Author's Notes: Angsty ending, sort of. But it's only for awhile. There's naught in this but more love, more adoration and simple fluff toward the end. A bittersweet horizon... a fleeting dream come true... can Luciel handle it? (okay...this Epilogue BARELY does the story any justice. I'm seriously considering doing some revisions, now that this is done.)

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Epilogue:

The Honeybee Inn is running high on business. I don't know if it's because of the chaos lately, or because people are finding it easier to escape into their own perverted fantasies. I stand a respectable distance away from its clenching jaws, knowing full well once this sort of place has hold, it will absolutely detest the idea of letting go.

There's no way I'd let myself slip into Hell again. I turn away, because the sight of women depresses me, and the sight of men makes me sick. I can't look a man or woman straight in the face without feeling sick to my stomach. I told my story, so there's no need for me to stay. I'm done drinking. I have reached an acceptable state of numbness through which I can see nothing, yet see everything with a sort of selective vision. I only see what I choose to.

There's only so much destruction a man can take. Somehow, deep in the mind, a wall crumbles. Your strength wanes. But something makes you keep going, spinning down the toilet of self-annihilation until you feel it's time to lay down your weapons and let the train run over you, again and again.

I only have to recall what Vincent said to me to remember why I'm out here. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go visit the Honeybee Inn, let some other pair of eyes and soft hair make me forget. But I could never forget... not even after a handful of years...

When I tried to come back, you were gone.

There were only a handful of papers I snatched up from the lab area. I disguised myself as another lab assistant, making my slow way with my stolen keycard into the forbidden maw of the beast. I saw the teeth and machines casting forbidden shadows that spilled across the room like sprawling demons, each one a new terror of torture like something out of a damn Frankenstein movie.

I found the humongous treasure trove of information almost by chance. I stared at the stolen keycard, my palms sweating so much I had to keep wiping them on my similarly filched labcoat. Hopeful, I slid the card through the slot, held my breath as the mechanism popped and crunched its unfathomable numbers before the light above the narrow line peeped green.

I flitted through them as fast as I could. I wasn't stupid, and I knew damn well how to read. I figured out that so much was going on in Nibelheim, a town so far away that it was unthinkable to get there, that I decided it was probably be best to go.

I never ended up in Nibelheim. It was going to be my destination before I met him again.

Well...

I left the building, shucking my disguise with disgust as I found my way around the dark hollow streets, with my shoes clicking on the ground and bouncing the sound back almost seven times. It was incredilble - I was stuck in Midgar until I got my ass to Nibelheim to investigate all this crap. It seemed like no big deal, but the exodus would take me months if I was that lucky.

My heart hurt. I felt it in my chest, because I knew there was no way in hell that, according to those reports, he would be in that one place in the whole world. No. Vincent was dead. The brave Turk who had risked his life to save my scrawny, worthless butt was probably chopped up into a dozen pieces, with his brain probably elevated in liquid with needles poking out of it everywhere. All he was reduced to was a piece of superficial flesh and bone, lacking any trace of humanity that remained.

I really hated to think of it in terms like that.

"Where am I going?" I wondered out loud. My tone was melancholy like the song of a lonely cat. I meowed. Then, grinning, I turned into an alley and bumped my nose into somebody's chest.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I spat, bubbling outrage at my misfortune and loneliness burning at me. "I got places to go and I don't have time to be raped in a fucking alley, you disgusting pi...eh...."

The snapping cloak made me hit hard on the breaks. A six foot tall demon stood in my way. Even in the darkness, I could tell his eyes not only 'were' red, but glowed as well. He wore a filthy crimson cape that fell well below his calves, and a solitary metal claw replacing his left arm. His hair was thick and black, and messy like he hadn't combed it in years. He was almost entirely in the shadows, with little else to tell me about him.

I staggered back. Something about the way this guy looked made me recoil with so much fear it wasn't even funny. He was a nightmare. Something out of a goddamn little kid story book, a boogey man to terrify little kids into good behavior.

"I'm sorry, man," I said quietly, tearing my eyes away. Hello, big, tall and creepy.

He didn't speak. Of course he didn't speak. But it pained me again, that he reminded me so much of Vincent. Then, at a closer inspection, while he took careful steps into the streetlight, I saw part of his face and from the shape of his eyes, I knew him for who he was.

My throat caught, and for a minute I just didn't want to believe it. It hurt to believe and put his name to this strange, dark face. Such torment didn't belong there. There was so much more pain than there ever was, and an uncaring dullness in his red eyes that could have decieved anyone. Anyone but me. They were gleaming inside.

Such a terrible price has been paid, but at what cost?

"It's you, Vincent," I said clearly, my voice distant and echoing from the lights to the very center of the city. I lowered my voice, stepping close again. I reached out to touch him, but he shied away. "What's wrong? I looked for you, and I..." I realized how different I would have sounded.

But my identity wasn't lost to him. "I... appreciate your efforts. But I'm afraid it's too late. For both of us."

"What kind of BS is that? It's not too late! I don't even know where you've been for so long! At least come back to my apartment! You just don't know how long I've been waiting to see you!! Jesus--"

Were my words wasted?

What was I trying to say? I missed out on so much with him... I felt my hands clench and my insides quiver, that everything I loved about Vincent was annihilated underneath the crush of time that had gone by. I refused to let that be true. I wanted to hear his story, no matter how horrific, uncensored or long-winded. I just wanted to hear his goddamn voice again, the way it used to be, when he spoke to me as a companion during our short-lived adventure.

He didn't move. He just stared at me, his eyes turning softer, before a chilling emptiness came into them.

"Come back to my apartment," I repeated, shoving my hands into my pockets, trying to smile when I wanted to cry. "Talk to me. Get you some coffee, at least, maybe a plate of spaghetti?"

"Luciel," he interrupted tentatively.

"Vince...?"

I stop walking and look up at the stars. I'm standing just outside my apartment. I'm deeply tired, the kind of tired that won't let you try walking up the stairs to your door when you probably could do it. I don't feel like walking another step, but somehow I make it to the stairwell in my home and slowly lower myself to the steps, curling up and smelling the heavy sanitizer and cleaner the land-lord uses occasionally to get the stenches of urbanization eliminated.

This sector of Midgar survived, only for a little while. I think people are leaving, though. Of the four apartments in this beaten-up building, I'm the second person who actually lives here. The other is an elderly couple with too much affection for their numerous cats. I can barely smell the stench of the felines' existence from down here.

I keep my place pretty clean. Spruced it up. Given myself something to be proud of, which is lots of sheets, clean clothes, dishes and silverware and enough food to last me for the next two weeks. The only thing keeping me from leaving is the lack of transportation and duffle bags. I have no damn dufflebags!

My last thoughts as I close my eyes, and get ready to drown myself in the darkness of sleeping Midgar, were This is it - I'm done. I don't deserve the kind of love people make plays about... there's no script for making dreams come true. This is my last act, but I ain't coming back for no curtain call.

Light. Really burns my eyes. Why the hell can't I go to sleep and not wake up? Didn't I plan on just stayig passed out? I thought I'd drunk myself poisoned... guess I didn't drink hard enough.

Strange. That my grave is made of soft, familar substance and everything around me has a sort of Healthy Luke aroma. I open my eyes and blink again, staring through my window. Ancient movie-clip fragments of my evening play back at me in reverse. Bar. Misery. Some drinking. More misery. Memories.

Then I feel a piece of paper in my hand and I slowly come to alertness. My head is pounding. The pain is more real and thus demands more attention as I taste the bile of alcohol in the back of my throat. I check my sheets. Certain that I haven't made a total and complete mess of them, I roll over onto my back, outfitted in just shorts and the shirt I wore to the bar last night.

I lift the paper to my nose. I smell it. Naturally, I can't smell a damn thing yet but it feels good to just breathe in. Exhale. Breathe. Sigh. I don't know where it came from. I'm compelled, however, to peel it open and take a bleary-eyed gander.

'Luciel,

Our time is not forgotten. I have led a complex existence, and now I am lost in the darkness of my newest situation. Something inside me wishes me to forget, but something deeper will always make me remember and suffer every moment that I have ever hurt anyone. While I linger on the first sin I ever committed, I lose sight of everything I still have. And I still have you. It hurts so much, Luciel. I feel the pain of her death every day, along with the thrill of your passion and your zealous personality. I see two paths before me - and very little to go by on which to choose.

I saw you sleeping in your apartment vestibule and took it upon myself to take you to your apartment. No doubt, yours is the cleanest one. I couldn't stand seeing you like that. It doesn't suit you. You don't frown when you sleep. You once mentioned that I tend to frown when I sleep... perhaps you're right. But my nightmares are not for telling now.

Don't go to your pubs, thinking I hate you. I don't love you, Luciel... but I adore you in the way that I adore something strange and unusual, something that blesses my bleak darkness. A spark of light that has the hope of turning into the blazing fire that will light the emptiness in my soul.

That said, Luciel, you will undoubtedly see me again. I am changed. But not undone. Nothing shall undo me, but the hopeless fascination for you.

-V.'

My eyes burn. Tenseness in my chest and throat. My headache seems to disappear for a moment, possibly to return later tenfold. But I've got the letter. I got the words and while I'm blinking at my foolish tears like an idiot, they're burning themselves permenantly into my mind and most importantly my heart. I recall every single word even though I've folded the letter up again. I breathe deep, realizing he was here and he cared enough to put me to sleep properly.

I brush my hands through my hair. Had he touched my face in silent wonder and marveled at the strangeness of me? I burned to think that I slept through being carried upstairs, like when I was a clumsy amatuer actor in a clown suit, and he a morose agent heavensent, and fallen...

Straight out of an old-style theatre.