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Reveal, verb. Make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others; cause or allow (something) to be seen.
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The road north is gruelling, yes something else chafed at Vincent. Had been since the Forgotten City, before grief had taken centre point.
Their party, less one, suffer each step; up sharp inclines, down jagged, treacherous slopes; through wind, rain and ultimately, snow, without complaint, battered and bruised bodies pushed to the limit. Many an injury was brushed off, pain papered over with potions and heal spells. The cuts and scratches healed, but the ache of their bones persisted.
Vincent remained silent of his previous concerns for the time being. They had all cared for the Ancient dearly in their own way, their grief pushing them on, fuelling their weary steps. He chose to remain watchful, in particular of their elected leader.
It was not concern that spurred his watch, but suspicion.
He had seen Cloud reach for his sword. Had seen the blade tremble in his would-be-traitorous grip. Something drives Cloud forward. Something other than gut instinct, or a sense of direction. Vincent knew not if his hunch was founded, though he had long learned to respect them regardless.
The others would follow with him, and fight to the end.
Vincent just wasn't sure it would be against the foe they each expected.
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Galian's roar seems to shake the ground beneath her feet, rage and anguish inducing visceral thrills of terror to pulse through her body, cramping her muscles, setting the tiny hairs across her skin on end, a tremor to begin at her knees and end with her chattering teeth. Her amygdala instructs her to run and not look back, yet she rooted her feet to the blood-soaked ground. She would not yield to her fear. Vincent (Galian, or no) was no danger to her.
Still, she repeats it a few more times, to reassure herself.
They had come across a small group of ShinRa Soldiers in the wilds of the pines, cobalt uniforms clearly visible against the snow. Separated from the rest of Avalanche, Tifa and Vincent were in possession of the upper hand, having come upon them as they did; The soldiers, it seemed, found themselves in similar circumstances; lost, separate from their unit, yet ignorant of their observers, arguing loudly about the correct course of action to take to correct their divergence amongst themselves.
Vincent met Tifa's gaze, communicating silently. Should they try and sneak around the soldiers, or try to take them by surprise? They were outnumbered; The soldiers numbered four with all but one armed, Vincent surmised from their vantage point, crouched behind a particularly robust pine which had gathered quite a tall snow drift. The paths forward or around led right through the eyeline of the soldiers. If they tried to sneak past, they too would likely be seen, poorly camouflaged against the terrain.
Waiting them out seemed out of the question also, for their poor clothing would not insulate them against the severe temperatures of the landscape. The weather promised gales, and further snow, if the air pressure and the colour of the skies could be believed. Vincent did not fancy their chances here for much longer.
A direct assault wasn't the best option they had, yet he saw it as their only choice.
As they readied themselves for their pre-emptive strike, circumstance cruelly intervened, throwing their plans into ruin. At that moment, a squirrel opted to cross overhead, dislodging snow from the branches. The resulting gentle thud of snowfall caught the attention of the bickering ShinRa unit. A tell-tale protrusion of red fabric was all they needed to see to confirm that they were being watched.
The snow drift, whilst excellent camouflage, made for a poor bullet shield – Vincent cried for Tifa to run for cover in one direction, whilst he drew the fire of the soldiers in the other. A few well-timed shots between the boughs took down one of their number with an audible cry. The return fire from his comrades, well-placed, ricocheted from a nearby trunk, showering Vincent in splinters.
He attempted to tune out the gun fire and the shouting, ears strained to determine how Tifa fared, across the clearing. Peering around the bough of a spruce earned him a bullet– only a graze across the top of his shoulder, yet he hissed with pain all the same. He was pinned in place, and only had a second or two to lean out from cover to fire, before barraged with return fire once more. This was not the strategic play he had been going for, yet the cards had been dealt. He must find a way out of it.
"Vincent!" Tifa yelled from across the way, her voice deadened in the snow, almost drowned out by gun-fire. "They're all armed. I 'm pinned down here!"
"I know!" He shouted back, gritting his teeth. "I can't get a clear shot!"
"Be caref- arghh!" Her sentence was truncated by a cry of pain – she had evidently taken a bullet.
"TIFA!" He yelled back, leaning out from the tree to spot the perfect window – the soldier who had evidently fired in the opposite direction had ducked behind a bough to reload – the angle was just right to deliver a perfect headshot.
Vincent didn't wait to watch his body slumped down into the snow with a soft flump sound, ducking back around into cover.
What happened after that, was a blur.
He reloaded, before whirling free of the cover, and making a run, weapon ready to take down the remaining two soldiers.
Yet there were not only two. Vincent counted six, now.
A few ShinRa comrades, evidently separated from the earlier four, until the sound of gunfire alerted them to the presence of their colleagues, had rushed to join the fray. In the corner of his eye, Vincent spotted a flash of white – Tifa, stood with her back pressed to a domineering pine, a surface wound grazing her arm. Their eyes meet, and he knows – they both know – what's about to happen.
It had been the fastest transformation she'd ever seen; a blur of movement, red becoming purple such that she couldn't pinpoint the exact moment the transition occurred.
It may have been such that caught the remaining six off guard, resulting in a brief pause in the gunfire. It did not take long for it to resume however, once Galian's blur of movement stalled as he made his attack.
She didn't dare peek around, lest the errant gunfire that came whistling past to both her left and right claim purchase in her flesh, but she counted so many shots; If the sounds Galian made were anything to go by, she'd wager a few bullets had found him amidst the fray.
The moment came when no more guns sounded. All that remained was the soft noise of snow falling, then landing upon the ground; the slow creak and groan of the pines as they swayed in time to unheard, ancient rhythms. Only then, did she dare come seek him out.
Gallian whirls around at the sound of her footfalls in the snow, muscles pulsing, barrel chest wider than the pine she lingered in the shadow of. She can see the extent of his injuries now; black fluid, slick like oil, streaks down his torso, spattering the perfect white of snow underfoot. Steam bellows from slick onyx nostrils, breath condensing in the sharp chill.
He is bleeding. A lot.
The corpses of their enemies lay around him, discarded. The once perfect white snow underfoot is no more, instead serving as a canvas for the brutal still-life of the battle's aftermath; Bullet shells, blood- so much blood-, bodies splayed out with errantly placed limbs, sprays of pine needles, disturbed by the clash.
She reaches out a trembling palm, readying magic to heal the wounds shut that marred Galian's chest. She pauses. There were bullets still embedded deep within his skin. She would need to remove them before she could even think of healing the bullet holes over.
They were, by her reckoning, some distance from the cabin their party was headed for, courtesy of a map studied in the Inn. She did not know, separated as they were from the rest of the group on account of their rather splintered descent down the snow slopes, if anyone had made it ahead of them; or if they would find it first, cold and inhospitable.
Terrifying claws, part of giant, powerful paws glowed, shifting then melding into the impression of flesh, fingers, hands and feet once more. Dense fur coating a seemingly impenetrable hide became skin, fair and smooth. Horns disappeared, fearsome fangs withdrew, and there he was once again. Raven of hair, fair of face, tall, and pale…
His knees buckle.
Fingertips grip hard enough to leave bruises along his arms as she reaches out, like she had done all those weeks ago in Gongaga. She is not injured this time, and so they remain blissfully upright. He returns the grip, but to stabilise whom, she cannot say.
Trembling, Vincent releases his tight hold at her elbows, gently skimming his hands to her shoulders. She stands, frozen in place, skin erupting in tiny little bumps in the wake of his touch. The air seemed to vibrate, as his thumb grazes the underside of her throat, moving softly, slowly, along her jawline. His fingers are rough, touch gentle. Beneath their path, her skin ignites, breath catching in little hitches and tremors.
Her skin is like paper, her lips a perfect rose flush under the tracing of his thumb. He could break her, like this. So trusting. So strong and yet so, so fragile.
He grits his teeth. Devour. Penetrate. Suck. Taste.
It is always intense like this, in the aftermath of Galian. Everything is so much more visceral. Every urge crude and yet so tempting. Yet somehow, until now, he had managed to keep it at bay; he'd never been this close, so utterly alone with her before, post-transformation or otherwise. His only thoughts were of her and how much he wanted to feel her against him, around him, underneath him...
He takes a deep breath, then another, and another, clarity ebbing gently at the periphery of his mind, returning in slow, gentle pulses. He fights every urge to press against her, inside her, burrow underneath her skin...until all that is left is shame.
He would not let her be defiled by his hands.
"Vincent," Her throat sticks, voice thick with fear-tinged desire. "You're bleeding."
He barely noticed. His body is slick with his own life's blood, his shirt shot through with holes and sticking to the clots.
"We need to reach the cabin and remove those bullets."
The implication of her words removes all those delirious, blasphemous thoughts from mind. She would see him. She would know. She would surely recoil from him...
He grunts, turning his back to her.
Plunging a hand underneath his shirt, he feels for the bullet wounds, discovering each with an ever-intensifying wince of pain. One, two, three, four... Two by his right shoulder (those would need to be sorted immediately, for they rendered his shooting arm useless), another above his left hip bone, and the other was wedged in his left arm. Tearing his bloodied glove away with his teeth, he probed into the wounds in turn, breathing deeply through his nose to quash the waves of nausea. One bullet wasn't deep, but still, he could not prise it free. The others were buried within his flesh, would require medical implements that the wilderness would not furnish him with.
"Vincent, we need to move. There could be more of them." She is firm, orienting herself in the direction of the cabin. Her arm is a firm brace across his lower back, steering him forward. Each step jars with pain, takes more energy than it has any right to, battling against the resistance of the snow underfoot.
He understands he has been defeated. He knows he has no other choice. Though does his best to resist until the end.
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The cabin is nestled behind a particularly dense copse of cedars, and as such, they almost missed it. By the end, he needed to lean on her somewhat, thus encumbering their steps. Blessedly, they do not encounter any more soldiers. Judging by the dark windows within the cabin, and the smokeless chimney, she does not believe anyone awaits them inside. Yet she proceeds with caution, taking temporary charge of Vincent's gun (much to his feeble protest) to scout the outside of the dwelling, ensuring it was neither stalked nor inhabited by anyone or anything unsavory.
She returns to collect him from his spot leaning against the porch.
The front door takes a little persuading to open – the dry wood, in need of a good varnishing, has swelled a little with the damp, and thus does not appear to want to come free of the frame. A few firm shoves with her hip forces it wide.
She takes only a few moments to appraise the interior before she shoos Vincent inside.
It is dry, or at least the central living area is. His nose tells him there's a leak – somewhere – perhaps a few holes had formed in the roof or upon the cabin's periphery which admitted, amongst other things, water, draughts, and small rodents.
The center of the room is dominated by large and open stone fireplace. It can be peered through to consider the room beyond it, and as such, when lit, would heat the entirety of the dwelling. Stacked high either side of the chimney breast was an assortment of logs, dried, fragrant, and ready to use. Perhaps the cabin was not to be considered abandoned after all, for it seemed when last occupied it had anticipated another visit.
Tifa hesitates to use it immediately, despite the bite of cold that threated to chatter teeth, fearing that the smoke would alert any remaining ShinRa in the area, were they unaware of the cabin's existence. It is not without risk being here as it is, but she has little choice when considering their circumstances.
Jerking into action, Tifa encourages Vincent to recline as best he can and remain still, while she searches through her supplies and rummages within the kitchen area of the small cabin in vain hope that she can pull together what she needs to treat her unwilling patient.
Blessedly, there is electricity. She does not stop to question how, instead busying herself with getting a kettle full of water to boiling, and locating a good light source to better illuminate the space, considering the approaching dark. As the kettle's element begins to groan and rumble to life, she darts around, drawing closed shutters and curtains to mask their presence here if possible, dead-bolting the door from the inside to prevent, or delay unwanted guests.
Vincent watches her flit about the rooms form his position reclined awkwardly, leaning against a reluctant armchair that didn't seen keen on supporting his weight. He feels weak, light headed, though he fights to stay alert. He wanted to do his best to dissuade her from her endeavor, gods be damned his urgent need for medical attention.
He only wishes, just for once in his life, for a doctor. Yet out here, at the foot of the Northern Crater and miles from any civilization, let alone a hospital, there are none. So, he must endure the humiliation, and the pain, before the one person he would rather not be present to witness them.
"Here we are," She reappears, slightly breathless, an ensemble of items gathered up in her arms. He notices – or rather remembers – that she also sustained an injury to her right arm in the fight. Remarking upon it, she brushes him off. "It was a scratch, that's all. It will heal. You, on the other hand…"
She kneels beside him, setting beside them a small reading lamp, which bursts into life when she plugs it in. "Sorry…" she mumbles in response to him shielding his eyes in the burst of light from the bulb, adjusting it so that it's beam was focused on his torso; her work area. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach.
The bright light her makeshift surgical lamp was not forgiving to Vincent's usual pallor, let alone as it was now, following the loss of so much blood; Lucid white, the tiny blue-tinged capillaries upon his eyelids visible under the glaring white. She watches with disturbed fascination as he screws his eyes shut, way before she is even ready to treat him.
"Vincent, are you comfortable in here?" She adjusts the armchair at his back, so that it is at least parallel to his back, her brow furrowed with concern.
In the near distance of the kitchen, the kettle froths madly, a harsh click noting that it had completed its task. "Not really."
"If you prefer we can do this in one of the bedrooms?" He almost raises a brow, an inert reflex caused by years of exposure to dirty jokes and double entendre.
"My preference has little to do with this, does it?" He remarks acidly, referring to her insistence that he be treated by her, and at once. He knows that she is right to insist. The bullets would not come out on their own.
She dignifies his comment with a half-amused, half exasperated shake of the head, before retreating to retrieve the kettle.
"It would help if you could remove your shirt. But don't worry if you can't. I can cut it away," She notes breezily as she returns with the hot water. He expected this, of course – how else would she remove the bullets? The inevitable moment hits hard nonetheless.
"I..." He wants to warn her. He wants to tell her – no, to beg her – not to look, to bear witness to the testaments of his torture and suffering. He didn't want the disgust, though he could understand it of anyone who would express it; No - most of all, he didn't want the pity.
"I can do it, don't worry. Although we might not be able to stitch it back together." She adopts a levity of tone, as if perhaps, without even looking at him, she knows what he is afraid of – probably does.
All things gathered, she assembled her tools before her would-be patient. Hands de-gloved and clean, she reaches for the buttons of his shirt. His eyes flicker closed, softly, defeated.
"I will be careful not to hurt you, as best I can," She intones softly. She has leaned in closer, to better see what she is unveiling. If he could recoil, he would have, yet as it was, his shoulders firmly wedged against that cantankerous armchair, body rendered immobile by injury, blood-loss and exhaustion, he can do little to move.
It takes until the fourth button or so, baring him to the navel, for her cool fingers to stay in their actions. He knew the light must have been unforgiving; not that he considered there were any ways of displaying favorably the ruin of his flesh. He keeps his eyes closed, swallowing a lump in his throat. His heart races all of a sudden, a rabbit heart. Her fingers resume in their task, if not a little shakily.
She finishes with the unbuttoning, doing her best to peel the fabric away from the wounded areas, and where it wasn't possible, she cut away the edges with the sharp blade of his boot knife. He does not move, save for wincing a little as she parts the flesh a little around a particular bullet wound, to better view how deeply the bullet was lodged.
They fall into loaded silence for a short time as she carefully cleaned his flesh, gentle around the wounds, as much as she could.
"You might want a shot or two of this," She produced a small bottle of something – brandy?- for him, enough for perhaps four or five shots at least. "It'll help with the pain."
At first it makes him sleepy, but as she begins her extractions, peppered with much cursing from both parties and murmured apologies from her when she induced him to wince or groan, it simply dulls his senses.
When she is finished, she helps to maneuver him into a clean, cotton long-sleeve. He doesn't know where she got it from, but it seems to fit well enough. It's soft, and smells freshly laundered.
Suddenly – and he doesn't know when it happened, for he must have fallen asleep – there is a small fire crackling in the hearth. He didn't realise how cold he had been.
He is reclined fully now, having evidently been menouvred into a more comfortable position. His back is protected from both the chill and the unforgiving hard of the wooden floor by a stack of folded blanketsm a pillow propping up his head.
The silence, punctuated only by the pop and crackle of the fire, is soothing, and he almost drifts off again until he wonders at the location of his companion.
A shift of fabric somewhere to his right confirms she had not been far from his side, after all.
She is kneeling beside him, glowing pink – was that the scent of soap he could detect? – and smiling, dressed in clean, and weather appropriate garments.
"Awake so soon, are you? We should both really get some rest. Here, let me just finish up…"
She leans closer, enveloping him with her scent – yes, she had taken a bath. So there was hot water, then. Her palms press firmly on his chest, warming to a near-uncomfortable searing heat. The warmth spreads as some hundred of tiny, invisible tendrils, reinvigorating every cell in his body, turning the tender, angry flesh of his bullet holes into newly healed, pink welts that would fade in a matter of days. The light it generates, in absence of that harsh lamp, suffuses the dark of the cabin with a warming, jade glow.
He can no longer take it, unable to leave it unsaid.
"Aren't you going to ask about them?"
"About what, Vincent?" She replies softly, perches on the little step before the hearth, drawn to the cathartic, comforting heat of the fire.
"My… my scars."
"What about them?" She tightens her jaw. "If I had known…" She begins, voice cold with something he recognizes as fury.
"I… I didn't want you to see me like this."
She is wearing an odd expression now, one of hesitancy, and reservation, as if torn between two extremes. Her foot begins to gently tap on the wooden boards, and she worries her bottom lip.
"You're not the only one with scars, Vincent." Now, a sigh, angry again. "If you had told me before Costa Del Sol, I would have… I would have helped you take that bastard somewhere quiet."
"You were… right. It wasn't the right time." He acquiesces. "I did everything I could to keep it from you – from you all. I didn't want the pity. Or… to give you any other reason to fear, or be repulsed by me."
"I suppose now I've seen everything." A statement that held within it hope – hope that the extent of his suffering went no further.
"Not everything." He sheepishly raises his left hand, encased in gold-coated steel.
She blinks a few times, hardly daring to believe that it seemed her unanswered curiosity of weeks if not months past was in reach of being sated. He was feeling brave; perhaps it was the shots of brandy, or the lingering effects of the adrenaline from their earlier skirmish. His right fingers makes light work of the clasps and buckles at his wrists, braced across his forearm and at his elbow, keeping the gauntlet in place. It is a relief to remove it – the glove had been wet beneath, and, now he came to think of it, his fingers were stiffened with cold and disuse.
With a strange sense of catharsis, he removes the glove also, revealing his left hand to her for the first time. It trembles, as it usually does, the ulnar nerve especially suffering from the damage of experimentation, such that his ring and little finger would twitch and shake independently of the others. The pale skin is peppered with the tracings of scars – incisions across his palms, from and back, tracing along the outside of his fingers to the first knuckle. The marks had been tattooed over in black lines. At the centre of the back of his hand, a word in black is stark against the pallor of his skin: FAILURE. Turning his palm over in her hands, the heart of the palm bears an angry burn-like scar.
"I don't think you're a failure, Vincent." She says, very softly, slowly, tracing her fingertips across the inside of his palm. The contact is gentle, soothing – so tender, that his breath catches a little in his throat. He hadn't expected this.
She was always careful to conceal her studies of him. And he was always careful to conceal his awareness of it. At times, her gaze would softly glide across the surface of his skin like water droplets, when his back was turned, or if she felt sure enough he was not aware of her presence.
But there was no concealment taking place, here. She is seated not inches from him, studying him so openly and with such intensity he fights to catch his breath (though he is able to disguise it at recovery from his rather unbidden bout of laughter). It strips away all pretence, guardedness, and subtlety in its wake.
"Next," She said, still tracing shapes in the heart of his palm, sending pleasant thrills along his spine. "You're going to tell me you're covered in scales".
It starts small at first, though when their eyes meet, and for a fleeting moment a flash of horror flits across her features, as if she had in fact stumbled across the true source of his urge to remain hidden from her view, he laughs so hard his sides hurt, tears rolling down his face. Tifa giggles at his side, hands over her mouth as she delighted in the aesthetic effect of laughter upon Vincent's visage. He looked like a different person. There were wrinkles on his nose; she'd never appreciated how straight his teeth were. She wishes she knew how to give him this – this unencumbered happiness.
She wishes he would allow her to.
"No scales." He says, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"No tail?"
"Absolutely not." His shoulders tremor, the urge to laugh still threatening. "Only when I'm Galian."
"And nothing is missing – you don't have a peg leg do you?"
He scoffs a little, even though the action gives him some discomfort. He was still healing, underneath. Still would be, he expected, for some time to come.
"There's nothing missing, that I haven't noticed, anyway." He rolls his eyes. "Who knows what he took out of me when he cut me open."
"Nothing you seem to be missing, evidently."
"I suppose so."
They remain quiet for a moment, occasionally either one of them giving a gentle giggle from time to time, as the giddiness subsides. "Thank you, Vincent. I haven't had cause to laugh like that – to laugh at all – not since… Aeris always used to know how to make me laugh like that. She'd do these hilarious impressions."
"Oh really? I'd have liked to have seen that. Did she ever do impressions of me?"
"Oh yes, regularly." She winks. "Her Cid was particularly accurate, too."
Silence settles again, leaving space for her to formulate the question she had been wanting to ask since Gongaga, reignited by the occurrence in the forest.
"Vincent, I-"
At that moment, a sudden thud comes at the door, as if perhaps someone had thrown some of their weight against it, making then both give a rather violent start. Vincent's expression turns serious once more, regloving his hand before reaching for his gun.
The steel handle gives an awful, rusty squeal as it is manipulated from the outside to no effect.
"Barret- gonna need you to blast open this fuckin' door - My nuts are about to freeze off if I don' get inside soon." Cid's voice comes rather loudly from the other side of the locked door. Barret's gruff reply, uttered from some distance, was discernable.
Vincent smirks, getting to his feet and crossing toward the door softly, such that Cid would not notice his approach.
"Well tell fuckin' spiky head to hurry his ass up, otherwise I'm gunna be thawin' in front of the fire and I ain't make room for no-one."
Vincent unlocks the door, giving a vicious tug so it opens rather suddenly, admitting, inelegantly, in a flail of limbs and cigarette smoke, a rather confused pilot.
"Don't you think it wise to determine if this cabin was empty before you started to shout your mouth off outside the front door, Cid?" Vincent remarks dryly, making a show of holstering his weapon to highlight he had had it drawn at the ready.
Cid picks himself up from the dusty floorboards, beating his clothes down as he does so. Remarkably, the cigarette he was smoking is still safely pinched between his lips. "Don' be a fuckin' smartass, Turk. I could hear Tifa gigglin' from half a mile away."
Vincent managed to give Cid his best, I don't know what you're talking about look, though the pilot returns it with a yeah right expression that leaves Tifa wondering what information the Pilot knew – or indeed presumed to know.
"If that is the case, why would you not request that we open it, from the inside?" Tifa asks, tilting her head to one side condescendingly.
"Shut-urrrrp." He blustered in response, caught out.
Soon, the rest of what remained of Avalanche were gathered in the cabin; huddled about the fire, drying clothing, easing aching limbs, and tending to minor ailments. It seemed only Tifa and Vincent had encountered ShinRa soldiers. They made sure to inform their teammates, such that overnight a watch could be established, lest their shelter be compromised; yet a silent agreement was reached between them to keep the extend of the injuries Vincent had sustained, to themselves.
Later, as she drifts into a slumber that would be the best she would get in a long while, she wonders when she might find an opportunity to ask Vincent what she really wanted to know, most of all.