Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts I or II.
Flying from You
It was a soft tune, almost too soft to fill the hanger's vast space. The beat was steady, echoing in a nodding head, a tapping foot, the occasional drumming of fingers on a piece of steel. Most of the crew was gone for the weekend; out celebrating with the founders of Radiant Garden, partying to the new year. He'd remained behind, of course; the Captain didn't have the leisure anymore, not with the booming airship and gummiship business he'd managed to resurrect. So here he was, toodling around his hanger, meticulously piecing together their newest client's pleasure flier to the tune of a now forty-year-old song. It was a relief, truth be told, and a bit of a trip down memory lane as well. Those words brought back days of hardship and days of fun, some spent in crappy tents on the side of a deer track with a few cans of beans, numerous fart jokes, and a trio of screechy women bitchin' about the night around them. And him.
Oh yes, there was a memory...and a damned fine one too. The Captain leaned back from the engine he'd been chest-deep in, and tried to brush off some of the crap clinging to his tank. He snagged a cigarette from the pack tucked into his goggles and lit it, savoring the nicotine before he set off to the far side of the hanger. His mind drifted back to the old days, before they'd lost everything, before the Heartless had come...The very first conversation he'd had with the lithe, beautiful being he would later come to call friend and beloved made a smile touch his eyes, and he coughed out a laugh at his own stupidity, drumming on his chest to loosen the painful clenching. Massaging his heart, he chuckled dryly, taking another drag. Vincent had loved watching him smoke, his red eyes following the serpentine lines up into the sky, and so Cid had found himself a friend. 'Lover' was a much harder job to earn, but three years in, their sky-watching became cuddling, then so much more. Then...it all fell apart.
The world itself was breaking up from the Heartless, and from a reborn angel of death, and Cid had barely enough time to gather up his own friends and a few of the neighbors before he had no choice but to go airborne. But something had gone horribly wrong, and at first Cid thought he'd made a huge mistake when the sound of an engine being torn off shook him to the core. Sephiroth was hell-bent on revenge, and it was Vincent who hurdled onto the wing, doing battle with claw and a short rapier he'd taken up not even a year before. He was nearly on the verge of winning when Sephiroth disappeared, and before he could brace himself, Cid's ship had taken off, sending Vincent tumbling into the dark, dying heart of the planet itself. Even now, Cid woke up from nightmares, and as he stopped before the back wall of the hanger, he doused the cig, letting it fall into an ashtray nearby. He reached forward, and grasping the large canvas cloth, pulled it off to reveal a sleek, powerful gummiship, all black with a streak of bloody red down the sides. He swallowed, then steeled himself and hopped inside, motoring the jet out onto the runway.
Screw it. He'd waited long enough.