"Stand Still"
A one-shot by Great Materia Hunter Yuffie
It only took Vincent Valentine a few days to realize that he would either have to stand still or be horribly embarrassed.
The dark-cloaked gunman stood on the deck of the Highwind, where it was tethered above the Northern Crater, and tried his best to remain perfectly still. He felt the wind, cool and brisk and freezing like the first instant of touching scalding water. He felt his clothes, the same clothes that he wore for thirty years catch and fall around him like water or a well-known song. He smelled the air and the ice in it. The air moved about him and screamed, piercing his ear-drums.
There was a reason why he stood so still. After AVALANCHE had found him and brought him back to the waking world, he had realized something.
He was a glutton.
"A glutton?" you may ask.
It was true. He was a glutton. But not just for food. For everything.
It is impossible to imagine what it would be like for anyone resembling a human to spend thirty years in a box. He had been through what no normal human would have survived. His mind had been stretched like origami paper, quietly going sick or insane with guilt and remorse. His only companions had been demons, and they hadn't been good company.
For all the years it took Sephiroth to be born, rise to fame, conquer Wutai, become a general, burn Nibelheim, and travel the lifestream to the Northern Crater.
For almost as long as Barret or Cid had been alive, or two Yuffies, for that matter.
Then, as suddenly as Hojo had shot him, he was thrust back into the world of sunlight and he was overwhelmed by it. Senses that had lain dormant for half a lifespan flared into life, clamoring for attention. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touches all seemed more important than he remembered, made him want to pay attention to every tiny thing. A flash on Aeris' staff, a snatch of song, a silk shirt, a simple slice of pizza - all of it could hold his attention indefinitely.
This in of itself did not make Vincent a glutton. It was even perfectly understandable, but the former Turk did not see it that way. A man of control and possession, he couldn't understand excess. His Turkish training had made him unfeeling and sharp like a chip of flint, controlling the actions of others through his own self-control.
Now, he felt like a newborn infant, desperately wanting to feel everything. He wanted to take everything in his mouth and swallow it; make it a part of him so it no longer would seem so strange and bright and familiar, something remembered like a lover after decades of sorrow. The tastes, touches, smells and bright lights attacking his cornea made him want to sink into the earth and never feel again. Every time he heard something, he listened to it avidly. Whenever he wasn't paying attention, his hand would reach out without his permission and sweep over objects, reveling in their textures and temperatures. He would stare at things unconsciously for hours. He reveled in the feeling of moving and doing things after years of dormancy. When he tasted food...he didn't need food, but the taste made him want to never stop eating. The thought of taking something, say a hamburger, and making it a part of you was so novel (yet, of course he ate all those years ago...but it was as if he never really paid attention before). However, it was only when he had almost started crying sentimentally over a cup of Jasmine tea that he began to suspect that he was an emotional wreck.
The thing he wanted to do more than anything in the world was lay in silk while listening to music and being served the finest foods in the world by top chefs.
Which was utterly ridiculous and he knew it.
He felt like he was falling apart. He couldn't understand it. He was greedy for stimulation, and he never had been before. It had been weeks since he woke up and he still didn't have complete control over his actions. He didn't have the self-control that was necessary in a Turk, even a former one.
Vincent saw himself as a glutton
Which was embarrassing.
Therefore, he made himself stand perfectly still to prove to himself that he wasn't. And he would do this exercise until he had control over all of his impulses. Until the urge to feel things went away again.
He was in such a state of catatonia that he almost didn't hear someone come up next to him at the icy bar. He opened his eyes, the colors and light striking his retina like a chord.
"What are you thinking about?" It was the ninja. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft.
The sound of human voices was also something that threatened to undo him. That a person could create reverberations to convey emotion and thought was an amazing prospect. He had never even thought about it, back when he was a Turk.
"What?" he felt so tired. He honestly couldn't remember her question, and it had only been a few seconds.
"I was just wondering what a weirdo like you thought about all the time. I mean, you never talk and you always keep to yourself. So," she punctuated the word by poking him in the shoulder with a rather sharp finger, "because I'm really bored, you're just gonna have to spill your guts to entertain me."
He sighed, the breath spilling out from a place deep within him. He opened one eye and looked at her. He willed himself to get angry enough to tell her to go away, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Vincent, at the heart of him, was an incredibly patient person. Comparing the tedium of spending decades in a box, speaking to Yuffie was nothing difficult.
Vincent looked sideways at the teenager. She always looked bright and youthful. When he realized that he had been rather obsessively watching one of the locks of her hair fluttering in the wind, he turned back to the view, closing his eyes self-reproachfully.
He couldn't even stop himself from staring.
After a few more moments, Yuffie sighed as well. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, you know. You seem like a good guy, but it's just sad to see you depressed all the time."
Vincent didn't answer. He merely listened to the wind and her voice as the reverberated inside his scull. The human voice was a wonderful sound.
"I was just trying to cheer you up."
At this, the man turned fully toward her. "What makes you...think I am depressed?"
Yuffie looked excited at the answer, probably because she had never really had a successful conversation with the silent man.
"Oh, nothing. You just act a lot like this girl I knew who took depression medication. She always moping around and acting all dramatic." Yuffie considered her words for a second, and then added, "And, she wore black all the time. Red's no better than black, I'll have you know." The girl looked at him, gauging his reaction to her jibe.
To his acute surprise, he actually responded even after she teased him. "That's not very accurate. Depressed people are so self-depreciatory that their lives are at stake...if not by suicide, then by lack of motivation."
Yuffie shrugged, put off by his elaborate vocabulary. "So, are you depressed, or aren't you?"
He didn't answer, like he usually did when asked personal questions. He turned away and shut his eyes against the beautiful landscape, the gaping whole in the earth spread out underneath them at the top of the world, because he couldn't stop staring at it.
Sighing, Yuffie leaned against the bar. After a moment, she whispered something unexpected.
"I'm scared."
Vincent looked at her. He followed her line of vision to the Crater and then back to her face. Suddenly, she seemed helpless and terrified, clinging to the bar like the wind would tear at her away and fling her to the sky. Impulsively, his hand moved to rest on her arm, which was smooth and bony and cold under his hyper-sensitive and newly re-found sense of touch.
She jumped, but not away. Her dark eyes were wide and expressive in her pale face. She had obviously never imagined that Vincent would ever actually touch her.
Belatedly, Vincent realized that he had done something embarrassing. He suppressed the urge to snatch his hand away, which would be suspicious, or move his hand to feel the texture of her skin, which, to say the least, would be strange. Luckily, he had the presence of mind not to do either. Instead, his mind compared his heated palm with her freezing skin and found a topic of conversation.
"You're cold. You should wear your coat." His voice was expressionless.
Her eyes softened with understanding, and she moved to stand nearer to him, giving him an opportunity to remove his hand. "Heh, I don't have a coat. I didn't want to waste my money on one."
Her arm was cold and it was pressed against his side. Wordlessly, he unbuttoned his cloak and handed it to her. She blushed, probably reading into the gesture more than he intended, and wrapped it around her narrow shoulders.
He could feel her staring at him. Vincent looked different without his cloak, much less threatening and more human, even though he was still wearing black. She could see more of his face without it, and it suddenly made him feel vulnerable.
"Thanks a lot, Vince. That was really nice of you."
Vincent didn't point out that she had all but forced him into making the polite gesture, but he was pleased with the compliment, at any rate. It wasn't every day someone called him "nice."
He cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "You're welcome, Yuffie."
She still stood very close to him, but now she was heating him, instead of the other way around. The wind was so cold that it pushed right through him like he wasn't wearing any clothes. He firmly clamped down the urge to start shivering.
"How do I look? Mysterious? Threatening?" she posed for him, trying to look as villainous as possible.
Where the red cloak had given Vincent a certain aloofness and mystique, it did absolutely nothing for Yuffie. For one thing, it looked humungous on her, draping over her like bad karma. For another thing, the cloak shielded her face entirely too much, covering up past her nose in a ridiculous fashion, because she had clipped it on wrong.
Automatically, his hands stole up to rectify it without his permission.
Startled, Yuffie said nothing as he steadily undid the top two clips. She stared at his face, blushing slightly.
Then, his hand brushed her face and they both froze. Yuffie's breath caught in her throat in a captivating way. Their eyes met.
His fingers touched her cheek unconsciously. Their faces were close; her warm breath passed over his face in a thick cloud.
She was waiting for him to do something, blushing madly, her eyes never moving from his.
His hand felt her soft cheek and suddenly he was overwhelmed the sensation. His body leaned toward her, his lips brushed hers, so slightly that it didn't seem real.
When he pulled back, her eyes were even more surprised than before. For quite possibly the first time in her life, Yuffie had nothing to say. Her mouth gaped open in shock as she replayed in her mind what had just happened.
"W...w...w...!" For some reason, she couldn't get her mouth to work right.
Vincent, recovering the use of his hand and body, realized that he had done yet another embarrassing thing. He had known, while it was happening that it would be embarrassing, but whatever part of him that was supposed to stop him from following impulses must have not been paying attention.
He drew away from Yuffie, leaning once again against the bar and trying desperately to get his thoughts in order. His lips and fingers tingled.
"No," was all he could think to say.
"No? No what? What are you talking about? What was that for?" Yuffie's voice was frantic and confused, and she clutched his cloak about her to keep it from falling off.
"No, you don't look threatening. Or mysterious," Vincent said, eyes on her.
She blushed again, confused and disoriented, and thinking his comment was somehow a negative one. Wordlessly, and slightly disappointed, Yuffie slipped the cloak off her shoulders and shoved it at him, then made her escape through the door, shutting it quickly behind her.
Vincent put his cloak back on, the same cloak that he had worn for more years than she had been alive.
There were those feelings again, frayed at the edges – like and ensign or a ribbon. His feelings were so raw and newly found. It was so easy to lose control of himself.
I suppose that's what I truly am. An impulse addict. A glutton with no self-control. An infant who would rather eat my blocks than play with them.
Sighing, he just held his eyes closed and wavered in the breeze coming from the side of the airship and tried not to think so much.
Author's Note: The whole "jasmine tea" thing is totally ripped off from everyone who ever wrote on this whole website about Vincent. I mean, who the heck knows whether he likes it or not? No one, that's who. Thanks for reading. You guys RoXorz my SoxorZ. You don't have to review, but I'd like criticism if you do. This was my first kissy scene!Tell me how it went!