To Death

Part Two: Up to Death

By Dreaming of Everything

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Final Fantasy, VII or otherwise, or the poem 'Anti-Love Poem' by Grace Paley. I'm merely borrowing the former and shamelessly abusing the latter. My apologies to the aforementioned Grace Paley—it's a great poem, one I love, and it fitted this fic too much for me to resist.

Author's Notes: This pairing has taken over all of my higher brain functions. This is probably going to end up rather darker than I intended it to be, though… Again, apologies! Yes, I am aware that Vincent's reasoning is circular, but emotions tend to defy feelings that way anyways. See above for information about the poem.

(Should have had this up months ago, sorry…)

I Hate QuickEdit Notes: Ffdotnet has eaten my line breaks, so you get a string of O's. It's also eaten tabs/extra-large spaces in the poem, which I have been forced to replace with double hyphens (--). GAH.

You can read this as it's meant to be read at my livejournal, the link's in my profile. My handle there is Dreams (underscore) of (underscore) All, with spaces removed.

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Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love
you turn your face away from that face
whose lips might make you give up anger
forget insult--steal sadness of not wanting
to love--turn away then turn away--at breakfast
in the evening don't lift your eyes from the paper
to see that face in all its seriousness a
sweetness of concentration--he holds his book
in his hand--the hard-knuckled winter wood-
scarred fingers--turn away--that's all you can
do old as you are to save yourself from love

—Anti-Love Poem by Grace Paley

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Cid hadn't been young when they had met, and certainly wasn't now, and a hard life had aged him even more.

Vincent knew. He had his own body to compare him too—he was young as he had been when they had met, as he had been when he had sealed himself into his coffin, as he would be long after everyone they knew, and their children, were dead. He didn't know if he was truly immortal, or had merely had his life span extended so far that it seemed as if he was immortal, but the end result was the same: he would outlive Cid many times over, no matter how long Cid lived, or didn't live.

He wasn't sure what to think of that.

He had lost everyone he cared about, everyone he might have cared about. Lucrecia, the child she had carried that might have been his—Sephiroth, who he had failed as well; would things have turned out better if he had had a father? And so he had come as close as he could to killing himself, locking himself away because he was too monstrous to kill himself.

And then he had been dragged back to the real world, and had fallen in love again.

Cid Highwind was nothing that Lucrecia had been, not the cultured lady scientist with shy reserve and a sweet smile that appeared like crocus at the tail-end of winter. He was tough and crotchety and there was nothing sweet or innocent about him, and he smoked like a chimney and drank when he could and smirked. He was so down-to-earth he was verging on subterranean and he complained loudly whenever Vincent made the tea. He fucked, and his kisses were harsh and demanding and needy.

And he loved Vincent back.

But things had changed, and he had been called a monster as a Turk but he was so much more of one now. And he was watching Cid get older and die, and die, leaving him all alone again and he was such a selfish being, still unable to kill himself and rid the world of one more cold-blooded monster and unable to give up Cid, the person he had clung to because Cid loved him and he loved him and because he wasn't Lucrecia, loved him back as fiercely and stubbornly as he did everything else, swearing loudly and smoking continuously.

And right now, Vincent could hate Cid just for being who he is, for loving him, because that would make it hurt so much more when he died—because everybody died, every human, and he wouldn't because he was so painfully not human—and some days he'd give anything to not love him, anything except for everything they had done together, been through together, and the guilty salvation he had found in him.

Cid doesn't want to die any more than Vincent wants him to die, and he knows that part of that is because he doesn't want to hurt Vincent, and he hates himself for that because he doesn't want to make this or anything harder for him. He doesn't want him to feel regret, like he always has, and he knows that that's stupid ("fuckin' idiotic," Cid called him once) but he can't help it. Cid's always been his polar opposite, and he doesn't want to change that.

He knows that Cid doesn't want him to return to his coffin and be as close to dead as he can be after he's died, and after Barret-Tifa-Marlene-Cait Sith-Denzel-Cloud-Yuffie-Nanaki have died, but he knows that he won't be able to do it, no matter how much Cid wants it, because eternity is such a long time that it's incomprehensible, even when it's how long he will live. He's already lived long enough to have an idea, but it's still such a short time compared to what it could be. He doesn't want to disappoint Cid, doesn't want to deny him this, deny him anything, but he's never been perfect and all he can do is try, even though it's likely that he'll fail.

There's still no guarantee that he won't lose it entirely, though, already fragile sanity snapped by the inevitable pass of years, or even just Cid's death—so much worse than the last time—and his demons released to prey on the world as they will, until Cloud and the rest of the heroes that saved the world are forced to kill him, or some other group, inspired by a legend; maybe even his legend, warped until someone would want to emulate him.

There was a time when he would have considered releasing his demons to get himself killed, because he can't do the job himself and it's so selfish of him to stay alive, considering what he is, and the chance that the demons would break free on their own, but he won't do that, not now, because there is too great a chance that someone would else would die, and he's done too much killing already. He owes his friends that much—

And he owes Cid more, who might not even call him an irrational pig-headed bastard like he had when Vincent raced a train to save the life of Shera's granddaughter, the little out-of-control child she had asked them to baby-sit, if he tried. Cid would be—disappointed, and that might be worse than an eternity alone.

It will be an eternity, and it will be alone, so he wants to sleep it away. There will be no one who will trust him, with his appearance and his demeanor: glowing red eyes and pale skin, the golden claw, his stone face and the cold reserve he has with everyone, even the people he knows, even Cid, something he can't quite drop because of what he's been through and who he is and the insecurity of interacting with people, something he lost the knack for in-between becoming a corporate-sanctioned killer and a mad scientist's living experiment of a monster.

He found friends in the group that defeated Sephiroth and Meteor, but that had less to do with personality and more to do with circumstance, everyone cemented together with the weight and heat of the situation, everything they went through, everything they needed to do and did. Normal people shrunk from him in the streets, and even if someone did not fear him, they still had no interest in knowing him even impersonally, and he wouldn't force his presence on anyone who did not want him. He could do that much.

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Vincent wishes that something was different, that he could die or Cid wouldn't die or that living didn't hurt this way, because it's almost as bad as he can remember it being, losing someone you love like this, and Cid hasn't even died yet, just become older and weaker and closer and closer to death, and there's nothing Vincent can do, not with all his power and all his demons and all his selfishness.

--End—

Author's Ending Notes: There are two pieces left to do in this series, if all goes according to plan. Thank you to everyone who reviewed!