The lost look is gone, that's good...you should hold him again. Yes, it's wrong, but if he wants it, you shouldn't argue, it's for him...
#$^@, Vin looks so frightened and sad, this is all my #$^@in' fault, #$^@. Why is he doin' all the holdin'? I'm bein' so #$^#in' selfish...
At the same time, both of them moved forward to hold the other. Both were completely unprepared for this and in the confusion of motion, their lips brushed against eachother, if only for a few seconds.
There was a moments pause as they stared at eachother.
"$^@$!"
He turned to leave, and Vincent grabbed him quickly, pulling him backwards in fright.
"Highwind! Highwind, please calm down! Please!" His voice was panicked.
"#^#% Vin, I'm sorry, god, I'm sorry, this is all my #$^#in' fault, #$^#, let me go...I don't...I can't..."
Vincent held onto his arms stubbornly, keeping him from moving, Cid's back against his chest. Cid struggled again, but in a half-hearted way that Vincent knew meant he wasn't trying. "Highwind, that was not your fault. It was an accident."
"#$^$ Vin..." Cid hung his head. "#$#^, why don't you hate me, god, I've been nothin' but #$#% to you...god#$^# it, Vin, why?"
"Highwind, listen to me. You've never hurt me. You never will."
"How do I KNOW that?" Cid's voice again took on a panicky tone. "#$^@, I hurt everyone! How can I not hurt you? Didn't I just hurt you?"
Vincent was silent for a few seconds. "Highwind, a kiss doesn't hurt someone."
"#^#$! Don't call it that!" Cid's arms shook violently in Vincent's hands. "It was an accident, I swear to god, I didn't mean it to happen..."
"Highwind." Vincent tried to sound serious, but his voice only saddened. "Highwind, a kiss doesn't hurt someone."
Cid seemed to fall apart in front of his eyes, covering his face again with his hands. "#^$# Vin, it hurt ME."
Vincent could help but shed tears at that, but it turned out to be completly misdirected.
"God, I don't want to remember, but everytime they kissed me, god...it hurt, #$^#, it hurt...everythin' about them hurt and $%&#, I don't even want to remember it anymore, I can't..."
"Highwind..."
Cid looked at him in confusion. "#$^# Vin, love wasn't supposed to hurt, is it?" He paused. "Was it. #$^#."
Vincent shook his head for a moment, then sighed himself. "I'm not the person to ask."
Cid turned his head slightly so he could see the sky, focusing on that. "I trusted him...I really did, Vin, I really did trust him...he was the only #$^#in' friend I ever had...only one who would help me when they'd beat the #$#@ out of me...he was my friend, Vin..."
Vincent didn't ask for Cid's eyes to be returned to his own. He could see that staring at the sky he had longed for was calming Cid down slightly, even though he was shivering.
"$%&# Vin, he was my friend...what was I supposed to do...? I don't know...#$^#, I probably did the wrong thing anyway...I don't know..."
"Highwind, what happened?" Vincent asked softly, so much so that he wasn't sure he could be heard at all. Cid's eyes returned to match his own, although he didn't move the direction of his head.
"#$#% Vin, #$^#...he was my friend and #$^$, I don't know how it happened but somehow he got me and he kissed me, I don't know why, #$%@, I don't know why I even let him, I guess it was 'cause I trusted him not to hurt me, and that was shot to #$^@ right there, cause it hurt. It hurt like a #$^@$."
Vincent couldn't help but ask. "Why?"
"$%&#, he was a weird guy, I knew that, he was my friend tho', #$^#. I think he bit me." Cid buried his head in his hands and curled up tightly and convulsively. "#$^#, Vin! $^#$! That wasn't supposed to happen! God@$#%it I trusted him and he #$^@in' hurt me..."
Vincent closed his eyes and breathed slowly, trying to prepare himself to say something that he could never believe in, but he knew was true.
"Highwind, one person and one experience do not represent them all. Just because once-"
"This wasn't just once, #$^# it!" Cid glared at Vincent angrily, then seemed to realize what he was doing and hide his face again. "%#%#, Shera used to tell me the same thing and I didn't even tell her half the things I told you...#$^#, it wasn't just once, god#$%# it, every #$%^in' person I know stabs me in the back or hurts me..."
Vincent sighed very deeply. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to the question that he felt he had to ask. "Highwind...have I hurt you...?"
Cid was silent for a long time.
Vincent wasn't sure what to do. He waited, but all Cid did was shake with barely controlled sobs of sadness and frustration.
This is wonderful, Valentine. You've ruined everything. You're so good at it. Can you at least TRY to help him?
How should I? I can't touch him, he's afraid...
Well, at least try. If he runs off screaming, then you're REALLY #%&#ed, to put it mildly. If not, good for you.
Since when do I talk like Cid...?
Vincent inched closer to Cid, but Cid had hidden his face and refused to look at him, only shaking. He gently reached out and touched his shoulder, not sure of what to expect.
"Highwind, I'm sorry..."
Cid ignored all his expectations by leaning towards him, still curled in a ball. Vincent didn't know what else to do but to put his arms around him, and Cid seemed to hide next to his chest, trying to disappear into Vincent. Vincent waited for Cid to say something, anything, then just breathe and shake into his chest.
"You didn't hurt me, Vin..." Cid finally said very softly. "That's what makes everythin' complicated. That's why it's different..."
Vincent physically shook with relief. "Then you're the first I never hurt..."
Cid sighed deeply. "What th' #$^# happened with us, Vin? Why did this have to happen to us, of all people...? I mean, I know you never did anythin' to deserve that claw and-" Cid pulled away before Vincent could protest, staring directly into his eyes and silencing. "Don't even start that #^$# about atoning and all that $%#$, it doesn't mean anythin'. You don't deserve that..." Cid moved his eyes from Vincent's and down towards his hands. "And I don't deserve this..."
Vincent shook his head, staring at Cid's hands along with him. "I don't know, Highwind, some things have no explanation...it wasn't our fault..."
Cid stared at his hands which had begun to shake. "I don't understand why the #$^# he did that to me, Vin...he was one of my only friends...I knew he was a weird guy, but still...I never thought...I didn't know it hurt like that..."
Vincent took a deep breath to steady himself and reached out, taking Cid's hands into his own to stop their shaking. He closed his eyes so he didn't have to see Cid's quizzical eyes staring at him. "Highwind, please believe me...it's not supposed to..."
When Vincent opened his eyes Cid was very close to him. The change was so sudden that Vincent backed away slightly. Cid was leaning towards him in such a way that almost the only place for Vincent's arms to go were around him. Cid's heart beat against his chest, in complete unison with his own. Vincent could feel him shaking with fright, as if the movement closer to him had been a great accomplishment, and Cid stared up at him.
"Kisses aren't supposed to hurt...?" Cid's voice was impossible to decipher. "I can't believe that Vin, every kiss someone ever forced on me hurt like #$^#...just..." Cid shivered and Vincent tightened his hold on him instinctively to help steady him. Cid's heart was beating faster, but Vincent found his own heart responding in kind to his, quickening it's pace. "Even...even trying to be held like this always ended with me being hurt...but...I can't..."
Cid closed his eyes. "How can I be human like this, Vin...? How can I pretend I can be by myself forever...? I need...someone to touch me and not hurt me...but there's no one who can do that...and $%&$, I'm sorry..." Cid struggled against Vincent's grip, in the same half hearted way he had before. "Let me go, this isn't right, this isn't right, I can't do this..."
"Highwind." Vincent refused to let go and in fact tightened his grip. "Highwind, don't do this to yourself. It isn't wrong to want this."
Vincent was internally fighting the exact same battle that Cid was fighting outwardly, but he refused to show it. "It isn't wrong, and it doesn't hurt."
Cid let his hands drop, Vincent holding him up completely, and looked at Vincent with the same, sad, lost eyes as before. "Vin...how can I believe that...?"
The eyes...they burned into his soul and caused such pain for him, to think that someone that he cared about so much was in so much pain...pain that...
That he couldn't...
That he HAD to relieve.
Go. Help him.
Now.
Vincent gently pulled Cid towards him, his own arms shaking with fright and nervousness, almost as much as Cid's were. Vincent closed his eyes so he couldn't see what he was sure would be the horrified look on Cid's face as he brought his lips down to meet against his.
Cid closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain, the sharp nip somewhere in his mouth, the sensation of blood going down his throat, a taste he would never get used to...
There was nothing. Cid waited, tears falling before there was even a cause, but nothing. His mouth wasn't even forced open as it had been been before, with his friend pressing him against something and...
All he felt was Vincent's lips pressed against his, that was all. All he could feel was Vincent's hands, one metal, one flesh, holding him gently because he could no longer support himself, not pressuring him against anything, not forcing him to do anything.
There was no pressure, not forcing, no assumed outcome, and there was no pain. No blood. No pain.
When Vincent pulled away, Cid stared at him in utter confusion. What had just happened was against everything that he knew, everything that he had thought he learned. Vincent was crying, and he didn't know why. Had he hurt him?
Why didn't that hurt...?
Why did it feel...good...?
Vincent's next words were so soft that Cid could almost not hear them, although he knew what they were before they even left his mouth.
"Believe me."
Cid stared at him, not sure what to think or say. He raised his hands again, interlocking them behind Vincent's back and leaning his head against his chest again, using Vincent's heartbeat to speak for his own.
"...guess I have no choice..."
Vincent gently shook his head, and Cid knew this, even though his eyes were closed, because he could feel the soft strands of Vincent's hair sliding past his shoulders. "No, Cid...you've always had and always will have a choice."
Cloud wandered into the hallway. They were supposed to leave an hour ago...he knew that both Vincent and Cid were fond of sleeping rather late, but they really DID have to go...
He placed a hand against the doorknob of their room, turning it slowly. Was it locked...?
No...that was odd.
He slowly opened the door and leaned through, seeing only black-hair amidst the sheets of one bed.
"Vincent, we have to go. Go find Cid and get him ready, okay?"
Vincent raised his hand, waved it around sleepily, and mumbled something that resembled "Get bent, Strife" but that seemed so out of character for the dark man that Cloud dismissed it as nothing. He turned and closed the door behind him.
Vincent closed his eyes again and drifted back to the realm of sleep, Cid's head resting on his chest along with his arm. Vincent replaced his moved arm back around Cid where it had been for the last few hours. Cid has simply fallen asleep out of exhaustion in Vincent's arms, no doubt from crying so hard and so much over such a short period of time. Vincent simply held onto him and decided to join him in slumber.
Cid still shook occasionally, apparently still fighting with what had been ingrained in him as the correct response, but he didn't move from where he had decided to sleep. Vincent himself was still fighting the overwhelming guilt he felt at doing this, but decided not to move either.
Even though their feelings and minds hadn't completly reconciled with their actions, both of them had given up on fighting and had fallen into oblivion. Together.