His mind throbbed sickly in his skull, which had been reduced to nothing but a thick, gauze-stuffed encasement, preventing him from the simple act of thinking straight. Thinking about the heavy damp on his chest and arms, the heat of this place and the way he felt swaddled in his cloak, uncomfortable and crinkling dead leaves whenever he tried to move. And What is that stench? his own internal voice spoke up, somehow perfectly coherent in spite of the current state of his body. The only little detail that foiled its supposed intelligence was the question in that sense; he knew very well what that pungent smell was, merely the congealing blood soaked into his clothes and hair. And the still wet viscera splattered around the scene, marring the clean forest floor.
Matted strings of grimy black hair obscured his field of vision, turning the world to a shattered, twisted replica of reality when he lifted his head and forced both eyes open. Shadows raced between the trees every time the wind gave a half-hearted gust, feeling as sick and tired as Vincent himself did. The whole world had gone a surreal, sickening green, the sunlight a waterfall of bright, glassy shafts cutting through the branches that ticked and wavered overhead. Their chatter made his head ache even worse than before, and when one lone mockingbird spoke up he thought the cap of his skull might have literally split open on the spot. Fortunately, he was spared the gruesome fate his mind had cooked up while stewing in a nettle of angry pains. It was a small victory in the eyes of everything else around him.
There was a shiny-slick film strung half-hazardously among the taller blades of grass, spread out and still attached to a few good-sized chunks of dead flesh. It didn't help the waking recognition slow any when he saw the few torn coils of all that remained of some poor thing's guts, strewn out across grass and splashed a dark maroon with congealing bodily fluids.
His senses were suffocating, as if he'd torn open the monster's belly and delved in to feed some revolting hunger. And all things considered, he very well might have. He felt a sick heave, and for an instant, knew he would find out exactly what all he had eaten the night before, by spilling the concoction it had become all over the sharp toes of his boots. The moment passed quickly, however, leaving him feeling weak and shaky, as frail as he seemed, with every exhalation echoing in his ears.
A crunch of leaves, and Vincent curled in upon himself, a frightened, feral beast too tired to put up the fight in his blood but very awake and very aware. He whirled on the attacker in his crouch, with strings of filthy hair swinging in a pendulum's arc over his eyes and glistening, bloodstained claw raised in defense. The man in front of him was not threatened, though; he didn't even appear very surprised. And why would he be? This was a scene played often between them.
Shifting from foot to foot casually in the slanting bars of nauseating sunlight, Cloud held a canteen in one hand and a shimmering orb of green materia in the other. He smiled, or rather, he tried and neither of them was left quite satisfied in the outcome.
"Here. Drink this," the swordsman offered, tossing the water to Vincent, who snapped it greedily out of the air. He was careful not to puncture the flask with his left hand—not anxious to waste the gift—though he made only this precaution. He swallowed too quickly, the drink lukewarm in the summery atmosphere but fluid and clean all the same. It was gone too soon and his stomach rebelled against the sudden, filling intrusion almost immediately. He ignored it and, leaning on what was now his good hand, the claw (this state in regards to the two fingernails he seemed to have torn clean off the other), Vincent dropped himself back into the messy hollow of the tree he'd curled under to sleep after his massacre. He was a sweating, filthy, bloody mess, but he was also himself again. And in light of that last, most important detail, the finer points could be ignored for a time.
"Was it," (he called them that, "it," because it would play the charade of lessening the guilt), "…human?"
And to Vincent's clear irritation, the blonde only laughed flatly and shook his head. "Don't worry about it." He closed the distance between them neatly, making a smooth transfer from standing to crouching, as Vincent had been before. "Are you hurt?"
"I… Believe I am unharmed. If not wholly," he gave his hesitant reply, looking up in open confusion. Of course there was still pain, a dark ache in his head, his hands, arms and legs, though none of it badly enough for Vincent to suppose he'd truly done himself irreparable damage. "But that's unimportant, one way or the other."
Cloud muttered something the other man didn't catch, and the sarcastic little toss of his head gave Vincent the idea that he simply shouldn't care to know. So he didn't ask, staying mutely in his spot as Cloud surveyed the gory scene he'd set up at some indeterminate point the night before. The Restore that had been in Cloud's left hand had disappeared, when he turned to look around or maybe before, when he'd stood up. Either way, the glimmering bit of distraction was gone, and Vincent thought that maybe he could stop fantasizing about what it was going to feel like when he would have to stand up. Lying unconscious on the ground had a tendency to stiffen a body up, and set uncomfortable knots into the limbs. Not to mention the position he'd been crumpled up into previous to his wakening.
"We're not human… But.. Our minds are still just these fragile little things." Vincent could see his head tipped to the side, Cloud always moved when he spoke, even when he wasn't looking. He probably couldn't help it. "Try not to take so much on yourself," he said, though that didn't quite sound like Cloud, and the truth of the matter held that it more than likely wasn't, "it's not healthy."
The conversation had dropped, deteriorated, and they stopped trying to pretend they really had anything to discuss; Vincent wouldn't let go of his sins and Cloud wouldn't stop trying. Neither of them wanted a fight but no one could compromise. It was their game, redemption for each in different ways, to suffer through this blind confusion. Vincent in his silent anger at the hypocrisy of it all, and Cloud in his protection of every single thing that fell under his eyes. And the latter would never tell the former how much.
Vincent had still been dozing, that rest for the wicked afterward, when Cloud had first entered the clearing. He would never be able to properly erase that image of himself, stepping in, and cleaning up all of the recognizable bits and pieces.
Or the sound that a single blue eye had made, that feeling of crushing it out beneath the heel of his boot.