Normal stuff, not mine, prop Square Enix... Gratuitious rain and cave scene, couldn't help it, but no lemon, not yet anyway...enjoy the angsty romance! This one is longer since I know the next one isn't going to be able to be very long, since Yuffie needs to sleep through it.
Yuffie closed her eyes at the gentle touches, smiling as she realized how open he now was, how close they'd really become. She shifted in his arms, causing him to hold her tighter, trying to stop her from moving too much. The ninja looked up into his crimson eyes; her gaze was soft and sad. She reached up and tugged his collar down, undoing the buckles so she could see his face. Vincent probably would have pulled away, not because he minded the contact, he was well past that, but because he didn't want the sweet girl to see the emotions he was hiding. However with his grip on Yuffie and back against the wall of the truck, he had no where to go. "Stop hiding from me," she whispered, letting her lips brush his. "I know you hurt, and I know you think you're protecting me… but I know you want this too Vince, I've learned how to read you." She could feel him tremble a bit, the intimate contact was crumbling what little bit of his wall around his heart that he'd managed to salvage. "How?" He whispered to her, he'd tried so hard to keep everyone out, how had this tiny ninja made her way clear to his heart?
Yuffie smiled softly, "Vince, you let me in. You may have not given me a formal invitation, but you left the door open and walked away." He tangled his normal hand into her hair and looked into her eyes. "What are you going to do, now that you're inside?" She gave him a warm, beautiful smile, "What do you want me to do?"
"Stay with me," he whispered, moving his hand from her hair to her face, running his thumb over her cheekbone and searching her face for any hint of revulsion. The gunman found none, only pure and unfiltered… Love? Is that what he saw? In his garnet eyes she saw it to, and even though neither of them could bring the words to be spoken, the feeling was undeniable. Vincent Valentine leaned in, taking the initiative for the first time in so long, and he pressed his lips to hers in a hot, hungry kiss, letting himself finally feel her. After a few moments he pulled away, looking down at her, his breath taken from his lungs. "This is wrong," he whispered to her hair, Yuffie shook her head and looked a bit sad. "Vince… how can love ever be wrong?"
30 hours earlier…
"Careful," the little ninja complained, the bandages around her arms were only in place as the regen spell Vincent had casted on her continued to work on her burns. Since much of her back was blistered, Vincent was now directing the chocobo. Yuffie clung to him as he raced away from the forest, worried that there might be more dragons, and something else might happen to harm her. He was hurrying, wanting to make it to Gold Saucer as fast a possible, but that also caused a rather bumpy ride for the grumpy woman. Yuffie heard a crash behind them, and with a bit of worry, she turned to look over her shoulder. A flash of light rebounded around the clouds at the peaks of the mountains they were crossing. "Vince?" She said softly as he pulled the chocobo to a stop, turning to look at the impending storm. "These happen a lot in this area, especially during this time of the year. We need to find shelter." His face was perfectly smooth, like this was merely a walk in the park, but when more thunder cracked, seemingly right on top of them, her grip around his waist tightened and she yelped, burying her face in his cloak. The gunman arched an eyebrow at her and smirked a bit. "You're afraid of thunder?" She looked up and glared at him, "And spiders… eww… so what? Everyone is afraid of something, like you for example. You, Mr. High-and-mighty-vampire-broody-guy, you are scared of me."
His red eyes blinked at the comment, finding it quite strange. "Why would I be scared of you? I know you would never harm me." The know it all ninja smirked, "physically maybe, but emotionally? You are scared of me because I make you want to loose the perfect control you hold so dear." Vincent frowned at her, a dangerous glint in his eyes that told her she was nearing the mark, if she hadn't hit it already. "You think so?" Yuffie nodded, "I don't think Vinnie, I know. I see it, sometimes when you think I'm not looking, you get the softest look on your face. The moment I turn to look at you, it's gone. But it's been harder and harder for you to cover it up lately, why don't you listen to your heart for once?" Another crack of thunder split the sky, the lighting was flashing violently over their heads, the static electricity in the air, coupled with the winds, was rather exciting, causing their hair and clothes to pull and flap, though Vincent could not take his eyes off of hers. "It's wrong Yuffie."
The ninja shook her head, raising her voice a bit to compensate for the winds that were picking up. "Why Vincent," she looked pained, and the look on her face was burned into his retina as another flash of lighting illuminated her frail features, and the sadness etched there. The bolt struck a tree close to them, pulling them both out of their ruminations. This had definitely been an eventful day.
"We should find a cave," he said softly, as large drops of rain started to fall, quite content to let the matter drop. He should have known the stubborn girl was not about to drop it, and she reached up and pulled his chin to look at her, the sadness replaced by anger this time. "Why?" she pressed, frowning at him, then the skies opened up and the downpour started. The couple, the bird and most of the supplies were soaked in minutes. Vincent's eyes were glowing softly as he looked at her, "Because I would taint you, and I'm old enough to be your father."
Yuffie glared fiercely at him, "For one, spending thirty years locked in a coffin does NOT count, you weren't growing or learning and you were asleep and stagnate! Besides, I'm almost 22, and if you take those thirty years away, that leaves you at 31. That's not even ten years, and you don't age, so really it's like 5!" She jumped off the chocobo, shivering now because of the cold water soaking her straight to the bone, and started to walk toward an area there might have been caves. "And for the other thing…" she said softly to herself, "there isn't anything wrong with you. So what if you have demons inside you, you're still the sweetest guy I know."
Vincent frowned deeply, grabbing Kokoro's harness and hurrying to catch up to her. He could see the shinobi was shaking, even in the rain his eyesight was far above normal people, and he sighed a bit, reaching up to unbuckle the clasps, and he plopped the garment over her shoulders. The cold didn't really bother him anyway, and the thin ninja could get really sick. Yuffie was surprised, not only by his show of compassion, but also that the cloak was dry inside, his clothes had been protected somewhat from the deluge. She pulled the material close around her, trying not to become intoxicated by the fact she was now surrounded but that marvelous scent he always had about him. It seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place it, but it was comforting to her someone. It sort of reminded her of home, especially since the water had renewed the scent of her conditioner, and his scent mixed with the sakura blossom perfume in her hair. "Sweet…" she whispered, moving her face to be protected by the red fabric.
The gunman tugged on the chocobo's reigns, scouting for something they could hide in. He spotted a dark spot and diverted, gratified to see it looked like a cave. "Stay here," he said softly, ducking down to go into the small entrance to the shelter. Yuffie watched him go in, smiling a bit to herself as he bent off. Damn, without this cloak on, you can actually see his butt… it's nice… and those long legs, oh gawd Yuffie, stop now before you get so frustrated you can't take it anymore. You heard Mr. Doom and Gloom; he doesn't want to taint you. I don't see it as tainting; I see it as the divine union of two souls but… whatever. He obviously cares about me; he probably just doesn't see me sexually… damn he must be gay. While, of course, she knew he wasn't, considering how sprung he'd been on Lucy-lady, but the ninja had never taken rejection well. He popped back out a moment later and nodded, "It's big in there, and there's only the one chamber, defensible from monsters. It's warm too, there's a mako fount inside."
Yuffie's eyes got as big as saucers, and she looked like a kid at Christmas. She ducked in, leaving Vincent to deal with the dripping chocobo. Sure enough, on the east wall, there was a glowing red crystal formation, which just made her giggle more. Red meant summoning magic, and that poop head Cloud had kept most of the summoning materia, giving each of them a single one. Yuffie had gotten her Leviathian back, and she thought Vincent had been given Hades. Yuffie was always on the look out for summoning magic, she didn't know how many babies she'd made with her one summon, but it was still only the one god, and water attacks didn't always work. She was inspecting the crystals when Vincent got Kokoro inside, then he started to gather the dead brush inside the cave for a fire. It seemed that at one point, this had been a den for some animal, but it had been abandoned for some time, but luckily that left fuel for a fire.
"Yuffie," he called to her softly, after he'd started the fire, but she was so engrossed with the mako fount that she didn't hear him. "Yuffie," he repeated, walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, then contact unexpected and turned around to face him, in her hand was a small, red materia. "Look Vince, I don't know what it is… I've never seen it before, and I'm sure Avalanche had all the summoning materia known to man… even Knights of the Round." He looked at it curiously, and then back up to her eyes, "You need to get out of those wet clothes before you get sick."
Yuffie raised an eyebrow, "yeah right Vincent Valentine, I knew there was some perve in you." He gave a rather exasperated sigh and started to reach down to his gauntlet, pulling it off and flexing his other hand. Water had gotten in the weapon, and it was making his malformed hand hurt. It looked like a normal hand, though the skin was purple and blue, an outward manifestation of Chaos. He'd been disappointed to learn that even after Chaos returned to the planet; he was still cursed with his disfigured appendage. He laid the gauntlet out so the leather it was attached to could dry, then he peeled himself out of his leather armor, revealing a white undershirt and black shorts. Luckily his underwear hadn't gotten soaked, so he laid everything out so it could dry. He slipped the bandana out of his hair and laid it down at well, shaking his wet tresses behind his broad shoulders. Yuffie had actually had her attention torn from her newly discovered materia, to watch his back as he undressed, amazed by how his muscles moved under his pale skin, not even caring that his left hand was purple and strange looking up to his elbow. Standing there in nothing but under clothes, he looked so… normal. Not to mention completely, and utterly dead sexy. He looked over his shoulder at her, that soft look wasn't guarded from her this time, and it was enough to make her heart flutter painfully. The shinobi took a step forward and touched his shoulder with a hesitant, cold touch. She was still shivering despite the warm cloak, and that turned the soft look into one of concern. "You need to warm up Yuffie, the materia isn't going anywhere." She nodded and started to strip down to her sports bra and white cotton panties. Because of the small amount of clothes she normally wore anyway, those garments were rather soaked as well, but being a gentleman, Vincent managed not to peak, and covered her with a dry blanket from their tent. He moved her close to the fire and found the tiny ninja was still trembling, despite the disposal of the wet clothes, and the proximity to the fire.
The concerned man took the other blanket and laid it as close to the fire as he could, then moved over to it, motioning the girl over. "Cold doesn't bother me, I'll help you warm up." She blinked a bit, but the chill air and lack of Vinny in her current position caused her to crawl over to the other blanket. When she was close enough, he took her blanket and unfolded it, motioning her to lie against him so he could cover them both up. She was so surprised to feel how warm he was, the skin on skin contact was rather hard for the ninja to deal with, but his body heat made it hard to shy away. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and running his hands over her exposed skin, trying to restore blood circulation. Vincent also moved his cloak back over her, to add to the warmth. The contact both thrilled and scared her, she was afraid this would be the only time she'd be able to feel him next to her, holding her in a firm, comforting embrace. Her eyes closed, too tired and cold to care that she was nearly naked with Vincent Valentine.
The gunman watched her drift off to sleep, his own body acutely aware of the fact she was draped over him, tight in his arms. He just hoped she didn't wake up until he was able to calm himself, as his desire for her was quite apparent. Vincent continued to caress her, happy that she was finally starting to warm up. He looked down at her sleeping face and leaned in, stealing a soft kiss from the sleeping girl. The Ex-Turk couldn't help that he loved her, but for her sake, he had to keep it hidden. She was a princess, and a wonderful girl… she deserved better then him.