6. Break
"Ow! Fuck! Ow! Ow ow ow!"
"Yuffie!" Tifa called.
"You alright, brat?" added Cid.
"No!" Yuffie squeaked, holding her arm at an odd angle from her body. Vincent, the closest person, stuck his head round the door to the stairwell at Seventh Heaven.
"Yuffie, your arm shouldn't bend at that angle. Also, you should only have three joints, wrist, elbow, and shoulder, not four."
"Yes, Mr. States-the-Obvious. I know. I'm feeling it," she forced through gritted teeth.
"You've broken your arm," he continued. "You've also fallen down the stairs."
"Yes! Vince! I know!" She broke off and wailed softly, her eyes closing. He sighed and moved over to lift her, being very careful to grab her by the unhurt arm and the waist. Once she stood, he guided her up the stairs and into his room, where he sat her, mewling, on the bed.
"Viiiinie…oh god, it hurts…." She uttered the statement with a horrible breathlessness that sounded like she was being strangled.
"Just a moment, Yuffie. I need to get the Cure from the First Aid kit." He dug through the kit with rough hands, unable to find one measly materia in the vast mess that was his First Aid kit. His movements grew jerkier as he listened to Yuffie's shallow breathing, punctuated with pathetic whimpers, quickly bitten off. Finally his hand closed over the green orb and he sighed with relief.
Making his way back out to Yuffie, he beheld her now curled into a tiny ball, broken arm practically purple with bruising. "Yuffie," he said, "I need you to sit up. This will hurt quite a lot at first. I have to realign the arm."
She sat up and turned a face of utter horror to him. "Vincent…" she protested weakly.
"Enough," he told her. "I will hold you down if I have to. Your arm need fixing. I can do that and restrain you at the same time." His eyes told her he was neither exaggerating nor joking. He was deadly serious.
She held out her arm and grunted at the sensation. Quickly, Vincent unstrapped his gauntlet and flexed his fingers, two hands of flesh reaching for her arm. Her breathing jumped and her whimpers increased as he took hold of the limb. Gently, he felt for the fracture and began to pull at the two sides of the bone. Yuffie let out a horrible scream, and then fell into tortured silence. She screamed again as Vincent probed with his fingers to check for any larger shards broken from the bone. He soothed her with soft mutters she couldn't quite understand as he matched up the two side of the break and felt along the bone while holding it still with one hand. Then, still holding her arm perfectly stationary, he reached for the Cure material and quickly cast Cure3 on her arm, watching as the bruising faded, hearing Yuffies breathing slow with the relief from the pain, and feeling her bone knit together under the skin and muscle, bruises fading into her skin as the speeded healing process devoured the blood. Soon he was holding an arm unblemished by anything visible, creamy china skin under his pale fingers.
Yuffie tried to tug her arm back, but he held onto to her, observing the shape of her arm, checking for any misshapeness. Then he ran fingers along the length of her upper arm, pressing on the flesh to feel the bone beneath. Finally satisfied that the injury was totally healed, he released her and began pulling his glove and gauntlet on. When he turned back around, he was surprised to find Yuffie still standing there, looking contrite.
"Yuffie?"
"Vincent." Just his name, unshortened, not changed at all. He pausesd to look at her, and he could see her eyes were red from tears of pain unshed. "Thank you."
Her message given, she turned around and walked out, and he heard her walking down the stairs slowly, carefully.
He barely noticed that his fingertips were abnormally warm from her skin.