Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its compilation are the creations of Square Enix, not mine.
Summary: All you wanted was simply to stay like this forever.

The Cave

by monitor screen

- Two -

You were jolted out of dark musings by the slight brush to your lips.

Belatedly, you unclenched your jaw to leave your teeth off abused flesh. The taste of copper seeped in, sharp and permeating. The finger brushed again, gently smearing the wetness; a healing touch despite the sting it brought.

Reflexively, your tongue edged out to better cherish the contact. The finger complied obligingly with your kiss, and only when you licked across warm palm did you realise that said hand was uncharacteristically bared.

You would have broken off; perhaps to take a good look of your housemate, perhaps even to ask what happened - but the hand stretched over your face more insistently, fingers caressing along half-closed eyelids, and you subsided, trailing kisses down to the wrist as fingers brushed through your hair. They played with the shell of your ear as you lapped over delicate, jutting bones.

You came into full alert when you encountered unexpected roughness. Your companion had scars, lots of them; but you had come to learn all of those by heart, by feel and by touch. These ridges that you felt were new - and you paused, eyes snapping up, keen on your companion's face.

The registration that he looked haggard arrived hand-in-hand with the realisation that the overflowing tang of blood did not came from your lip alone. Your companion did not say anything, only slid his hand down to your shoulder, and stepped closer to take you into an awkward embrace. You stayed where you sat, pressing your cheek into his blood-stiffened shirt, and reached for his other hand.

His tensed for a second as you nudged the metal contraption, and even as the comforting weight moved over smoothly to rest on your back, you recognised the suppressed hiss for what it was. You knew there were probably concerns you need to see to, but as you wound your arms around his wiry frame, secure in his solid presence, all you wanted was simply to stay like this forever.



And stay you did... Though not forever.

You were started out of your comfortable clasp by this sudden shift in his stance, and you almost had to hold him up before he caught himself. Reluctantly you drew back, scanning his face as his thumb swiped across your cheek again and he grounded out, ruefully, "I should go wash up."

You turned a bit to nuzzle his hand, postponing the inevitable. And even without looking, you knew he smiled at this - had seen that same small smile lurked at the corner of his lips umpteenth times. He let you play with his fingers, nosing and licking and nibbling, until a tightening of your arms brought a hitch to the weighty claw over your spine, and you knew it had to be time to let him step away.

You let your head fall back to the wall as the door to the bathroom closed, feeling unreasonably emptied. Pale light flitted across the ceiling as life progressed on out in the city. You closed your eyes, but almost immediately reopened them to escape the flashing images residing in the darkness. The sound of water began to run, muffled behind solid white-painted door.

You stared at the portal for a long moment before making up your mind and started for it. You paused again at the threshold, forehead leaning against the wood and hand on the handle, listening to the splashes of water hitting obstacle.

Eventually you found it within yourself to resume motion. Instantly, the unmoderated sound of water and stifling steam brought you back from a world bleeding out of colour, and you could not help but smile a little as you shut that world out behind you. Here was the pulsing, breathing, living reality.

He was just standing there under the onslaught of water, just standing there and let it all wash over him. Nimbly you stripped off your clothes too, and stepped into the water behind him. He might have let out a sigh as you started lathering up his hair, but you could not be certain with all the water loud in your ears; in any case it was not important - you did not need to hear to understand.

He complied easily as you turned him around to rinse off the hair and started on the rest of him. There were cuts and bruises - closed and healing but still there - and you had to touch those, had to taste the lack of sanguinariness on your own tongue to reassure yourself that he was alright. That he would be alright.

His hand found the base of your neck as you sucked on a particularly ugly gash on his ribs, pacifying and apologetic. You followed its guidance up onto your feet again, and breathed a sigh of relief as your were taken into an all-out embrace. You could smell the shampoo in his hair, felt the strength of his arms, and the beat of his heart was strong against your chest. The brass of his claw dug into the small of your back, and gently, you turned his face to capture his lips in a kiss.

You both almost chocked trying to breathe with all that water pouring around. He took a step back, taking you with him, and you reached blindly to turn the water off. You did not need to have the words spoken to know what he was smirking about eyeing your hair, and you retaliated by wringing the water out of his with extra force.

But this playfulness was short-lived as you proceeded to dry him off more thoroughly. You took care around his left hand, both for the sake of the towel and for him, and winced at the horrible, horrible discolouration where flesh emerged again. He silently took the cloth from you as you froze, and finished up himself, tying it around his hips when he was done. You felt ridiculous standing there dripping, but you could not take your eyes off the patch of purple and green - the phantom pain of an entirely different kind of wrongness catching up to you.

He kissed you lightly and wrapped you in another fluffy towel, and you finally shifted your gaze up to his concerned eyes, dredging up some semblance of a smile for him. You noted the red that rimmed his eyes, the subtle differences that fatigue brought to his posture, and as much as you wanted him to stay, you sent him off to bed, saying that you'd do his clothes for him. He regarded you for a moment, before patting your arm and turned away - he knew when to choose a battle.

You dried and redressed yourself. The familiarity with which you dealt with bloodied garments might be somewhat scary, but it was a skill honed by practicality. Soon you had the dark clothes in a relatively acceptable state of pristine, hanging up to air before you lump them with the rest of the laundry later.

There were better things to do just yet.

The form on the bed stirred as you slipped in, but did not wake. You crawled into bed behind him, careful not to jostle, and pressed your face against the soft cotton of his shirt. You listened to him breathe, revelling in the simplicity of nothing beyond the 

here and now.

Contented, you watched as gloom slowly descend.

-o-