Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: I've written this, and you're going to read it, and you're going to pretend it's meaningful and give me lots of glowing reviews about my godlike grasp of emotional subtleties and minimalist description. Why are you going to do this? Because it's the middle of my finals week and I am absolutely sure I'm going to fail at least one of them, so cheer me up. Goddammit.

"The future is an inherently good thing."

- Spider Jerusalem,Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis

The moon was an eye, his mother had told him. When the gods had murdered sleeping Ymir in his dreams and fashioned a world from his corpse they had set his eyes in the heavens, the sighted one by day and the blinded one by night. So the night was safe, she had whispered while he clutched her, wide-eyed. The night was safe, because the monsters were blinded and couldn't see. All a little boy had to do was draw the covers over his head and they would never find him.

But that was in a different country, and the monsters had found him anyway.

The door swung open and he tensed. Leather and oil, tobacco and dynamite: the pilot. The older man (younger? but decades ago had been just the other day) didn't see him and strode instead to the balcony's far end, fumbling in his breast pocket. A white box appeared in his fingers and the pilot cursed, slapping futilely where his lighter should be.

"Fuckin' ninja brat." An ancient engine roaring to life. Restless eyes scanned the balcony and saw a hint of stained crimson in the blanketing shadows.

"Hey! You got a light?" Vincent said nothing. Cid grumbled to himself and turned to go inside.

"Wait."

He did have a lighter, tucked away in one of his pockets: why, he wasn't exactly sure. He had smoked, most Turks did, joking grimly about lung cancer and retiring to live off old man Shinra before the job took them. His lighter had been in his suit pocket that day, and he wasn't sure what had happened to it after the bullets; this one was unfamiliar

For a moment he let himself entertain the notion that she had slipped it into his new leather skin, an offering to the dead or in the hope that it would remind him he had once been human, and loved.

He realized he had been standing holding out the lighter in the darkness for too long now and the pilot was looking at him quizzically, wavering towards the warmth and light inside. Another step forward and he offered the lighter again. Cid took it and lit up, exhaling almost angrily.

"Thanks." And then: "Want one?"

It was an unfamiliar brand, cellophane bright in the moonlight. "They will kill you," he said, taking one – he couldn't say why – except there was something real about the act, and he'd lost track of solid ground.

Cid snorted. "What about you?"

"I am already dead." He lit up calmly, remembering the trick of it. "Therefore it is only logical that you give me all your cigarettes."

The pilot just looked at him for a second before barking with laughter and slapping him on the back, between the shoulderblades. He flinched away from the solidity of the blow and the searing warmth of breathing flesh.

"Fuckin' weirdo." There was no venom there. "The hell you doin' out here, anyway?"

"Staring down Ymir," he said absently, and blinked. The pilot gave him another long, calculating look and turned back to the desert nightscape.

"What the fuck were you doing in that coffin, anyway?" Vincent's cigarette dangled from his fingers, ash piling on the end. "No one fuckin' tells me anything around here, you know? 'Cept the ninja, and I'm too goddamn old t'keep one hand on my wallet when I'm trying to have a civilized fuckin' conversation."

Vincent felt a smile under his skin and sucked in acrid smoke to chase it off. "Does it matter?"

"Depends. You plannin' on sucking anyone's blood?"

"Vampires are not real."

Cid ground his teeth and rested an elbow on the rail. "Lots of things weren't fuckin' real until a few weeks ago. Goddamn vampire'd be the cherry, I figure."

Beyond the balcony, something hooted and howled in the wilderness. The moment stretched, strained, and broke; Cid's cigarette had burned down to the butt and he absently lit a new one with the last flare of its dying embers.

"None of my business anyway."

"There are some things… I regret." Vincent spoke suddenly, the ash dangling off his cigarette and floating to the moonlit sand below. It shimmered like an ocean under the cataract-moon, frozen in time and stirred by feeble wind.

"So do I." Cid's face was still and cool. "It's a sign you've fuckin' lived."

"What do you regret, Cid?" It was supposed to be quiet and penetrating: it came out with a trace of anger and an edge of ragged grief, a declaration and a challenge as he forced himself to stare into Cid's eyes. The sand below them shifted as the wind whistled softly at the edge of the light. For a moment anger flared bright and hot between them.

Vincent made himself turn back to the desert, anticipating cursing, heavy boots stomping back into the light and noise seeping from inside.

"I regret ever thinkin' tie-dye bellbottoms were fashion fuckin' forward. But tomorrow's another goddamned day, right?" Cid cracked a ragged grin, eyes altogether tooaware when Vincent turned, startled.

"Hope?" Heavy as bullet-lead, and just as dull. "Is that what you mean?"

"Fuck else would I mean?"

"Foolish of you."

"Gets me outta bed in the morning." The tip of his cigarette glowed against the night.

"Is it worth it?"

"Worth it…?" The pilot sounded genuinely surprised. "You mean you don't fuckin' know?"

"I know that each day brings renewed knowledge of my failure," the gunman said, and the shadows seemed to tighten around him. "Other than that, I know nothing. What use is hope?"

"Heavy shit, man," and there was such a cutting, acid edge to his voice that Vincent recoiled despite himself. Cid shook his head as if to clear it. "Forget it. I'm half-drunk and gaining, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Whatever gets you through the fuckin' day, you know? Here." He flipped the packet of cigarettes to Vincent, who caught it instinctively. "Keep 'em."

"My thanks."

The door slammed behind him and Vincent lit up another cigarette. It wasn't until the blinded, smirking bone-moon had set and the sun crept over the edges of the world that it occurred to him that the old man had never really answered his question: he still didn't know what the pilot had to regret. Somehow he doubted it was simply bellbottoms.

Then again, it had been a rather personal question.