The first time they are alone together, it's past midnight in the camp, and everyone else is asleep. Even the light in Tifa and Aeris' tent has gone to darkness, which means it must be late; usually they can be seen in silhouette by the light of their paraffin lamp, sitting cross-legged knee-to-knee, heads bent in conversation late into the night. It reminds Cid that they are young, young women, almost girls, and he is old. He has become old, waiting for Shinra to return, waiting for space.
He has always been an insomniac, circadian rhythms permanently disrupted by too many all-nighters and a steady diet of tea and nicotine. Except tea is impossible to get out here—good tea, anyway, tea worth drinking—so he is reduced to coffee, bitter coffee by the cupful: in the morning, with lunch, with supper, at night.
Vincent seems to run on even less: silence, and sorrow, and cold. But now he is not so cold as he has often been, intent as he is on his gun. He takes apart the peacemaker, cleans each piece carefully, reassembles it with deftness and skill that Cid can't help but admire.
The first time they talk, it's past midnight on the Bronco, and no one else can sleep either.
"There's water in here," Yuffie shouts.
"Wasn't designed to be a goddamn boat!" Cid shouts back. "Be glad it's not goin' straight to the bottom!"
Yuffie makes a rude noise.
Cid flings himself down, forehead in his hand, exhaling hard. "Do you know," he demands of Vincent, "how hard it is to keep this thing running, half-full of water?"
"About as hard as it is to keep my guns in working order in the damp," Vincent hazards.
Cid is silent for a few minutes, absorbing this. Finally, mollified, he says, "Damn straight."
The first time they touch, it's past midnight in the mountains, and it's by accident.
Aeris is dead. Ever since, Tifa breaks into intermittent tears, then rubs at her eyes and apologizes. Barret is furious, and trying not to be furious. Yuffie's eyes are red, and she kicks at the snow, at loose ends. Red speaks seldom. Cloud speaks even more seldom, and his eyes are a thousand miles away.
Vincent watches Cid light a cigarette, the tiny flame brilliant in the darkness, casting its faint light onto the snow. He watches Cid tighten the scarf around his neck and stamp his feet. Cid catches his eye, and says, "What? Aren't you cold?"
He shakes his head. "The cold doesn't affect me, anymore."
Cid snorts. "Lucky you. How the hell is that possible, anyway?"
Vincent shifts, uncomfortable. "I have been . . . modified."
"Yeah, but biology's still biology, and you're skinny as a damn rail." Cid sticks the cigarette, still burning, behind his ear. Before Vincent can react, Cid grabs his wrist. "Skin and bone, like I thought."
Vincent has not been touched in longer than he can remember. It sends a jolt through him, and though he cannot feel the cold he is suddenly warm, deeply warm. It's something he doesn't understand or want to acknowledge. He pulls his wrist out of Cid's grasp.
The first time they kiss, it's past midnight on the Highwind, and Cid is working on the engines.
He turns around and Vincent is there, his mouth on Cid's, his hands long-fingered and cool on Cid's cheeks, holding him still for a kiss that has no teeth at all and yet that feels like Vincent is trying to swallow him whole.
Then Vincent pulls back and his eyes are bloody and full of remorse, and he says, "I'm sorry—"
And Cid says, "Shut up," and reaches up to pull him down by a handful of his long, gorgeous, girly hair and kiss him again.
The first time they fuck, it's past midnight after the first time Vincent becomes Chaos. Vincent's transformations have become, if not completely mundane, then at least unexceptional. The thing Vincent refers to as the Galian Beast is almost familiar by now. But none of those who came before are any preparation for this, these eight feet of bluewhite skin over predator muscles, these twenty feet of wings that snap like stiff leather on the wind, these backswept horns and stiff-lime spikes of hair, and if Vincent's eyes are blood this creature's eyes are a massacre.
Insanely, the first thing Cid feels is envy, as the creature crouches and springs and catches the air, rising on easy wingbeats, claws hooked and curved and sharp teeth tasting the wind. He will never be able to fly so fluidly, so naturally.
Afterwards, the creature lands, but does not change back immediately. He stalks toward Cid. They are all looking at him, at him and the creature. Cid stands his ground. The creature fans its great wings, bends its head low, and Cid sees teeth that don't quite fit in a mouth that's still nearly human, blood on his teeth and blood on his claws, and then the creature condenses into Vincent, who stumbles a little, and Cid catches him, and then they're looking at each other for a moment that surely feels longer than it actually is. Surely, because nobody else is giving them a funny look.
Vincent pulls away, and says, "Thank you," very quietly. Cid fishes around in a pocket until he finds a handkerchief—they're useful, if you work with grease and don't want every possession you own to wind up with black splotches—which he hands to Vincent, to clean the blood that the creature left around his mouth and up his arms to the elbow.
They don't say anything else to one another, but he isn't surprised to find Vincent waiting for him in his room, when they return to the Highwind.
"I'm turning into something," Vincent says.
"I think you already did that," Cid replies, quick as anything.
Vincent curls his lip and shakes his head fast.
"Look," Cid says, "if you're here to go on and on about what an awful monster you are, just turn your ass around and go find Tifa. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to pat you on the head and feed you hot cocoa or what the fuck ever you want when you're moping."
"I want to be human," Vincent says, hard-edged and angry, and the anger is a good thing because Cid can deal with that better than with the moping. Vincent is kissing him again, hard, the edges of his teeth sharp, and Cid thinks of the laser-focus of the creature's eyes, and his own high spiraling envy of Vincent's demon's wings.
They wind up on the bed, and they only have the patience to get half-undressed. Cid's pretty sure it's not healthy, any of it—but it's good nonetheless, and afterwards they both sleep better than they have in weeks.
And then the world is ending, and there is no more time for firsts, or seconds, or thirds. Only lasts.
Before dawn on the day after the end of the world, Vincent prepares to leave—having failed to redeem himself in a final blaze of glory; wondering if his fate is the slow grind of daily penance instead—so deep within his own mind that he doesn't notice Cid at all until he asks, "Coffee?"
Vincent looks up.
"There's still no damn tea worth drinking," Cid says.
Vincent looks at him for a long time. The bitter smell of the brewing coffee slides in under his skin, along with the smell of tobacco and sweat, mundane. Perfectly mundane. He says, "Please."