spoken commands, and immediately they complied.
His shots did little but irritate the creature, but that was alright. Yuffie's Shuriken, well-placed, could do some serious harm. He just needed to keep it busy in the meantime. Red's close range attacks were useless, however he was, for lack of a better description, a brightly coloured distraction, dancing in and out of the predator's view.
Vincent silently prayed Yuffie's Shuriken arm had the strength and precision they needed to end this fight and limit the damage, yet he knew that to bring down the Behemoth, more was needed.
Where the hell was Cloud? Had he been in the camp?
Tifa came into view on his right, running as fast as she could to his side, metal knuckles gleaming.
What happened next was a blur, and yet it was as if he watched in slow motion, suspended before the scene and unable to interact with the environment around him.
It was as if the Behemoth saw Tifa and felt she was the sole source of the bullet wounds and shuriken slashes its seemingly impenetrable near-onyx hide had taken. Claws much more adept for gripping even the muddiest of forest floors, it was much more agile than she, rushing forward in a bone-crushing charge that had a shout bursting from his lips, a sound he had never made, even in battle.
He heard her body collide with the solid trunk of an oak some meters away, heard, the creature's howl as Yuffie's shuriken found home buried in it's skull. But too late.
He was the first to her side, his heart in his throat, dropping to his knees in the mud and the blood.
Her lips were cracked beneath his bloodied fingertips, unseeing irises gleaming eerily out of the gloom like thin loops of molten gold, fresh from the furnace. Her mass of ebony, rain soaked hair pooled around her, an oil slick halo, clinging to wet skin and leather and metal.
She wasn't breathing. There was blood everywhere, too much to tell where it issued from. The Behemoth's bulk lay inanimate not a meter away from where she lay.
She couldn't die. Not her. Not here Not now. Not in the cold and the rain and without a Phoenix Down in sight.
Her breastbone made a sharp indentation in his flattened palm, pressed flush to her chest and pumping up and down… up and down…
She had to live. She'd told him why she was doing this, all of this damned pointless journey, come rain or shine. She'd been the main reason this group has stayed together for so long, the soothing balm to fractured tempers and bruised egos.
And, if he'd admit it to himself, the main reason he wanted to see this whole thing through.
Something about his laboured breathing, the monologue he maintained under his breath, urging Tifa to heed his instructions and just breathe, live, come back, compelled the rest of the group to remain stationary and not interfere, though he himself was unaware of it. His existence and purpose narrowed to a singularity, a point somewhere just beneath his palms taking the form of a lifeless lump of muscle and flesh, compelled by every fibre in his being to beat once more.
Her mouth was uncompliant, barely warm beneath his. She tasted of iron, and cold hard rain. If there was any magic on his possession that he could compel to aid his kiss of life, he wished it would imbue her with precious air.
If you had the chance, would you? He remembered her question from many months ago, rather abruptly, bolting upright, struck by sudden clarity.
To die for the one you love? Absolutely.
He knew it was an oxymoron. Just the willingness in itself to give up in order to attain something, a pure act of selflessness… Or was it?
Surely that sacrifice isn't needed to demonstrate that love?
I'm not sure I follow.
Surely there isn't such a shortage of kindness in the world that it takes someone's death to prove something existed in the first place.
He remembered looking at her then, so young and naïve in his eyes, and yet, in this moment, soaked to the skin, the taste of her blood in his mouth, her cold and broken body beneath him, he realised she had been wrong. Sometimes it did take someone's death to make you realise what they actually meant to you.
"I don't want to be alone," He lifts her form into his arms, the added weight driving his bloodsoaked knees ever deeper into the mud. The world wasn't kind, he knew that, and was ever less so for her sudden departure from it. Suddenly, she was his reason for living and her death, was the price. "Please, don't leave me."
Gaia, not like this.
A shudder, a rattle, and a broken, blood-hindered inhale. Fractured ribs that fought to rise loosened his arms around her body. Death-cold fingers scrabbled against his chest, finding purchase at the apex of his shoulder blades. He holds her tight to his body, enveloping her with his cloak. Her face is buried in his neck, and they are silent for a time, the rain pattering against leaves.
She tries to speak, crimson stained lips parting. He thinks he sees a smile.
"So it took me dying to finally get close to you, huh?"
He smiles, doesn't care that by now all the members of their party had found them and were quickly realising the gravity of what had almost just happened.
He rose, hooking arms beneath her knees and around her shoulders. She was alive, but barely. Cloud stepped forward, as if to take her from him, but then seemed to take pause. As if he too felt that his arms were unworthy to bear her.
"We must reach the village. If Tifa doesn't get help soon, she could die." He tried his best not to sound angry with Cloud for the situation they found themselves in. "Chaos can bear us North, and we will meet you there."
The mercenary nodded once, seeing no alternative to their predicament, mako eyes fixed firmly on the blood-soaked dirt.
Vincent turned on his heel and bore his ward a little further up the incline, to find the best place to transform and take flight.
"I'm sorry there's no other way." He felt his face colour, as he gently set her down on the ground, leaning against a partially reclined willow trunk. He removed his cape first, shaking it off excess rain before laying it across her form for whatever warmth it could offer. His shirt would likely tear during the transformation, so he figured removing it would be the best course of action. He turned away from her to do this, more to shield her from his embarrassment at this situation.
Form her vantage point on the ground, enveloped in the crimson swathes of his cape, she watches as black cotton gave way to rain-soaked skin, a pale patchwork of scars over firm shoulder muscle.
Then, he is still for a moment. Transforming mid-battle is a near instantaneous process ignited by the heat of the moment, the adrenaline, and pain. In the vacuum that the recent events had left however, he is fighting to find the thread of adrenaline that can take him to his destination. His shoulder muscles tense as he fights for concentration.
"Vincent, come here."
Her instruction snags on his attention – she would never normally make such a direct order. He turns and crouches by her side, concerned that she might not make the journey safely, that he is already too late. "Is something wrong?"
Tifa smiles softly, raising trembling fingertips to pluck at the strands of ebony hair that tumble about his face. "Just as I thought."
"Hm?"
"You're handsome. I knew there might be a looker under that cape."
He blinks down at her, speechless. "We have to reach the village, Tifa, you need medicine."
"Can you transform?" in spite of her smiles, her face is dangerously pale from the blood loss, and the cold.
"I think so. I need to channel some adrenaline. My mind is too unfocussed." He dips his forehead, screwing his eyes shut.
"Let me help." Leather-wrapped hands slide behind his neck, and before he knows what he happening, she has pulled him closer. Taken off balance, he catches himself with one hand braced against the tree trunk, knelt over her body, his face above hers. He is close enough to see the raindrops trembling on her eyelashes, the delicate dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. There are scrapes and cuts along her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.
"Concentrate." She whispered.
Her instruction was needless, as in that moment he could think of nothing else but her. How close he had come to losing her, how fragile her form felt in his arms. How if they didn't make it to the village in time…
He couldn't consider that option.
As heat radiated from the centre of his chest, and as the familiar agony of his body changing form began, he thought only of her. As his vision erupts in golden stars, he says, "Hold on."
It wasn't a day that he would remember for the sweetness of the victory, or the bitterness of the defeat. Nor was it of note for a display of wondrous marksmanship, or swordplay. He would remember it always as a turning point; A change, a catalyst for something much greater.
-0-
I think there is a chapter 2 here… how exciting!