Disclaimer: I do not own Yuffie, Vincent, or anything else from FFVII.
A/N: Well, I've finally put a bit of a plot to this. The entire story is set pretty much during the second disk, and this is the chapter set… well, I don't know, exactly. I've never held off on doing the Yuffie Sub-quest long enough to know when the Lucrecia bit comes in relation to it. So we'll just pretend the sub-quest occurs afterwards, ok? ^^ Sweet.
Ahem. Highly improbable, but then, so is the entirety of Yuffentine. So deal. ^^
Confusion
"Shit!"
Yuffie stared, wide-eyed, as Vincent raised the Outsider at her. He must've been hit by Funny Breath during the last wave of attack from those… those… Yuffie had no idea what they were called. She only knew that they were evil, evil, creepy little pumpkin-headed ghost things, and that there were way too many of them in the Shinra Mansion. And that Vincent was obviously Confused and aiming his gun at her!
She leapt out of the way as he pulled the trigger, and narrowed her eyes. "You idiot!" She screeched, and sliced at him with the Rising Sun in rage. She realised this was a bad idea only after Vincent was knocked to the ground, shaking his head to clear it, and leaving her to deal with the remaining demonic pumpkin-sheets on her own. She waved her arms impatiently. "Fire2!"
With little shrieks of pain and despair, the scent of rotten pumpkin filled the air and the creatures were burned to crisps. Yuffie turned back to Vincent with a triumphant little smirk, and discovered him staring at her, half puzzled, half amused. Yuffie didn't like the amount of emotion she could see. Maybe he wasn't quite back to normal yet.
"You've cut your hair." He said, and his voice had changed somehow. It hadn't become any deeper, but it had somehow become more pleasant to listen to. She suddenly realised he had actually modulated his tone, made it sound slightly teasing, slightly accusing, all in fun. She stared back at him.
Vinnie, speaking in something other than a monotone? Joking? Man, maybe I'm the confused one…
"I like it. Suits you." The accent had become slightly rougher, more… she blinked in surprise. Was that a Wutaian twang she heard? A slight softness of consonants, an odd angling to the vowels? She stared at Vincent until he cocked an eyebrow at her – at least, she presumed he did, she couldn't see his eyebrows underneath the bandanna. He shoved the Outsider back into its holster and walked a few steps closer.
"What's the matter, 'Crecia?"
Yuffie stared at him, and nearly burst out laughing. He was confused. He was definitely confused. He thought she was Lucrecia. Oh, this was priceless. Could she buy a camera? When he woke up, could she use a film as blackmail? The corner of her mouth twitched upward for a second, but she flattened it out again on the pretext that Lucrecia hadn't seemed like a very jolly person. "I notice you don't pass comment on my hiking clothes."
Vincent's eyes crinkled, his mouth stretching with painful slowness into a beautiful smile. "Do I really have to? You take my breath away, always." Yuffie's breath caught in her throat as he moved right in front of her and looked down, eyes flashing darkly with intense emotion. She stared upward at him, looking at her like that, and felt her knees go just a little bit weak.
Um. Um. Shit. What would Lucrecia say?
"Oh, Vincent! Let's move to Kalm and have a dozen babies."
Vincent blinked at her, and then laughed, a full-blown, hearty laughter that she swore had never ever come from his lungs before. It was like the sun breaking through the clouds. Even as she mentally slapped herself for saying such a stupid thing aloud, she felt her face light with a reflexive smile at the sound of that laugh.
Vincent wrapped strong arms around her and pecked her on the forehead, then spun away and across the room as though he'd heard something that interested him. Yuffie stood frozen, and tried to school the blush from her cheeks. Vincent snorted at his surroundings. "They should've known this place'd never last. Nothing does in Nibelheim. Everything just rots away…" He shrugged and turned back to 'Lucrecia'. "So, where are you off to today?"
Yuffie blanked. Uhhh… "…town? I have to pick up a few things." Like somethin' to make you less crazy!
Vincent nodded. "You ready to go?"
Wide-eyed and quite daunted by the change in personality, Yuffie nodded and followed Vincent to the door. He glanced around at the empty mansion suspiciously, and for a moment the Vincent that she knew showed through in those eyes, as though something was wearing off, as though somewhere his mind was telling him that this wasn't quite right. But he held the door open for her courteously, and then the gate, and walked on her left all the way down to the village. Yuffie had the distinct feeling he was refraining from holding her hand.
They had nearly reached the first of the buildings when Vincent stepped around in front of her, causing her to back up until he had her up against a tree. His scarlet eyes were half-lidded; his lips were pulled to the side in an amused smirk. A curtain of dark hair separated her from his left eye, but she still caught the garnet glimmer behind the strands. When he spoke, the deep rumble of his voice vibrated to her through her stomach and breasts more than through her eardrums. The voice of self-control had to flail its arms and scream very loudly to prevent a gasp from escaping her lips.
"Hello, my love."
He moved in as though in slow motion, intent upon capturing her lips with his own. Yuffie Kisaragi had found herself in similar situations, but she had never before had qualms about causing lasting injury to her... harasser. Her eyes widened the moment after his had finally closed in anticipation, and she slipped expertly from between his arms. The friction between their bodies alone nearly made her cry out, but she regained her feet outside the circle of Vincent's arms without a problem.
What she didn't expect was for Vincent to chase her, try to recapture her after his split-second of surprise was over and done. His hand and claw on her waist made her gasp out loud, but his voice inches from her ear and the warmth of his body along her back silenced her as effectively as any gag.
"That was tricky." He murmured, the hint of a euphemism beneath the surface. Maybe it was some joke he and Lucrecia had shared in between...
Yuffie's thoughts trailed off at that point, because Vincent whirled her around and kissed her. It was not a gentle kiss. If her poor, beleaguered mind had been able to catalogue such an event – and it was not – then her description would have been long and detailed, of the way he drank her out of herself, of the way her eyes closed against her will and her body leaned into it without her permission.
As it was, when he finally pulled back, she stared at a spot some fifty feet behind him for a few moments, and then said, "I really do have things to do today." It didn't sound convincing, even to her. She was still trying to regain her breath.
But a familiar absence had appeared in Vincent's eyes, and his arms fell slack to his sides as she stepped away from him. A shudder ran over his body and his eyes slid closed, but when he looked up at her again, he wasn't the Vincent she knew. Hell, he wasn't even the Vincent she didn't know.
Chaos stared back at her out of that perfectly human face, its eyes blazing. In Vincent's voice, it said, "He won't remember this. He cannot. Do you understand?"
Yuffie said, "What?"
"This cannot happen again. He cannot be allowed to return to those memories."
Yuffie blinked. "He... huh?"
Chaos glared at her levelly, and made Vincent's lips smile. It was a strange smile. It seemed peaceful, but when combined with the burning eyes... Yuffie bit the inside of her cheek.
"I understood that by human standards, he is quite attractive, but I wasn't aware a kiss so mundane as that could numb your mind." He said with a grin that didn't belong on Vincent's face. "Listen close, little ninja. Vincent changed dramatically when Hojo altered him. He was made weaker, because the stronger elements of himself were shaped into the monsters that came before me. But even mako cannot make a monster of love."
Yuffie's eyes fixed onto Chaos', confused. "What are you saying?"
"He is not strong enough to withdraw again. There isn't enough of himself left."
And just like that, Vincent blinked and was himself again. He frowned and glanced about in puzzlement. "Were we not just inside...?" He asked. Yuffie found that she was immensely pleased to hear the monotonous voice and to see the calm, immovable expression.
"Uh, yeah. The confusion's worn off. You were clucking and everything. I wish Cid had been here." She said, her mouth spinning a lie for her before her mind could come up with one. She was pretty damned sure he didn't want to know about mistaking her for Lucrecia, and she was absolutely fucking positive that the knowledge he had kissed her in that confused state would bring Chaos to the surface again in a much more forceful manner. As the demon had said, he didn't need to be reminded.
Vincent levelled a glare at her, and stalked off in the direction of the village. Yuffie found it difficult to believe that the perpetrator of that death glare was the same one who only moments ago had been laughing with her. And then she thought, Well, it wasn't, really.
As she followed him down through Nibelheim, the wind whipped his hair to the side, and made his cloak billow dramatically up behind him. Yuffie found herself more and more conscious of his ass in those old-fashioned black Turk pants. Yuffie cocked an eyebrow at herself and sighed.
Leviathan help me…***
A/N: Yeah, I took tremendous liberties. Sue me! I have nearly seventeen dollars in the back, and maybe eighty cents in my pocket. I'd like to see you try. ;)
