To Know You
Chapter Five: Flustered Fandango
By Darknightdestiny

Tifa found herself out on the dance floor, under the heat of the lights. Was it really that hot before? She didn't think so, but she felt that the weight of everyone's gazing added to the rapidly rising temperature. In truth, no one had singled them out from any of the other couples. Not even Yuffie...yet.

Tifa looked nervously about her, her eyes darting to and fro, while she kept her head perfectly still, her chin tilted downwards once she had realized what was happening. And though she was scanning the entire room for no other reason except that there was nothing else to be done, she didn't remember anything that she had seen.

Feeling her arms start to shake and her knees start to wobble uncontrollably, she did the only thing she could think of, knowing that she had already turned a full flush of pink. As she stepped closer to Vincent, she tried to hide her face as she inched towards his ear, letting out uneven, tremblng words.

"Vincent," she whispered, "what are you doing?"

One corner of his mouth inched upwards at the urgent and uncomfortable tone in her voice, but she was too close to see it. "...It was either this," he replied smoothly, "or we would wait until they came looking for you."

Tifa opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't think of a reply that would prove him wrong. It was true, she was out of ideas of her own. Instead, she just let out a sigh, coupled with a nervous spasming of her chest. The hot air hit the side of his face and sent a chill down his spine.

The familiar chord was struck again, but this time it changed just slightly. Tifa's heart began to quicken its pace when she saw others leaving the dance floor suddenly, discouraged by the change in tune. She pulled back quickly and looked up at Vincent, fear in her eyes.

He looked back at her, as calm as always. "...You do know this dance?"

Tifa only nodded in response, every muscle tightening on impulse. She knew that it wouldn't be a mere tango they would be performing. As the sound of castinets flooded the hall, she tensed even further.

She felt a heat well up inside of her and she knew the blood had flowed to her face, making it an extreme shade of red. Chancing a glance down, she found that what was visible of her neck and chest was also flushing pink. Her head was spinning, and she thought that she might faint, and yet her body moved mechanically in preparation for the dance.

Before she knew what was happening, there was a smooth coldness at her back and her left hand was gripped comfortably in his right hand. The warmth of his hand covered hers, and she idly noted how small she felt next to him, something she had never realized before. She felt him nudging her forward with his left arm, a coldness permeating the fabric near her lower back and sending a shudder throughout her body.

She felt herself sway under the last introductory chord as he pulled her into position, and she fell into step against him. Thoughts flooded her mind at once, all of them pushing at the others, bidding for the attention she could give them. Would she ever, in all the time she had spent alone with him, have asked him to do this for her? Granted, she viewed it as much more of an intimate thing than he did, but she would never have asked him to dance with her, much less in the fashion they were about to. What if she made a move that was too forward? Even if he had been someone she had dated a few times, it would be a concern for her, but Vincent...Vincent was...Vincent.

She started as he pressed himself up against her, and her foot instinctively moved backwards as his moved forwards in rhythm to the music. At first, she concentrated hard on the steps, though her mind kept wandering back to the questions she had. Maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing after all. Though she was sure everything that Vincent thought about and all the reasons for his actions were very complex, the way he dealt with people seemed so simple to her.

Too many thoughts were running through Tifa's head, and she tried instead to let the sounds of the music take over, so that she didn't have to think about anything for a while. Soon enough, the beat was echoing in her ears in time with her feet as they made contact with the floor. Her heels clicked against the wood as the two of them moved back and forth across the floor, advancing on one another in turn. The constant attention to where her feet were placed faded away as the rhythm resounded in her head. The way she shifted in time with him brought her attention suddenly to her hips, which, if both of them had not had their knees bent in said advancement, would have just brushed his own if they had stopped and stood still.

In the midst of this realization, she was quickly separated from him for a brief moment as she felt her arm lifted above her head. The room spun for a short while, as did her feet, and then she found herself held tightly against him. She was so close that she could feel his skin shifting beneath his shirt, and she could smell his musky scent. As soon as she recognized it, they began the next phase of the dance, another advancement like before, but with her being held much more tightly by him.

On second thought, she decided that she would not need to worry about making him feel uncomfortable with her steps.

She had no more thought for the crowd that was watching, and hadn't even noticed that no other couples remained on the dance floor. Something was rising up in her, and it told her to be cautious, while at the same time it told her to rid herself of all her inhibitions. It was as if she was being forced to decide something, and this something she did not know, a feeling that she hadn't felt in a long time. She knew that she needed a jolt back to reality, felt as if her perception was being altered without her permission, as if she couldn't believe she was doing what she was.

And if she had told herself she would be doing that very thing ten minutes ago, she wouldn't have believed it then.

It was as if she didn't have the right, and she was excited and frightened all at the same time. She was a bit scared of what had just happened; she'd made a simple gesture into something else, and she was more than a little embarassed to admit it to herself. But the thing that was really getting to her was that she'd already gone so far into the idea that she feared she might look at her friend in another light.

She didn't have time to explore that point any further, because just then, her arm was lifted above her head again. The room spun around her once more, and came to a sudden halt as her back was pulled back into the solid, warm surface that was Vincent's chest. She hadn't noticed that, during her wandering thoughts, she had been holding a lot of air in, and so when she hit the surface of his body, it rushed out from her in the form of a quick gasp.

This Vincent took to mean only that; she had been caught off-guard with the jolt, and she'd not been expecting it. In hindsight, however, Tifa silently wondered if there hadn't been a small bit of something else mixed in there with it. As she felt his hands slide from their entanglement in her own and move to her hips, she nearly prayed the dance would soon end.

He grasped her firmly and spun her around to face him, and his right hand moved back to pull her in by her waist. She swung her leg back in one quick motion to touch it to the floor a few feet behind her, before swinging it forward, resting it on his hip. Before she'd even stopped to think about what she'd just done, it was all finished; she was practically lifted off of her other foot as she fell backwards, and he caught her up in his arms in a graceful dip.

The music ended abruptly; Tifa lifted her neck from the strain and found herself staring up into his crimson eyes. She couldn't bring herself to look away, but she didn't want him to feel uncomfortable or think that she had gotten the wrong idea from the simple 'favor' he had just granted her. She was broken from her frantic thoughts by a voice that broke out to the side, bringing back her sense of hearing and alerting her to the shouting and applause, and her breath caught in her throat.

"Shit! Vincent, is that you?!"

There was a sudden jolt as Tifa felt herself drop an inch from where she was suspended, and she was caught by Vincent quickly. To the casual observer, it had never happened, but she had been afraid that she would fall. She knew immediately who had called out his name, and she winced at the knowledge of how this was going to affect Vincent, but at the same time, she smiled inside. She knew that the others would be happy to see him, even if he hadn't been very adamant about facing them.

Vincent slowly stood up and let a blushing Tifa slide back down to the floor, before tilting his head cautiously to the direction of the voice. She saw the uneasiness rise in him, and she couldn't help but think that their dance would make the situation worse. She reached out and gently took his arm in her hand, and she felt him tense up. "Come on," she urged in a hushed voice. "It won't be that bad."

After a few repetitions of comforting words, none of which she believed had actually had an effect on him, Vincent reluctantly let her lead him over to the table. As they got closer, he let his arm loose from her hand and resumed his independent nature. Tifa was slightly hurt by this, but she didn't know why. After all, she thought she understood him by then, and it seemed like something he would do. So why should it upset her?

They had just about reached the table when Vincent was pelted in the chest with a rose, which was straight out of the vase on the table, and a little wet at the tip. "There y' go, Casanova!" Vincent reached down and plucked the light object from the place where it hung in a fold on his shirt, setting it next to him as he was grabbed by Cid and shoved quickly into a seat.

He had only been sitting there for a moment when a high-pitched and angry voice was heard right next to his ear. "Who's the guy who made me look like an...Vinnie!" Yuffie stood next to the table with one young man in tow and her hands on her hips, her mouth wide open. "Vinnie, what are you doing here?"

Vincent looked up at her with a blank expression and shrugged his shoulders once. Cid sat down next to him and huffed out, "Couldn't keep yerself away, eh?" Tifa smiled, knowing that Cid had been cushioning her heartache just moments before, so sure that Vincent didn't want to come back. And perhaps he had been right. But he was there, and now Cid could go on like he knew he was going to be there the entire time.

Vincent looked up at Tifa, who was still standing next to the table, and he reached over next to him and pulled another chair out for her to sit in. She sat down and propped her left elbow on the table, turning to Cid and Vincent, waiting for Vincent to have his fill before walking out again in utter annoyance. She saw him relax a bit, however, when she sat down next to him.

"So, Vince..." Cid started, "Lemme hear all 'bout whatcha been up to. I've been so bored...this music sucks! Hey, is this what they played when you were a young'n?" Cid laughed long and loud.

"No..." Vincent cooly replied. "I am old enough to be your father, not your grandfather. And if you had been my child, I would backhand you." Vincent turned and ordered another glass of wine while Cid sat there and recovered.

"Well," Cid snickered as the waitress left, "I hafta hand it to you, old timer-"

"Cid...is that a wrinkle on your forehead?"

"Shut up!"

"Perhaps if you stopped smoking..."

"You wanna take this outside?"

Vincent looked at Cid, and Cid looked at Vincent. The rest of the table was silent, save for Yuffie, who had stumbled off giggling and was currently holding both hands over her mouth, lest she be viciously reminded by the two men that she was overstepping the unspoken line they'd set. Vincent's eyes bore into Cid's until the pilot could barely take it anymore, and then his mouth twitched once before turning into a small smirk.

Cid let out a laugh, albeit a bit nervous. He was glad to have his ally back, even if he was a bit unpredictable. But the short conversation, no matter how in jest it was, had Tifa's thoughts straying down other paths.

It had been a bit awkward, but no one asked Vincent why he didn't call or write, ever since that topic had been guided away by Cid's inability to resist a joke. Tifa still thought about it, however. She laughed inwardly at the idea of Vincent being Cid's father, but she couldn't help thinking what Vincent's life could have been like if certain things hadn't happened. She might not have ever met him. Who knew? He might have had children of hs own. Things could have turned out quite differently.

A/N: Sorry it took so long for the update. I'll be working on the other fics I have later tonight, possibly tomorrow, since it is my day off. I'm thinking of writing a Valentine's Day one-shot, but if I do, I'd better get started.

As for the interaction between Vincent and Cid, did anyone else catch how easily they got along in the game? Vince even calls Cid "champ" on the train to Corel during the Huge Materia hunt, and so I didn't think it was out of character for me to add a bit of friendly joking between the two of them.

Like I said, there's a background for Vincent and Tifa between Vincent's Last Birthday Escapade and To Know You that I've been revealing piece by piece. This story might turn out to be 12 to 15 chapters long, but I originally intended it to only be about 10. I apologize if it seems like it's moving too quickly, but I do intend to be more thorough with the motivations behind their actions.

And...if you scroll semi-quickly through the first part, it looks like a lemon. I just...couldn't resist mentioning it. I find it amusing.