A/N: This is my first foray into fanfiction… in forever. In years. Really, I haven't done this in a while. And it's – apparently – nothing like riding a bike, because even then, at least I know what I'm getting myself into… But, ah, I digress. I based this off of AC and FFVII interactions – I haven't played DoC yet, so I wouldn't know. And I can't write Yuffie for the life of me, and that's why there isn't much of her in this. Just… Vincent's rather self-loathing thoughts. Read and review, plz.
"Who needs love, when there's love and order?
Who needs love, when there's Southern Comfort?"
--Amanda Palmer, 'Leeds United'
"Well?"
Of all the things… he doesn't want to do this. Not this, not now, not with her standing there so expectantly, hands on hips, mouth contorted in the worst kind of painful frown… not now…
Vincent has never been able to lie to beautiful women.
It's a flaw of his – one of so many – but he knows that simply, when it comes down to it, he can't do it. He could not lie to sinful Lucrecia, eyes so wide that he swore they'd break, or Yuffie, the way she said his name (or its mangled versions: Vinnie, Vincy-baby, Vinnie-poo…). And he hates them, hates them the way he loves them – hates them because he loves them, and he swirls away, blood-red smoke and disgust, and then he disappears because he knows that this is all he's good for.
Vincent wasn't bred for love, for entertaining the whims of beautiful women. Chaos claws beneath his skin. He was made for this – the hate. The hate towards himself, deep, tangible, longing; the hate towards everything else, the planet, Midgar, his friends, the smiles, the ignorance, the goddamned uselessness of it all…
Thirty years pining in a coffin and this is what he gets. It was supposed to end with the Meteor. He should've known better that it wouldn't. But Vincent didn't count on this. Lucrecia was a demon sent to torture him and he had accepted that – with anger, with fury so cold the Galian Beast ruffled slightly in surprise– and he had thrown her windswept, preserved body back down to the water and left it there. And he had been done.
But this…but this…
He shifts uncomfortably and wants to take a step back. This, Vincent reassures himself, is going to end poorly.
Sins are unavoidable. Hell is walking inside his chest. Vincent wants to take her by the neck and end it now, before he destroys something else. He feels sick of it all, nauseous and weak to his knees. But he can't lie to her, either. She is killing him with those gray eyes, inch by inch, and he can't deny to her… what she wants to know…
Sometimes he closes his eyes and wishes for death, if only briefly. It would be comforting, if…
"Say something, you big lump, Mr. Tall, Dark and Brooding." She bites down on her lip and attempts annoying – she's too good at it sometimes, even fools him – but he knows that she's trembling, that her knuckles are moon-white at her sides. "Just do it—cut me to the core, but if you give me your King of Silence thing again, 'I only speak in ellipses,' so help me, I will—"
Vincent finally looks at her and hates himself – hates hates hates himself, because for all the love in the world, for all the evil he is, he can't so much as lie to her – he can't even spare her – clearing his throat, fingering Cerberus beneath the red of his cloak.
"What you want, I cannot possibly give."
Yuffie looks like she's ready to respond – something inane, mixing mirthless vulnerability with the borderline insane irreverence – so he cuts her off, knowing that if he doesn't now, she'll be ranting for a week.
"But… But, Yuffie, I…" At least she's silent. Curious enough to listen.
He levels her with a stare. There's too much red about him, he thinks disgustedly. Sin, fire, Hell – this should have been a warning to her…
"I cannot lie..."
She doesn't dare to hope. He can feel her blood on his hands already.
"You must know that I feel the same."