Fighting
By Darknightdestiny
'It was inevitable that this should come up again.' Vincent's gaze was directed towards the sky, and soft white flakes fell down and wet his lashes and forehead, but he had stopped his solitary rapture to glance out of the corner of his eye at Tifa. She had been watching him, and her eyes were currently set on the rim of his collar. Each time he caught her eye, she would turn her head to look at the snowy landscape that stretched out before them, but not in any hurry. She was trying not to be obvious, and she was doing a terrible job of it.
All Tifa could think about was how badly she must have made Vincent feel. She had done enough damage already, but she was convinced that she had made matters worse with her awkward display of sympathy upstairs. She deduced this from their deathly silent breakfast and Vincent's lack of eye contact with her, even when she'd attempted to break the silence. She could have heard a pin drop, and Vincent, with all of his enhanced abilities, still would not have noticed. 'Probably thinking about what I did...'
Even though Tifa had known Vincent for a while, she only knew so much about him. However, she had spent enough time around him to know that he avoided people's eyes when they did something to make him uncomfortable. Eye contact in general didn't bother him in the slightest, and Tifa had, in fact, found herself the victim of the fiery orbs burning through to her on several occassions. She had assumed that this was how Vincent evaluated people, read their thoughts, and their emotions...checked their sincerity. But when his gaze shied away from something, he was trying to avoid the situation all together.
She was sure that his presence at the moment was still a favor to her, and not because he truly agreed that he simply needed to eat something. How could anyone eat after that? She hadn't even felt like it, but it was all she could do to try to return some normalcy to their lives. She didn't care for any favors from him; all she wanted from Vincent was to see him act naturally, the way he would have if she had known all along, if she had been around all those years ago.
What would it have been like, really? What had his personality been? Had he always been this way? She wanted to know exactly how far and how deep his change had been. After all, she wanted him to be at peace again. She needed to know what it was that brought him peace; what was natural to him?
There was another uncomfortable, passing glance from Vincent as Tifa averted her eyes from him once more. 'Well, at least he's looking at me again. That's a start,' she mused. She glanced over at his breakfast plate, which lay idly on the table behind them. It had barely been touched. 'Liar,' she thought to herself, a sad smile breaking out onto her face. 'He will never do anything merely for the sake of his own good, will he?'
"If it troubles you, then you should say so." Tifa was snapped out of her daydream by the eerie calm of his passive voice.
'What?' "No...Vincent, I already told you..."
"Perhaps then, you would look me in the eye instead?" Tifa blushed furiously.
"Vincent, I'm sorry, but you're the one who spent all morning looking at your plate." She tried, but her eyes kept flicking back and forth. Vincent tilted her head back with his claw, once again using the metal object to prove his point that he made her uncomfortable by her reaction, and it made her look into his eyes rather than at his neck. Strangely enough, she didn't flinch, though he took this to mean that she was holding it in on purpose. He took a sharp breath in and hesitated.
"...Your sensitivity is appreciated. However...I will not have my intelligence insulted."
It was clear what her preoccupation had been, but she felt she deserved a chance to explain herself. Yet she worried that her attempt would make their situation even more awkward. "Vincent...that's not it. It's not that at all." She could see in his eyes that he didn't believe that for one second, and he regarded her with such an awareness and a suspicion that it hurt her and made her feel more like an outsider. She felt that this would take a few more words than that to explain. "...Vincent, I just..." Would he be angry? "I wish..." Could she really ask it of him? She sighed in frustration. Why not? It was better than having him feel like he disgusted her. "I wish that you wouldn't hide it like that." There was a silence. Vincent's claw was already back at his side, for he was now the one in control of the situation. And he was determined that if for some reason he wasn't, he would twist the circumstances to his advantage until he was.
Vincent shifted his eyes back to the yard, red irises trailing lazily over the snow. "...And how is that?" His voice was lowered in an almost mocking interest, quite possibly daring her to say what she had to say, prodding her to feel guilty about starting it up again, but he did not spit the words at her. He remained calm as always, with a passing interest, smooth, as if he talked about such things every day, lived with discomfort every single minute. He awaited her answer, but no longer in fear, because he had already made up his mind that he would not take pleasure in what she had to say, and so he would not be taken by surprise with anything that might be hurtful to him.
"...Vincent...you're so obsessive about it." And so he was right. He lowered his head and let a smirk slide across his face. It was a personality that he was now free to show, and somehow Tifa had anticipated that reaction, even though she'd only had a few moments to enjoy his face and get to know his expressions. "Vincent, they're not that bad. I have a scar, too..." She knew it wasn't quite the same, but she thought it was still comparable. "You've seen it before, everyone has. See?" She lifted her sweatshirt so that her stomach was exposed below her white training garment. "It doesn't bother me." Vincent did not take notice of her actions.
"You do not understand, Tifa...and I do not expect you to, nor do I require it of you," he said with the same detached tone. He did, however, want her to accept it, but in his way, with his thoughts about it, and with the same treatment he had shown for it. Not in her way, which was simply to easy for him, letting go of the entire incident like it never happened. He could never forget...she accepted so many things, so why not this?
"It makes it hard for me to understand you. Maybe things would have been different before if I understood why. I wouldn't have to wonder why you kept to yourself, and maybe I could have...I don't know, Vincent. I never would have guessed..."
"...Tell me something, Tifa." Vincent straightened his posture and his voice was now directed towards some point soon to follow. "What do you say to those who ask you how you obtained your scar tissue?" Tifa was silent; she wasn't expecting that. Right...if she didn't understand, he would make her understand.
"Sometimes they don't ask. I guess they don't want to...pry." She began to feel even worse about bringing this up. He had actually been the one, but it was her fault for staring. He only voiced what she was already starting in her mind.
"...And what of those who do?" His eyebrows were slightly raised in question, as if he already knew the answer, and he just wanted to hear her say it. Tifa deliberated for a moment.
"Well..." she started, "I guess I would just tell them I got it when I was a kid." Tifa knew better than to assume that this was the end of his questioning, but she could only hope. Vincent was not one to give up until he had proven his point, even though he was usually not so verbal about it.
"And they did not ask any more questions." It was more of a statement, though the question was implied. It was as if he wanted her to think she was misleading him, and to admit that it was not the end, out of sheer guilt. He did not want to make her feel guilty, but he wanted to make her understand where he was coming from.
It worked, and she continued. "I involved myself in something, or suddenly became busy. I guess...I guess I was doing the same thing you are doing now. But I don't let it dictate what I wear, and I don't put limits on myself because of it. And just because someone asks me something about it, it doesn't mean I have to give them the answer they want. Sorry..." He closed his eyes. Tifa always did that; she felt the need to qualify what she was saying with an 'I guess,' or 'I just,' or 'maybe.' "I know that you don't like to have attention put on you." Or she would negate it. He'd been waiting for that one. She was so sensitive to everyone else's feelings and needs that she would walk on glass just to avoid any possible offense, afraid to say what she was really thinking. This frustrated him to no end. Why couldn't she just be real with him? And this is what she expected from him...she might have been able to get away with it around other people, around Cloud, but Vincent never fell for it. She was so unsure of herself when it came to opening herself to others, even though she was expecting the same from them. He knew her better than she could have ever imagined.
And the scar...he'd caused her pain as well; how could he have so easily forgotten? He pushed himself away from the fence and turned to go. He could at least do her the favor of giving her a valid excuse, if nothing else. "...Next time," he said, as his voice faded painfully, "you may tell them that I gave it to you."
Tifa stared after him in shock. Had she done that to him? Had she really brought up something he was feeling guilty for without even realizing it? She was only trying to make the situation better, and somehow, she had made it worse. "Wait...Vincent, wait!" He stopped still, but he did not turn around, and she rushed to catch up with him, fighting the snow that clung to her boots and pulled her down, held her back. "Vincent, I really hope you don't mean that," she gasped out between breaths. "I don't understand why you think what happened was your fault, but it's not, Vincent, it's really not." This one thing she was sure of. "...You're not the one in the white coat."
'A blue suit is no better,' he wanted to say, but he would let her think what she would, if it made her feel better. Instead, he remained silent and shook his head before walking again. He did not feel like going into what he'd already implied to the rest of them before. He felt that all of Sephiroth's sins had been his own, including the disaster at Nibelheim.
"Wait, Vincent. Are you still going to come with me?" He glanced back at her over his shoulder once he had stopped again, and she hurried to meet him. "Because...if you still are, we have to find fuel for the Bronco today." He watched her face, her expression telling him that she was uneasy with a hope she was expecting to be destroyed. "Come with me. Please..."
The trip to the fuel station was uneventful. No more conversation passed between them, if only for the fact that Vincent was never much for conversation, and Tifa was once again treading on thin ice. She had received several chances, and she wasn't about to take another in driving him off.
The man at the station had been nice enough, but his friendly demeanor had slowly dissipated in the presence of the solemn pair. They had wanted to get the fuel and leave, but the machinery was to be operated by one of the shop's own mechanics, and they had no way of transferring the fuel from the shop to the plane. Consequently, both Vincent and Tifa had trudged back to the outskirts of town to get the plane, started it, then ran it around to the right of the town's back exit, and up the service lane. There had been no question as to who would be driving; Tifa assumed the passenger side of the vehicle, and Vincent said nothing as he walked to the driver's side. The entire process involved the measuring and mixing of gasses and several other combustible chemicals and so they were encouraged to go and spend their day somewhere else rather than to stay and wait. Vincent had left on his own, and even though this made Tifa nervous, she knew that he would come back; he'd gone with her in the first place, and that plane was his only mode of transportation off of the continent...and away from her.
Tifa went into the town to look around. She got some lunch later from the bar at the inn, and she watched through the windows as some children played in the snow. Eventually, though, this became boring for her as well. There wasn't anything new to see, and even if there had been, she had no one to see it with. The children reminded her of herself when she was young, playing in the snow of the Nibelheim mountains when it got cold enough. She had been alone for most of her childhood as well, but she had a few friends. And Cloud...how was he doing? She had no idea what he would find, or when he would come back, if indeed he planned to. It seemed that her whole life lately revolved around waiting for other people. She decided then, to just go back to the station, and assume her position.
When Tifa arrived, the fuel was still not ready for transfer, due to the long stagnancy of business in the area. They had needed to gather materials and call people in to work. Tifa had felt bad about this, but there was no way that she was going to stay at Icicle for another week or so. Not with everything that had just happened with Vincent. The silence might just kill her, or else drive her mad. Looking around, she realized that Vincent was still nowhere to be seen. Tifa sat down...and waited.
...And waited...
Hours passed and the transfer had been completed. Tifa sat against the wall with her knees to her chest. She had thought about everything that happened with Vincent, and about what she was looking for, even though she still did not know exactly what either of those things were. She had exhausted every thought she had, and every means of entertaining herself. She began to wish that he was there, even though he most likely would say nothing. She was just lonely.
About twenty minutes later, she heard soft footsteps approaching, and she looked up when she heard them pause next to her. There he stood, wearing the same red cloak, staring down at her with soft-lidded, bright and piercing red eyes, shadowed by his hair, which hung down over his face as he tilted his head downwards. "We will return here tomorrow morning. For now, you should sleep." Tifa gave him a look of contempt.
"And where have you been?"
"...Away." She glared at him for a couple seconds more and then gave up with a soft sigh. She laid her head back against the wall and held his gaze out of the left corner of her eyes. Vincent looked weary; she could tell by the way his eyes lost their effect, dimming once he'd made his point. He was just too tired to argue, much less explain himself. Not that he owed her an explanation in the first place. She started to pull herself up, and she half-sighed as she did so.
"I guess we should get some sleep, then." Vincent just barely nodded in response and started walking back through the town, towards the inn. It was late afternoon, and outside, the sun was just setting. The beauty of the blazen sky stood out to Tifa, and she was awed by it. The town however, seemed empty and quiet as most were inside eating a nice hot meal, and her only companion was caught up in a dead silence.
Tifa had to skip in her step, and she almost resorted to jogging at one point just to keep up with Vincent. She sensed that he needed even more time alone than he had already gotten that day. He was usually quiet, but she felt even more ignored than ever before. It was as if he couldn't wait to get away from her. No matter what he had said earlier in the room, after what had happened at breakfast, Tifa was sure that Vincent was frustrated with her for not understanding him. How could she? She didn't know anything about him, save what she had gathered during the Meteor crisis, and he wouldn't tell her any more than that.
They finally reached the inn. Tifa followed Vincent up the stairs to their rooms, and he walked out into the middle of the hallway between their two doors before turning and nodding his head quickly to her, then entering his room. Tifa sighed loudly, highly discouraged and exhausted. She could only hope that the next morning she would find him in a better mood.
Vincent closed the door softly behind him before turning the lock until it clicked loudly, echoing throughout the room. The shower faucet was dripping again, the sound pounding at his head, making him all the more restless. He felt ill, and he was simply much too tired to go and shut the water off. Though he usually handled the elements well, he was rapidly becoming overheated in his heavy attire. He quickly shed all of his clothing, save for his pants, and collapsed onto the bed.
It was late in the night, or very early in the morning; which of these it was, Vincent was unsure of, but outside, it was black and silent. Vincent stared at the ceiling, his eyes wide in a panic attack. He had slept for a few hours and it had done nothing for his fatigued state. His strength was waning, and the faucet was still dripping, the water suggesting to him an image of the first time he had known this feeling.
Once, when he was a boy, Vincent had gone to a friend's house for a swim. The hours had gone by, and they lost track of the time. After Vincent had exited the pool, he had felt a terrble itching and burning inside the palms of his hands. He looked down to see them breaking open, the thin lines in them separating and giving way to small rivers of red.
Tonight the feeling returned as it had many times since then. Now it was coming from something else. He felt it starting painfully slow, a burning itch right between his shoulders. He felt his entire body grow hot and tense up; the sheets stuck to him and his sweat secured them. His skin began to crack and bleed as the feeling crept down from his shoulders, following his spine, which shook and trembled in anticipation of what was to come.
Vincent's knees shot up as he lay on his back, and he brought his heels close to his body and elevated his hips, not wanting to stretch his back by sitting up. His arms slid over to his hips and he undid his pants and wrestled them off, as they were only serving to trap more of his body heat inside. The cold air on his skin helped to distract him, but only momentarily. Then the first large break began to flow freely.
Vincent shut his eyes tightly and a breath caught in his throat. He held it there, afraid that he would start to cry out and that someone would hear. He almost held a hand to his throat, for an irrational fear that the air would break forth through the scar he held there. He let his knees back down and rolled over, the sheets becoming tangled all around him. He would have stayed on his back, but he repressed the urge to brace his feet against the foot of the bed and smother his shoulder blades. The last time he had tried that, he had broken something as his wings shot out of his back and had nowhere to go. That was in the lab, and he had almost bled to death alone on the table, chained down and waiting for them to receed back into his body when they refused to.
His hands were thrust down around the bedframe, his arms wrapping around the sides of the mattress, fingers digging into the wood. He could feel the hot liquid pouring from his back, dripping down his sides, collecting in the spaces between his neck and his shoulders, making his body slick with the stench of metal and soaking the white sheets that surrounded his form. He heard a muffled crushing and scratching as the pounding blood filled his ears, and he knew that his claw had destroyed the left side of the bedframe when the bed fell to its side, tilted at an angle, making his attempts to support himself much harder to manage. His arms moved from the sides of the bed to the pillow in front of him. He buried his face in the white and red mess and muffled a scream, lest Tifa hear and wake to find him.
He felt his skin stretch and his back rose up like a tent. There was a sharp clawing at his skin from underneath as the sharp tips of his wings begged to be set free. His bones cracked, shifted, twisted and buckled under the pressure. His gasping breath became more painful by the second, but he could not help his growing need for air as his ribs shifted, pushing at his insides. He felt his hips shift and disconnect, and his arms shot out from underneath the pillow; his hands wrapped tightly around two of the several posts that supported the headboard, and he braced himself as best he could against the agonizing pain that shot down his legs. His fingertips on his right hand bled freely as the claws penetrated his skin, inching out from underneath. He felt a razor-tipped wing begin to emerge from his side and it felt as if one of his bones was being torturously drawn from his body. His shoulders hunched up around his neck and he buried his pounding head in the sheets as he felt skin inching down from his upper left arm to cover his claw as if it had a mind of its own. Two sharp pains started at his forehead and made it hard for him to block out even the smallest amount of his pain.
Sleep...he needed rest. This was too much; there had been too much uncertainty, frustration and doubt. He'd let it get to him, he'd lost sleep and the nightmares begged to be released somewhere other than his dreams. He couldn't hold it in any longer...but he would have to fight it, even if it refused to give up its hold on him the entire night.
A/N: I apologize if there are any spelling errors. Like I said before, I had to code these chapters with HTML, because my Word program doesn't work...so no spellcheck...
