Anchors

Part II – Vincent

Sometimes, when Cloud's asleep and unable to scold him for worrying over foolish things, Vincent wonders how he managed on his own. How he got through years of solitude, silence broken only by the screams of his victims, bloodlust the only craving ever sated. How he kept his mind if not his sanity under the curse of exile. He's tried, but he can't imagine going back to the loneliness if he loses Cloud. The blonde is his brother now, bound not through the blood in their veins, but through the blood they've spilled together and for each other. It's a connection deeper than bone, more valued even than a mating bond among Vincent's demonic kin.

Sometimes, he calls to mind how surprised he was when he first met Cloud, disbelieving that the frail child could be a Hunter. Then he'd stepped closer, and Cloud had been on his feet with a blade in his hand and violence in his eyes before Vincent could speak. They'd measured each other, and Vincent had been pleased to see no apology when Cloud lowered his knife. He'd gone closer still, red eyes locked with unafraid blue, and knelt to take in Cloud's scent. He had never met a Hunter in a personal situation before, but Vincent was fairly certain they did not usually breathe you in the way the boy did with him. It was almost relaxing to feel the boy's breath ghost against his skin in time with his own breathing, and his scent… Vincent had known with that first breath that the rumors of the young Strife Hunter were not exaggerated. Cloud doesn't smell like a mere Hunter. He smells of danger, death and a feral kind of innocence.

Sometimes, Vincent wonders what it is that sets Cloud apart from other Hunters, that makes him stronger, faster, better. And perhaps that is the real difference between Vincent and his blade-brother, the difference that is usually lost in a sea of similarities. He can hate his heritage and the demon clan who exiled him as much as he wants, but Vincent knows what he is – the son of a chaos demon and a witch. Feared and loathed as he is, he's never had to doubt. Cloud knows only that his father was a Hunter. If Corin Strife knew his lover's race, he took the secret to his grave. From the moment Cloud was born and Jenova's House knew his otherness, people have wondered.

Vincent knows that Cloud doesn't think about his mother. He's learned to use the gifts his parents left him, honed them all into weapons, but he doesn't wonder why he has them, doesn't worry about what he is. In his mind he is a Hunter, and that's usually enough for both of them.

But sometimes, Vincent worries.

He knows better than most that some races are not meant to mix. It's not superstition that has outlawed offspring from matings like his parents'. Chaos and magic are volatile on their own, and forced together in a single entity they wage war, and it won't be over until they break apart and kill him. During the nights when he watches Cloud sleep, Vincent wonders if the day will come when his brother's heritage turns on him.

He hopes it won't.

Not just because Cloud is family to his magic and pack to his chaos, but because he is Vincent's brother, the one who loves him without hesitation or limitation. The one who smiles at him over their fallen enemies, the one who spars with him even when the air is crackling with wild magic. The one who curls up close at night and takes comfort in his presence. The one who taught him about the nearness of family, not of sex. Cloud has been the only good thing in his life for so long that the scent of him calms Vincent's opposing halves into grudging cooperation. That love and that almost-peace is worth more than any training he ever gave the child now grown into an equal, but he knows Cloud doesn't see it like that.

On some of these brooding nights, Vincent worries that losing Cloud – whether it's to the violence surrounding them or the inevitable passing of time – will drive him insane, send him raging through the world with claws and magic bent on destruction. On those nights, he wonders if one day he will lose control and do something even Cloud can't forgive.

But those night are growing rarer.

Vincent knows that Cloud won't turn from him voluntarily, and when death claims him, Vincent will follow. Chaos and magic are too attached to be left behind.