Author's notes: I decided to revamp "till death do us part". Now the drabbles will all be centered on one theme each chapter, with different drabbles in each chapter. I hope you all enjoy them! Beware, some of the drabbles will have mature content and focus on some of the less popular pairings.
Fruit
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and
within reach of every hand. –Mother Teresa
I: mangoes
She fed me a piece of mango, her fingers barely touching my lips, a butterfly kiss that filled my head with flashes of light. It's winter, the harsh wind and sheets of snow, blanketing everything with silence. I can taste summer in the fruit, in her eyes as she leans back against her chair.
I'm a broken man, I know this each time I hear the screech of my wheelchair against wood floors and feel the weight of my legs dragging when I get into bed.
He said softly, "Elena, time to make our reports to Tseng," She nods, smiles at me and is gone, just like that.
I stare into Rude's face, the sunglasses that hold a reflection of me staring after her, watching her walk away. I don't bother to hide it because I know that he knows.
I'm a broken man.
II: dried
What she did to him was leave him dry.
That's what he wanted to tell everyone when they asked him why he was so goddamn moody all the time, why he was so aloof and so standoffish. He didn't know how to explain the feeling that was so profound, it sank into his feet and followed him wherever he walked. And when he lay in bed, trying to sleep, sometimes his hands ran themselves absent-mindedly over his hair, back and forth, stroking the long, black locks. His claw would nick the tender skin of his scalp and only then did he know for sure that he was still breathing, still a part of this world.
He was a shriveled husk of what he once was. In more ways than one.
Leaning back in his chair, he watches Tifa cooking dinner, Cloud standing by her, one hand against the small of her back. Cloud was always so possessive; he wishes he could have some of Cloud's fierce determination to protect prized possessions.
Instead, he sits in corners and thinks about the only time he felt alive and full and real. It happened so long ago, but in his mind, he could summon the details, even down to the scent of her perfume, as if it was only yesterday. (In his mind, it was).
In a creaky bed in a room as small as a closet, they moved as one, folding and unfolding in the shadows. She first whispered and then moaned his name and when it was all over, he collapsed against her and felt starlight in her hair. When she cried, he licked her tears away and swore they tasted like wine.
The memory of her body, as wet and as tender as a silver minnow caught in the net of his arms, was so fragrant and so real, it drained him dry. He refused to believe she didn't love him; her eyes that night swore devotion only to him.
Tifa's voice washed over him, shattering his thoughts, "Vincent, ready for dinner?"
He paused to throw the apple he was eating into the wastebasket. Wiping a small dribble of apple juice from his mouth, he stood quickly, sending his hair flying over his shoulders.
"Coming."
III: basket
Goddamn her.
Goddamn piece of shit, knowing exactly when I run out of clean shirts and pairs of socks. Can't even walk into my own bedroom without smelling the flowers she put on the dresser. Can't even look out of the window without seeing the wash, hanging out to dry.
But most of all, goddamn how she looks right now, hanging clothes on the line, wearing that white dress. Just had to be singing, and with no shoes on.
I remember it; everyone's mother sings that same fuckin' lullaby. In a town this small, you go out to take a piss, and you're peeing on someone's head. Everyone always does everything someone else did, years and years ago. It'll keep on going because you know, its tradition. Load of bull.
Except this time, she's singing to my child. And that's what makes it different.
After all these years of running, it had to be Shera, who got me eating out of the palm of her hand, so caught up that when I'm not with her, my head's a mess . She knows she's got me.
Goddamn it.
IV: crushed
Don't ask him about his love life.
Ask him about how many people he's murdered, erasing them from existence with a quick snap of his arms and he'll gladly answer. Ask him how to sharpen brass knuckles with a regular kitchen knife, and he won't just answer you, he'll show you how to do it. Ask him about the formation of mako and how it can be transferred into regular electricity for everyday usage, and he'll give a dissertation that could last for ten, twenty minutes.
But his love life, don't bother.
It would be a mockery of everything his blue suit and night-tinted glasses stood for, if anyone found out the truth. Even Reno didn't know. He guarded secrets well.
Like the pot of jasmine flowers he watered religiously every day. It had to be jasmine, because that's what she smelled like, white flowers that scented the air in a gentle way.
Because she loved children, he tried to be nicer to them, practicing on Marlene and Denzel every time he had the chance. Everyone talks about Cloud missing her, about how much pain he carries on his shoulders.
He has it even worse than Cloud. Everyone knows Cloud loved her. For him, it was a secret and because he knew how to guard secrets, burying them deep in his chest, no one could possibly understand how his heart aches.
The sunglasses, the silver earrings, the rings he wore, he knew they were nothing more than a front, just armor to hide how often he thought of her.
V: apple martini
It was never a good idea to get Yuffie drunk, simply because she could never hold her liquor. It was a well known fact that women like her were what they like to call an easy lay. Just let her drown a few drinks, say something nice about her hair or her outfit and bring her home for a quick fuck.
Maybe that's why they asked him to accompany her every time she went to a bar. They couldn't have Vincent do it, probably thinking that Yuffie would act ridiculously horny and try to grope him, and Tifa wouldn't let Marlene hang around Cloud alone for more than a few hours, let alone a vivacious, drunk ninja.
So the task fell on him, and crushing his cigarette against the ashtray on the bar, he sighed, lifting the locks of brilliant red hair that danced across his face.
"RENOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." When she drank, her face turned bright red and her voice rose higher and higher in pitch. "PLEASE DON'T TELL VINNIE I'M –" But whatever she was going to say was cut short as she fell over the bar, spilling the bright green drink she held in one hand. A river of the green stuff spilled onto his shoulder as he leaned forward to gather her in his arms.
"Yo, that stuff ain't good for you."
They only just reached the doorway of her bedroom, him carrying Yuffie in a giggling, swearing frenzy in his arms, when she suddenly reached up, grabbing his hair with one eager hand.
"YER HAIR'S SO PRETTY!"
Lucky for her, he didn't believe in easy lays, no matter how much Rufus and Rude beg to differ. It wouldn't have been good anyway, that much he knew as he placed a tall glass of water on the squat table that stood near her bed. What he wanted was something no amount of liquor could ever make her do.
He wanted her to look at him the same way she looked at Vincent.
His good night rang through the silent room. He turned off the light and closed the door firmly behind him.
