Flirting with Death, Chapter 21:
Red Discovery
By Darknightdestiny
Pale yellow light filtered in through the blinds. Tifa's mouth drew up into a smile at the warmth playing on her face, regardless of the way things had gone for her the night before. After lying awake for about an hour, thinking about all of the things that had passed between the two of them, Tifa had decided to give it a rest. She would just have to accept the fact that all of those things were what made Vincent who he was. Being his friend, at least as far as her side of it went, she shouldn't want it to be any other way.
Tifa Lockheart slid out from underneath the covers and ran to the shower, ready to refresh herself. She didn't spend long underneath the water, daydreaming about some scenario or wishing she had done something different. She was quick and to the point in every way that morning; she was ready to get out of there and back to Neo-Midgar, where she could relieve Will and Jolene from the stress they had no doubt acquired during her time away. Tifa stumbled out of the shower, almost catching herself in the curtain, and grabbed a towel from the shelf with one shivering hand. Water dripped all over the floor, and she was careful so as not to slip in it and hurt herself.
She readied herself for the day and dressed herself in a hurry. She packed up everything she had brought with her, and set her pack on the bed while she stood in front of the mirror and brushed her hair out. Standing there in front of the simply ornamented glass, she couldn't help but remember Vincent's reaction on the day she'd found his outside of his room. Still feeling guilty, she reminded herself that rather than regret what had happened, she should be making her way down to the fueling station, so that she didn't make him wait any longer than he'd already had to. It made no difference that he had made her wait for so long the previous day; even though he hadn't specified a time, she wanted to be there early so that he didn't have to wait for her.
Tifa dropped her brush into her pack and zipped it up. She shouldered the small bulk by one strap only, and rushed out of the room, grabbing the key from the table-top as she went. She bounded down the stairs, wet hair trailing once again, and turned in the small metal device before heading out the front door.
Tifa Lockheart was greeted with an unfriendly gust of cold wind as she ran out from Icicle Inn. As soon as she had hit the cool air, the rush had overpowered her and almost knocked her over. The light that had shone through her window had been deceiving; there were no clouds out, but the winds were harsh and ripped at her clothing. Her face turned pink immediately, and small flakes of ice bit at her face, carried by the air currents. Tifa wrapped her arms about herself and headed to the other side of town, wanting to just get the trip over with. Maybe then everything would get better, and she would be too preoccupied to have to worry about how things were between her and Vincent.
Of course she didn't want to forget completely. She just wished that she could have taken back her hasty actions and some of the things she had said. She didn't feel that she'd handled the situation like she should have, but there was only so much that she could do when it came to talking with Vincent. He wasn't exactly an open book, easy for everyone to read. It was more like he was a thick novel written in an extinct dialect, and someone had taken the liberty of gluing all of his pages to each other.
Through all of her thinking on the topic of Vincent and what kind of a novel he would make, Tifa finally found herself at the foot of the fueling station. Hugging herself tightly as the wind prevailed, she strode in, the bell at the top of the door chiming softly but pointedly at her arrival. The man from the day before walked over to her and greeted her with that same warm smile. He was better received that morning, because Tifa was excited to be going back home. Even if she wasn't finished discovering whatever she was looking for, she at least had a purpose set out before her.
"Is it ready?" she asked him with a glimmer in her eyes, hoping that they would be able to leave soon.
"Sure is, miss!" he replied, his own eyes creasing in the corners as his kind smile grew. "Will you be headin' out as soon as that tall guy you were with gets here?"
Tifa paused and took a look around the room. Vincent was nowhere to be seen. 'That's odd,' she thought to herself. 'I know he was gone for a while yesterday, but he made it a point that we'd be here today, and I'd have expected him to come early.' The checkout time for the inn was at noon, and there was nothing to be done there before then, save for eating breakfast. Tifa doubted that Vincent would be doing that; she'd never noticed much of an appetite in Vincent, until someone force-fed him. She'd thought he would have left before she did. He'd had plenty of time to mull over whatever he had been carrying on his shoulders the entire day before. "Say..." she turned to the clerk, "can you tell me what time it is?"
"Sure thing, little lady. It's," and here he looked at his watch, "Ten and thirty."
'Ten thirty?' the phrase rang out in Tifa's head. "...He should have been here by now."
"D'ya say somethin'?" the man asked.
"Oh! Umm..." Tifa looked about nervously, "nothing. I have to go. I'll be right..." she waved her arms in front of her, "I'll be right back."
Tifa rushed out into the street, driven by something she didn't recognize. Vincent had spent enough time alone the day before. He didn't need to be away that morning, and he was always a man of purpose, always about getting things done. She couldn't imagine him being late. While she thought he might be upset if he headed down there and didn't find her when he got there, something told her that she should go and look for him instead.
She ran over the snow-covered walkways, her boots sticking in the ice, weighing her down. The thin mountain air caught in her lungs and held her down, but she pressed on. Even if she was wrong, even if she was overreacting, the faster she found out, the more quickly she could get back to where she was supposed to be and avoid his frustrated gaze. How she hated the idea of letting him down.
When she reached the inn, she rushed right past a couple of boys who were staring up at the second story. She would have kept going, but something struck her as odd when she glanced back at them over her shoulder. There was a partially made snowman near the two, but it had been halted and stood there unfinished. The two were obviously drawn to something else of greater interest.
Tifa backtracked in her steps and went over to stand by the two boys. "What are you looking at?" she asked, out of pure curiousity as to what would make the two of them act so strangely, when every other child was playing in the streets undistracted. They didn't say a word; one of them pointed a mittened finger at the end of his outstretched arm and directed it towards a window. Tifa followed his finger with her gaze and saw a panel of messed blinds through the glass. They looked to be bent and crumpled. The curtains that hung loosely around the other windows were threaded through the blinds in this one, and there was a bright red streak running across the glass.
Tifa gasped at the sight before the thought of her initial destination struck her. She lifted her own finger momentarily and began counting the windows from one side of the inn to the other. 'Twenty-nine, Thirty-one, Thirty-three...oh my...'
She turned to the boys, who were still looking at the sight upstairs. She eyed the surrounding citizens; no one else had seemed to notice yet, for whatever reason. She realized that it wasn't something that would be easy to miss, and so she knelt down until she was at eye level with the boys. She held one finger up to her lips in a signal of silence and gave them both a pointed look. "Run along, now...you didn't see anything, alright?" She idly straightened the jacket of the first and then the cap of the other. They looked at each other and then back at her before nodding slowly and running off.
There wasn't any time to spare. Tifa ran from her spot in the front yard through the door and past the counter, not caring that she'd turned in her key that morning. She ran up the stairs, skipping two at a time, hoping that when she reached the top, she wouldn't have to witness something she couldn't handle.
Standing in front of his door, she called his name. "Vincent?" There was a tremor in her voice that spread throughout the word and even swallowed it up near the end so that all she got out was, "Vin--nt?" She swallowed and tried again, her voice growing frantic. "Vincent!" There was no answer, and she figured the room was messed up badly enough, so it couldn't really hurt to try the only other option she could think of at the time.
Tifa ran to the other side of the hallway and flew at the door, kicking it wide open and sending thick splinters of wood in every direction. She stumbled inside, but caught her balance by planting one foot in front of her. The room smelled of a sick and familiar scent; she recognized that as the smell that rose from the fields whenever they had finished killing off some beast that had decided to prey on their small group. The room smelled of death and decay. 'Not good,' she decided.
She took a step forward and nearly fell over again as her foot met with a pencil-holder that bore the neat logo of the inn on it. It lay on the ground in front of her, spilling small traces of lead dust over the beige carpet that lined the doorway. Tifa paused and moved her foot to avoid it; she took this moment to lift her head and give her surroundings a good look, even though she was afraid of what she might find. Straight ahead of her, she could see the front of the room. There was a dresser to her left, which stretched to the far side of the area, and on top of that was a television set, most likely untouched by his hands. Tifa gasped when she looked beyond these things.
The far side of the room looked like someone had taken a paint bucket and sloshed red across ten feet of space. The walls were decked out in quick splashes of color, which ran from their spots on the wall down to the floor in quick tears of crimson. It looked like blood had been flung- not smeared, not sprayed, but literally flicked or thrown- across the room. And the walls were covered in uniform streaks that all followed a certain direction, or criss-crossed at a certain point. Tifa had seen streaks like this only a few rare moments in her life. Her eyes followed the trail to the only thing beyond there that she could see from her vantage point by the doorway...
The corner of the bed.
She had to turn the corner, no matter how much she feared doing it. Someone was bound to notice soon, what with all the commotion she'd made rushing up the stairs, and with the children playing outside. What would happen if someone found them there? What if Vincent was-
Tifa's eyes were set on the crimson-stained blanket that could be seen as she peered around the corner. Slowly she edged closer, stepping over a broken lampshade, a shattered vase, and Vincent's shirt. She turned the corner and winced before she stood still, unsure of what to do, how to act, or anything. She wished she'd never asked him to come. She wished she didn't have to see this. She wanted to close her eyes and make it all go away.
But she couldn't. There he lay, on a bed of red and white, drenched in blood and sweat, his hair falling everywhere. He was on his stomach, his shoulders heaving up and down, his forearms wrapped around his pillow, hands clasped tightly together. The sheets were set up over his hips, but they were wrapped up and around both of his legs, entangling him in the mess. There was a pool of red around him that hadn't completely soaked the sheets yet; it still rose up off of the surface of the fabric, and Tifa could have dipped her finger into it a half an inch deep, had she wanted to.
Vincent lay panting, wheezing on the bed. He was human, but it was obvious to her that he hadn't been so the entire night. She stepped closer, afraid but filled with so much concern for him. His back was broken open, pouring blood from two thick gashes that stretched down between his shoulder blades. They'd not healed over yet, and she was amazed that he'd not yet bled to death. She set one foot near the left side of the bed and pulled it back when she felt it fill with warm liquid in the sole. She grimaced, but put it back down anyway, and followed suit with her other knee.
Leaning close to him, she reached out and pulled a lock of his raven hair back, revealing dimly lit pools of red. His breathing was shallow and steady, but each breath was accompanied by the sound of a rattling in his chest, as if some of the blood had gotten down into his lungs. His eyes stared off into space in front of him, looking past Tifa and into oblivion. "Vincent," she called him, hoping to break his trance. "Vincent." She placed one of her hands on his left shoulder and tried to shake him without aggravating his wounds. "Vincent!" Her voice was strained and choked. She brought her head down near his and took his face from the pillow and held it in her hands, bringing her forehead to his. "Vincent!" A strained whisper, nearly gone but the only plea she had left. "Vincent, answer me. Wake up!"
As if on cue, his eyelids fluttered and she felt it against her own, which startled her into realizing exactly how close she had gotten to him. She backed up some and let him rest back on the pillow and started to idly stroke his hair, doing whatever she could to keep her hand occupied and yet nearby, should he decide to slip into unconsciousness. "Vincent, it's Tifa. Say something, please..."
His eyes flicked over to hers and an element of fear crept into them. He was exposed again, this time helpless and hurting, and all of it obvious to the one he was supposed to be watching out for. He realized he could have killed her in the night. He started to move his mouth, but his voice wouldn't cooperate.
"Vincent..." she started again, "don't go back to sleep. Can you sit up?" He pulled one arm back from behind the pillow and set it up in front of him, following with the other one. He prepared to turn over, and Tifa made a move to steady him, but he shuddered as she came near, and so she backed away. After trying to shift his weight onto one arm so that he could flip over, Vincent gave up and collapsed back onto his chest. Tifa's eyes followed his actions. "It's those sheets..." Vincent made no move to acknowledge them. "Will you let me help you?" He stared up at her from his spot on the bed, and his eyes met hers before trailing down his own form and then to the floor where his pants lay in a bloody heap. His eyes snapped back up to hers, almost expressionless; they half demanded an explanation for her forwardness and half begged her to relieve his humiliation. Tifa understood. "Vincent, we haven't got time for that. People will be coming up here soon, and you can't be here. It's not important...we just have to get out of here, alright?"
Tifa's resolve had won out over her bashfulness and fear. She leaned over and placed her right arm under his left and hooked hers up around his so that she wouldn't scrape against his back, but she'd still have a bit of leverage. She flipped him over onto his back and then attempted to pull him up. When she realized that Vincent was extremely heavy, regardless of how thin he appeared, and it became apparent to her that if she continued this she would fall right into his lap, she had to climb atop the bed and use both arms to pull him up. His body eventually followed with her motions, but he had some trouble holding himself up, so he practically fell onto her. He was slumped forward, his chin on her shoulder as she tried to hold him up and simultaneously untangle him from the sheets.
"Vincent, you have to help me." Tifa heaved her shoulders in a sigh and rested on her knees, her toes digging into the wet sock material that was hidden in her boots. She held Vincent's claw arm to her side, wedged in the crook of her elbow, and she heard the fingers begin to twitch behind her arm. Tifa's eyes peeked out at Vincent from behind a matted curtain of deep brown, and they met with a resigned crimson gaze. Vincent's eyes peered into her own, communicating something silent to her from behind his tousled hair, and she watched as an outsider as he slowly pulled his claw arm from her grasp and set it down beside himself. "Vincent...you can't stay-"
Tifa was cut off as Vincent began to push himself up from the bed. She moved forward in an effort to steady him, but he continued on without need of it. Vincent sat up in bed and looked around the room, his eyes seemingly opened for the very first time to the destruction around him. He looked to the walls and then back to Tifa, then back to the walls. He spoke up for the first time that morning, his voice cracked and shaking, hoarse and running with red liquid. "...I did this." His eyes met hers.
Tifa waved it off with a shake of her head. "It's not important right now. We have to get you out of here, and we have to take care of your wounds." His eyes spoke concern as they moved down to her white sweater, which was covered in red. "It's yours," she answered. He looked back up at her face.
"...I know."
Tifa caught his meaning and sighed loudly. "Vincent, now is not the time for that, no matter how dazed you are." It seemed ridiculous to her that after all he'd obviously suffered through that night, he felt bad that she'd gotten his blood on her shirt. "Can you get dressed?" His eyes fell to the side. "I know they're bloodied up, but we can worry about that later. Can you stand?"
Vincent pushed forward with his arms. "Turn around." Tifa nodded, even though he wasn't looking at her.
"I'll go over by the door. We haven't got much time, so let me know when you're decent, so we can get out of here." She gave him one last look and walked over to the open doorway, where the floor was littered with scraps of wood left behind from her powerful kick. She paced the area restlessly and set a pile of gil on the coffee table, once she had righted it again.
Vincent pushed forward on his arms and sat up on his knees, using his hands for balance. He continually eyed the edge of the wall, suspicious of the constant noise Tifa's pacing was making, even though she had no intentions of interrupting him before he was finished. Ever since that occurrence the earlier day, his guard had been raised higher than usual, and he had become wary of all of Tifa's motions.
He slid from the bed and set one foot on the floor, finding his stance to be shaky and weak. He felt like he had not stood for several days, and he had to reach out and grasp the bedpost to keep from falling over. Tifa called to him from the other room.
"Vincent, are you going to be alright?"
"...Yes," came the soft but definite reply. Vincent moved one hand over to the bed and clung to the sheets on the edge of it, as he lowered one knee to the ground and gathered his pants in his hand. He tried pulling himself up by the sheets, but they only stretched in his hands, and hung from the small frame the mattress made. He seemed unable to stiffen the muscles in his legs, and he could barely pull himself up from the ground. He thought for a moment that he might consider Tifa's offer, but that was the last thing he wanted. Regardless of her kindness and the fact that she meant well, he would never let her see him in such a vulnerable and broken state, exposed for all he was worth.
Putting forth a burst of energy, Vincent lunged forward towards the bed and pulled himself up onto the blood-stained linens. He lay back on the sticky mess, which was cool from the hours exposed to the air, the heater having been broken in the midst of the wild thrashing fit Chaos had given the night previous. The red liquid seeped into his pores and drenched his scalp from behind, as he used his right arm to lift his legs one by one and attempt to dress himself.
It was true that his pants were wet with his blood. He loathed the feeling of his own life sliding up the sides of his legs, and he loathed the smell of it even more. Nevertheless, he continued on with it, and as soon as Tifa heard him zip the garment up, she rushed back around the corner to help him finish the rest. Her sudden apearance frightened Vincent, and he would have jumped visibly in his position, had he been anyone else.
Tifa approached the still man as he lay on his back in the pool of crimson, staring back at her with a slight bit of contempt, but also a bit of surprise, be it ever less evident than the contempt. After all, this was about trust, right? She grabbed his shirt, which was lying on a capsized chair nearby, and took his human hand in both of hers and yanked him into an upright position. She climbed up next to him and began to put his shirt on.
"...I am capable of doing that myself," Vincent casually observed, more out of a resigned afterthought than anything else.
"I know," Tifa replied, sounding apologetic, "but we don't have the time."
Coherent thought escaped Vincent, though he managed to retain a somewhat dignified tone. Not caring whether an angry mob found him and shot him to death at that very moment, he decided to make light of the situation in his own way, lifting some of the stress from Tifa's shoulders. Whether it was the apathy or the blood loss, he wasn't sure. He wasn't even thinking about why, though it might have just been that he'd gone too long without giving rise to a priceless expression in the face of Tifa Lockheart. He spoke again, softly and distinctly, as she moved around him, fastening the buttons. "...Must you straddle my leg so?"
Tifa's eyes went wide and she paused in her actions, a thick hue of red threatening to consume her features. She searched his face for some explanation as to why he had asked her that, but she found that he was not himself, and his eyes seemed rather glazed over. "I was trying to get this done quickly and easily...I was only getting close enough to work with your clothing."
"I noticed."
Tifa merely blinked back at him. "Well it doesn't matter, because I'm done." She inched away from him and stood up on the floor, letting her hair fall over her eyes to hide her red cheeks. "...Come on," she said, shouldering his cape and strapping Death Penalty to her side, "let's get you out of here." She stepped forward and sat next to him on the bed. She slipped her arm underneath of his and set one foot against the broken bedframe, which made no noise since becoming accustomed to its place wedged against the floor. Getting ready to push off, she turned to him and said, "when I stand, I want you to follow me, alright?" Vincent gazed forward and nodded silently, and Tifa pushed off of the wooden frame.
Vincent rose from the bed, though he more or less fell onto Tifa's shoulder rather than used it for a mere support. He was heavy, but she was handling it well enough. "Vincent, you're going to have to walk." She spotted his room key underneath the coffee table she had just righted, and thought it best that they just leave it there. "Vincent, did you hear me? You're going to need to move your legs." Vincent nodded, a barely detectable motion, and bent one knee, trying to take a step forward. "Does it hurt?" she asked him. He nodded again, but hesitantly in his admittance.
"I can move them. I just...cannot feel them." Tifa shuddered at the hot breath on her neck.
"...Your legs?" she asked. He nodded again. "Where does it hurt?"
"...The hips," he muttered under a short gasp as he tried to walk. Tifa followed him towards the door, holding onto him and acting as a support. "The rest...is numb."
"...We're going to have to walk to the station," she warned him. "Can you do it?" Vincent nodded in reply, though somehow she doubted he truly could. He seemed to be doing more than before, though, and it had only been a matter of minutes. She led him out into the hallway and to the service elevator at the end of the corridor, not in any hurry to show him downstairs in front of the other guests.
Tifa had turned her sweater inside out, and had draped Vincent's cloak over him. The entire way to the station, which was a painfully slow trip, the two had received several strange stares and questioning glances, but no one had stopped to bother asking why the young girl was carrying a thin and deathly pale man on her shoulder. The dripping blood as they went through the streets was barely noticeable from the angle of the passers by, but had they been looking down from above, they would have seen the two dragging red tears behind them.
Eventually they staggered into the front entrance of the fueling station and made for the Tiny Bronco. Tifa brought Vincent around to the passenger side of the plane and tried to help him into the vehicle. He managed to pull himself up into the cockpit using his arms, though his back ached and burned when he did so. Tifa turned around and paid the clerk, who had just wandered up from the back of the garage and was eyeing the pair with a look of confusion, and possibly a bit of suspicion. She gave him a large handful of gil and told him to keep the rest before making her way around to the driver's side of the plane. The man watched with an odd and questioning expression as she started the engine and pulled the plane around so that it was facing the landing.
Tifa looked over at the faint and dazed man slumped over in his seat to her right. She took a deep breath and held it in before slowly letting it go. 'This means I'm going to have to drive again,' she thought, dreading the experience. She hoped that Vincent would be awake enough to coach her through the landing process again, because she was so frantic the last time that she didn't quite remember it.
Vincent's eyes began to close and his head nodded to the side as he sat in the leather chair. He had barely gotten any sleep the entire night, and all the rest he had managed to get had taken place previous to his transformation. Heat and pain threatened to overwhelm his battered body, but he was much too exhausted to try to do anything about it. No matter how cold the temperature was outside of the vehicle, Vincent felt feverish. All he wanted was to get back to sleep, to find some sort of comfort. He didn't care that his hair was matted with blood, or that his limbs were sticky with it. He hated the smell on his clothes, but he didn't care at the moment that they were drenched with it. All he wanted was to close his eyes and fall into some sort of release. His entire body, even his eyes, was sore. He would gladly risk having nightmares over holding out longer than he already had.
"Vincent," Tifa's voice washed over his senses. "Vincent, don't you dare fall asleep. I have to make sure you'll wake up again!" His vision was swirling, and his senses were driving him mad, picking up every single stimuli, but muting them all. Tifa reached over and gently shook him while the engine warmed up. "Vincent, please...I can't keep an eye on you all the way to Rocket Town." Vincent glanced over in her direction with sleepy eyes.
"Did you not say-"
Tifa shook her head. "There's no way we're going to Midgar with you hurting like that. We'll run this by Cid's house and get you fixed up. It shouldn't be too long...just hold on. Vincent, please hold on for me. I'll never be able to live it down if something bad happens to you."
Vincent's head nodded a little before he laid it back on its side against the seat and stared up at her through those half-lidded eyes. "...It is not your fault."
"Vincent, I walked all the way down to the station without you! I passed right by your door and didn't even think to check and see if you were still there! And besides...I'm the one who asked you to come out here with me. All this time, you've been doing all of this for me, and you get hurt..."
Vincent blinked back at her and weakly cleared his throat. "Do not regret," he started in a hoarse and scratchy voice, "the decisions that others have made."
It broke her heart to hear him speak like that, and in his feverish voice, too. Tifa wanted to stop him and tell him that he should take his own advice, that his life would be so much better if he learned to do just that. But she decided that it wasn't her place to say anything about it. That part of his life was over, and if he was ever going to get past it, he would have to be willing to let himself do it. Instead she sighed and started the plane on its path down the landing. "Vincent, just try to stay awake until we get there, alright? I know you want to sleep, and I promise that when I can keep an eye on you again, you can rest all you want. Just...Vincent, I'm scared. I don't want to crash this plane."
Vincent nodded and sat up as best he could. He let his shirt take in what was left of the blood from his back in order to stop the flow, even though he knew it would hurt very much when it was pulled away later. Delaying the pain was no problem for him, as long as he could rest his body. His eyes, however, would have to wait. Vincent began putting forth his best effort to stay awake as they headed towards Rocket Town in the Tiny Bronco.
A/N: Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! ...I know this post will be outdated when I post again, but as I write this, it's still Christmas where I live, so there.
Reno Spiegel wrote a gift fic package, and gave me a short story ("For Nighty Night"). I feel all cozy and... stuff. Anyways, I liked it and I'm sure you will too, so go and read his stories, alrighty? *plugs*
Everyone have a wonderful season, regardless of how you spend it. Hope this chapter turned out alright, and that you all enjoyed reading it. I'm trying to make yet another turning point in the story while also keeping the both of them in character, and I'm hoping I did an alright job with the descriptions/dialogue/diziness/effects/tension. And I had Vincent crack a joke. A dazed joke, but a joke nonetheless, so I hope you'll excuse any weirdness that you might have experienced due to that. I just had to stick it in there, and it could not be resisted, no matter how hard I tried.
Like I really tried.
~Nighty Night~
