Lyla returned several minutes later, having been quick to find clothes. She hadn't been particularly picky, anything dry would do, though she had to admit that she may have spent an extra minute or two locating a pair of pants that were just a tiny bit more snug than all the rest. She could still hear the shower running behind the bathroom door after going ahead and letting herself in. She shut and locked the door behind her, heading over to inspect the drawer Vincent had pointed out. She couldn't help smirking faintly as she retrieved the bottle of vodka he had promised, helping herself to a seat on the bed as she uncorked it and took a swig.
It wasn't long before he emerged, still dripping faintly and clothed in plain black slacks and a single glove. The towel lingered around his shoulders, draped cross the ruin of his chest.
It was similar to the mess of his back, another roadmap of marks the body was never meant to endure. But the stitches here had long since been pulled away, leaving hard, livid lines across his chest and gut- the mark of a dissection t-cut and the patches left by careless hands.
He sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh, rubbing the towel over his hair.
She leaned back to get a better view of his injuries, frowning as she took the time to appraise Hojo's work. Quick. Sloppy. The latter was the reason so many of the scars hadn't healed properly. Of course, that had probably been Hojo's intent. She lightly touched one of the angrier-looking scars on his back before setting the bottle on the floor, reaching for the small bag of medical supplies she had brought along with her. She set it on the bed before opening it, reaching for gauze and a roll of bandages.
"I'm not equipped to do it today," she began, unrolling a length of bandage, "But I can take the rest of those stitches out for you. It will hurt, but it's a step towards healing properly."
"I couldn't reach them," he said by way of explanation, reaching up with the gloved hand to rub at the back of his neck.
"I figured," she admitted, reaching for the bottle to take another swig before passing it to him. She used his lifting his arm as an opportunity to slip one end of the bandage beneath the other, circling his middle and crossing it at his back to start covering the very worst of the scars, where they yawned open at the edges. "Too tight?"
He shook his head. "Fine." He said, taking a drink himself.
Of the array there only a few were torn open, bleeding sluggishly against his pale, cool skin. The blood was red as any, though perhaps slightly darker than most, seeping slow and thick between the wide, black stitches.
The blood showed through the first layer of bandaging, but a few more times around and it was covered, fastened snugly at his back when she was finished. "Try not to move any more than you have to," she warned him, advice that, for a moment, she felt was very unfortunate. Her fingers lightly traced a pair of scars that were long healed before she retracted her hand.
"I can take them out in a few days, once the bleeding has stopped and you've started to knit yourself back together again."
"Better sooner than later."
And really, what was the likelihood that he wasn't going to pull them again? Next to none, from where he stood at current.
"Most of them are grown over," she remarked with a frown, putting the remaining bandages back into her bag and dropping it to the floor. "Going to hurt like a bitch. You'll need the vodka then, too."
Vincent smiled grimly, but for the moment omitted comment.
It just didn't seem to help anything, admitting the vodka never hurt. Pointing out the way it ached and stung without any sort of stimulus at all. He had no right to complain, after all. In a way, all of this was only as much as he had done to himself.
"I hung your cloak on the back of the door," she said after a few more moments of silence, leaning back and putting her weight on one hand against the mattress. She held the other hand out for the bottle without hesitation. "May I?"
Vincent handed it over obligingly, leaning back himself. Though less gingerly than he probably ought to.
"Thanks. Easy there," she half-scolded, lifting the bottle to her lips. "You'll need new bandages within the hour if you're not careful." She paused to drink, smirking faintly behind the mouth of the bottle. "Not a good thing, even if it is an excuse to put my hands all over you."
The gunman offered her a curious look, wondering if she was drunk already, or only tired. Then he smirked faintly, leaning back on his elbows. "We should tell the others. At some point."
"Yeah," she agreed softly, glancing towards the door. "Maybe let them enjoy a little more of their evening before we disturb the peace. What's the look for?"
"You seem to feel better."
She raised an eyebrow in question, comprehending on her own a moment later. "... mmn. You've already seen me naked. Makes everything else a lot less embarrassing in comparison. I guess I can reserve the neurosis for all of the other things going on that are actually terrible."
Vincent coughed into his gloved hand, though it sounded suspiciously like a faint chuckle.
"I mean, in retrospect, sticking my foot in my own mouth a few dozen times over the course of a week? Really not life-threatening."
"I don't think it was bad as all that."
She raised a brow again before turning her wrist so that she could point at herself. "Neurotic. It's debilitating."
"I gathered." The rest of the thought, Vincent decidedly kept to himself.
"My cross to bear," she said simply, taking another drink from the bottle before passing it back to him. "Here. You probably need this more than I do. How's the stinging?"
"Had worse." He rasped, but accepted the bottle anyway. For a moment he considered discussing what had happened, but ultimately decided against it.
The problem with that was that it left him without any inclination of how to proceed.
"What the fuck else is wrong with me," she murmured, breaking the awkward silence after a moment, talking to herself more than anyone as she turned her free hand over, examining it. "The file didn't mention that."
"The files leave out more than you'd think." Vincent frowned, offering her the bottle again.
She accepted it, taking another drink. "No kidding," she muttered. "... and yet, this is one of the least upsetting revelations. At least I was in control of myself while shifted. ... though, not so much control over the shift itself."
The gunman nodded, giving up the ghost and letting his arms go slack, leaning all the way back. "It will come."
"Think of all the inconvenient times -that- could pop up," she went on, wincing slightly as she looked over at him. "Did that ever happen to you?"
"Oh." Vincent offered her a cool look that somehow seemed to radiate mirth. "Here and there."
She leaned back a bit further, looking up towards the ceiling. "I think mid-coitus would be the most traumatic. ... seems like a likely cosmic joke," she mused absently.
Vincent frowned at a long, thin crack that crossed it. "Mn." he said.
And now that she mentioned it, Fucking God Almighty.
"Please don't tell me that happened to you."
"No." He said evenly. "No, it hasn't." And it never, never will.
She looked over again, curious, then closed her eyes after a moment, relaxed mood deflating somewhat. "So that becoming a selective mute thing I've mentioned before. How many times do you think I need to ruin my own life before I really follow through?"
He made a noise somewhere between cough and chuckle. "It would be a shame."
She snorted lightly in reply, a laugh that had died out somewhere along the way. "You're cute sometimes," she informed him somewhat wearily.
Vincent opened his mouth, floundered silently for a moment, and closed it again. He cleared his throat softly, as if that might count as some response.
She smirked faintly, looking back to the ceiling. "As though that's the most embarrassing moment you've had lately."
"It might be," he said evenly to the ceiling.
She finally followed his example and laid back against the mattress, letting her hands rest over her stomach. "I could take it back."
Vincent watched the crack for a beat before he spoke, unable to rise to the teasing, despite the nagging realization that he'd have liked to.
"Lyla." He said quietly. "I'll only make you miserable."
"Maybe," she conceded, the teasing tone of voice having fled elsewhere. "And I shouldn't be so willing to heap my problems on you when you have enough worries of your own. It's selfish. ... especially when I don't even know how to deal with myself."
"That's not a problem." He frowned. "If I can help you, I will. ...I want to."
She turned her head to face him, carefully shifting the rest of her body to do the same, tucking one hand beneath her ear to keep it from being pressed against the mattress. "I keep feeling like it's a lot to ask, even though I keep coming to you for help anyway. ... I don't trust anyone else, not with any of this."
"Maybe." Vincent agreed, turning his head to better see her. Pulling the damp tangles of black taught around his ungloved fingers. "But I've been there. Or close. They haven't."
For once she did not avert her eyes; instead she met his, curling the fingers of her free hand against the bedspread. "I don't see how the person who manages to make me feel sane could make me miserable."
He hesitated, as if the next answer might breach waters he cared to leave unsailed. Vincent turned his eyes back on the expanse of white paint overhead. "It rubs off," he said at last. "After awhile."
She watched him for a moment, frowning slightly as he turned away, lowering her eyelids as she fixed her gaze elsewhere. Staring blankly at the space between them. "It would be easier if you just told me you're not interested," she said softly after awhile. "It's alright."
The gunman frowned. "I'm bad at that."
"You don't have to be good at it, I got the hint," she told him, using her hand to prop herself up, shifting closer to the edge of the bed and looking down to try and spot where she had dropped her bag.
Vincent arched an eyebrow at her, but made no move to sit up. "That I lie poorly?"
She paused just as she was about to stand, perched at the edge of the mattress, looking back at him over her shoulder. "Oh. No."
"Well." He turned his eyes back on the paint. "I do."
"I... oh. ... you do," she echoed, their brief miscommunication sinking in as she leaned back again, laying on her side, a bit closer to him than she had been previously.
He shifted at the sound of her drawing nearer, finding her face again with his calm eyes. "I'm a wreck." Vincent's tone was short, almost abrupt, like the leap of a diver before he could change his mind.
"I know," she told him, watching him with an expression that looked as though something had caused her physical pain. "I don't care. I'm not exactly without baggage, either."
Vincent considered that for a moment, his features pulling thin with uncertainty as he tried to decide how to proceed. "It isn't, baggage." He said at last, slowly. "It's more, than that. I'm..." The halting explanation stopped, and something like frustration and disgust in one soured his expression and fled.
She gave him a questioning look, reaching out to lightly touch her fingers to the back of his ungloved hand. Cautious, patient.
"Hollow." he said at last, and with the word came a rush of something that seemed almost like fright. But after a moment his eyes closed, and he said it again without the jerks. "I'm hollow."
She only stared for a moment, carefully considering a response as she curled her fingers around his hand without permission. "Hollow," she repeatedly softly. "... is it the sort that could someday be filled up again?"
Vincent watched their fingers entwine without making any attempt to separate them. "How?" He asked, though there was no inflection to the word. "There's nothing to fix. Not a monster. Not a man. Not anything, at all."
"You're still a man. Still a person," she corrected him, sliding a bit closer. "... just a broken one. Broken things -can- be fixed. ... you're not empty. How could you have helped me if you were?"
"I remember." He murmured. "But I don't feel. Not like I should. Not like men feel." Red eyes flicked up, searching her face with cautious curiosity. As if looking for an answer they did not expect to find. "Regrets, and what ifs. Guilt. This is my punishment. This body, these pains. Paying for someone's sins, that I don't even know anymore. What could I give you, Lyla. I don't have anything left. I barely remember having it at all."
"You make me feel safe. Sane. ... so much less alone," she told him, forcing herself to look downwards, as though the words embarrassed her more than all the rest. "... it makes me sound selfish, when I say it out loud. ... it sounds like I want to use you. I don't. ... I don't expect anything, you don't have to give me anything. I just like being near you."
"I don't want to hurt you." he said quietly, voice steeped in a color of desperation that was soft and red. "I don't want to cause you pain."
"I could take it," she insisted, their fingers still entwined between them. "After everything else...? ... I can handle it. And I want to help you. You've helped me. Maybe help you feel something other than pain."
"I don't deserve the help," he breathed, turning his face down towards their knees. The weight strung between his shoulders seemed to sag deep into his bones. "Look what I've caused."
She reached with the hand that was not occupied with his, carefully touching the side of his face. "Yes, you do. You've been punished so much already. More than anyone deserves, Vincent."
He gave his head a very faint, very small shake. "You don't know." He murmured, and for the first time his voice went raw with pain. "You don't know what I've done. ...What I haven't done."
She was silent for a moment, unsure of how to respond, unknowingly tightening her hold on his hand. "You couldn't convince me that you're so irredeemable. No matter what it was. I've seen enough evidence to the contrary."
Vincent cupped the talons of his gloved hand over his face, fighting for the composure he had misplaced. But the memories returned unbidden, tearing into him with the lengthened claws of innumerable replays. Voices sharp and shrill with the accusations of immeasurable hours.
His fingers trembled in Lyla's grip, breaking down against the onslaught before his expression did.
"Vincent?" she ventured, her voice having dropped to barely above a whisper, concerned. She dropped her hand from his face even as he covered it with his claw, instead draping it over his waist, hand flat against his back in an attempt to comfort. "Vincent..."
"I could have stopped it," he said at last, when the tremor in his voice had subsided. Replaced by a thick ache that sounded too human in his throat. "All of it. Before it even started."
"What are you talking about?" It was a genuine question, no hidden accusations, only curiosity and concern.
And this, said the nasty voice in the very back of his mind. This suffering was your fault, too. One ripple, Vincent. It goes on and on and on and on.
Forever.
Just like your mounting failures.
Red eyes snapped upward, focusing intently on Lyla's face. "I knew about the projects," he said in a low voice.
"Charles said you worked with Gast and Hojo and my father in some capacity," she told him, meeting his eyes when he looked up, keeping her gaze steady despite the fact that the intensity of his own made her feel slightly uneasy. "... it was why he wanted to hire you, or so he told me. Because you were already involved. I'm... not surprised that you knew about them," she admitted, though her voice remained low, hesitant. "How much did you know?"
"Enough." He shifted, pressing his clawed fingers carefully over his temples, smoothing away the tension there. "I was assigned to supervise... oversee the treatment and execution of... everything."
"Prometheus?" she asked him, moving close enough to lean against him, pressing her ear to his chest. "... the dates in your file. It's too early for Pandora. You were in Nibelheim, I know." She looked downwards, a frown tugging at the corners of her lips. "My father said that he and Gast didn't realize how much harm was being done until it was too late. ... that it couldn't be stopped."
"I knew." He murmured, voice gone still and grim. "But I let my emotions..." He frowned, swallowing back a wave of sudden nausea. Ill with himself.
"You didn't build the monsters," she told him sharply, tilting her head upwards to look at him. "If you're to blame because you didn't stop it, then so is everyone else who was involved. Dr. Gast, my father. ... it doesn't matter anymore, regret won't change the past. That's why we have to fight now. Find a way to stop it. Stop more people from getting hurt. ... that will help more than any amount of blame you place on yourself."
Vincent shook his head, slowly. Forcing himself to disentangle, to sit up and let go.
"No." He said. "No excuses."
He didn't mention that he had made the fight his personal mission. He didn't bring up what he'd spent the last four years devoted to. He didn't need to. She knew. But the rest...
That was more difficult to dismiss.
She carefully propped herself up, alone, hands clutching at the bedspread beneath her. "You've been fighting to put an end to it, haven't you? This could be your chance to finish it for good. It could be your closure."
"I knew, Lyla." He said, eyes on the measure flex of his clawed fingers. "Gast. Caraway. Maybe. But I knew. And I never said a thing, because I loved his wife."
She fell silent then, at a loss for words, staring at her hands rather than his face. When she finally looked up, her expression was one of understanding rather than distress. "You thought you were protecting her from them? ... but she needed to be protected from him, instead, didn't she."
Vincent closed his eyes then, face twisting in pain.
"You made a mistake," she told him, though she had to look away again, downwards, gently biting at her lower lip. "Everyone does. I did, too. I've been assisting Ingram for two years now. At first it was fine. Normal. But after awhile, there was always something that didn't sit right. I thought what we were doing was right for so long, but it changed. I overlooked it because I thought he was brilliant. I told myself over and over that we were good people, that I was just being paranoid because of our predecessors. That the mission statement was as he said it was, no ulterior motives. Now he has access to almost... everything Hojo left behind. I don't know what he has planned for Sephiroth. But he got this far because I helped him. I opened the door for him. I did it because I was stupid and I was in love with him."
The pale man looked up, the fine tangles of his hair falling haphazardly across the slender lines of his face. For a long time he didn't say anything at all. And then he nodded, just once. Slow and deep. A note of calm in his face that had not been there before.
"So I get it," she told him, picking at the edge of her sleeve, unable to look up. "But regretting that I helped him isn't going to fix things. Keeping him from Sephiroth is a start. Destroying the rest of the projects will. If you help me, maybe you'll find peace with yourself when it's done. Closure."
"Maybe." He said quietly.
She looked up, only lifting her head halfway to do so. "Had you ever talked about it before?"
"No."
"Maybe it was about time, then."
"Maybe." Vincent looked up.
She released her hold on the bedcovers, knuckles having long since gone white. "You had me worried for a moment."
The gunman looked up curiously.
"With the upset," she explained after a moment, once she realized that explanation was indeed necessary. "... you're usually so calm. I thought maybe being upset would be a trigger for you to shift, like it was for- well, you have a better handle on it, of course."
"It takes more than that," he said quietly, sitting a little straighter. There was a hesitation then. Something the dark man wanted to say, and couldn't quite come to. He looked at the ceiling as if it might be written there in cues.
She had begun to slouch, her shoulders rolled forward as her hands rested in her lap, still fidgeting discreetly. She watched him with interest, venturing to speak after he had allowed the silence to carry on for a few beats. "What?"
"Thank you."
"For what?" she asked, leaning back on both hands.
"...For... mn." Vincent shook his head. "For understanding."
She smiled at that, if only a little. "As much as I can, anyway."
Vincent nodded, examining the gloved hand absently. "It's enough."
"Still believe you could only make me miserable?" she asked him, inclining her head slightly.
"Yes." He admitted, offering her a glance from the side of one eye. "But... you don't. Do you."
She shook her head, causing still-damp tangles of hair to fall forward. "No. Maybe you think I expect more than I do. ... You can tell me how inhuman you think you are over and over, or that you don't deserve to be helped. It won't make a difference. You can't stop me from wanting you."
Vincent offered her a look that was steeped half in disbelief. "Why?" He asked, holding up his presumably mangled hand. "If nothing else..."
She stared passively at the gloved hand for a moment, seemingly unruffled. "I told you yesterday that I didn't care," she told him, frowning. "... I'm not sure I can explain the why."
"I meant in general." He snorted softly, returning the hand to the bed spread.
"I still don't care," she said pointedly, though she had straightened up slightly to fold her arms over her chest, almost petulant, though not quite. "I'm not human. ... less so than you, if you're going to insist that you're not."
"You're not dead," he countered evenly.
"Your heart beats," she retorted.
"It does." Vincent agreed. "But it didn't."
"Your answer will always be that you're a monster, won't it."
"Maybe." He said, frowning at his hands again. More in thought than in displeasure. "...If I didn't, I might go insane."
She frowned in turn, watching him intently even as he looked away, her own arms still crossed, stubborn. "... do you want me to leave?" she asked finally, unable to withhold the sigh that followed.
"No." He leaned back. "Not if you don't want to."
"... I don't."
Vincent nodded, sitting up again with a slight grunt to seek out the bottle of vodka that had migrated to the floor. Taking a drink before offering it to his companion.
She accepted it gratefully, tipping it back and taking a drink that was a bit more ambitious than those previous, wincing slightly as it burned on the way down, holding the bottle out to offer it back afterward. "I think it's only fair I should warn you, I'm a stubborn woman. This wilting flower business that's been going on isn't really the usual. ... the socially awkward part is normal, though," she told him very seriously.
"I wouldn't know anything about being socially awkward." He deadpanned, taking the bottle back in clawed fingers.
"Master of rhetoric," she agreed solemnly, moving closer in a way that she hoped was subtle. It very much was not.
He smirked faintly. "Mn." Vincent agreed, and if he noticed her half-crawl, he had the grace not to mention it.
It took her a few moments to decide on the next course of action. Either this plan was flawless, or so full of stupid that, had she been in her right mind, she would spend the next twenty-four hours banging her head against the wall of her room. For a moment, she thought about blaming it on the vodka, but she knew she had a much better head for alcohol than most people of her acquaintance. Maybe all of the stress and all the noise had finally pushed her to not give a damn. Leaning forward, she kissed him.
A normal person would have startled in a jerk, or maybe a stiffening of shoulders. Vincent, after all this time, was far from normal. And he could admit it. Still, he wondered how strange it was to simply stare when a pretty woman closed in to seal her lips over yours.
Distantly.
Bad idea, said the guilty conscience at his shoulders. Bad idea, chorused the accusing voices in his mind. Bad idea, howled his common sense. Bad idea, murmured his sense of decency and right.
Go for it, muttered the frustrated libido in the very back of his head.
Vincent moved, just enough to make it a kiss over an oral attack.
If she was disappointed that he hadn't thrown her down on the mattress and had his way with her, she didn't show it. After all, it had been a long time since anyone had kissed him, hadn't it? Come to think of it, it had been a long time since -she- had kissed anyone. Besides, this sort of thing took time. Baby steps.
She allowed the kiss to break after a few moments, though she didn't do much to put space between them, studying his face curiously.
He watched her, watching him, for the first time in a long while feeling at a loss. It had been... awhile. An eternity, if he were honest.
"Was that so terrible?" she asked softly, genuine.
"I wasn't afraid it would be terrible."
"Were you afraid it wouldn't be?"
Vincent made a soft noise a lot like chuckling, turning his face away in a search for the vodka he had somehow misplaced. You know the answer to that, don't you? But he didn't ask it. Somehow, he trusted she would understand.
She reached for the bottle before he could fumble for it, sitting upright as she offered it to him. "Here," she told him, looking away as though she felt the need to award him a moment of privacy while he drank. After a brief pause, she spoke again.
"... you shouldn't be afraid that you'll hurt me. You can't hurt me more than anyone else already has. I can take anything by now."
"You shouldn't have to." The gunman frowned, reaching out to catch her hand instead of the bottle. Gently, human fingers warm and alive against her skin. "Not for anything. Not for this."
She looked back, mildly surprised as their fingers caught, instinctively curling her own around the warmth of his. "I don't think you're so bad," she told him honestly. "I'm not afraid of what you think might happen."
Vincent considered that, giving a soft huff that sounded like assent. "I should turn you away."
"... you're right that you might hurt me," she finally conceded, though she didn't seem to be swayed. "I could hurt you, too. But I'm not so afraid of that, that I would make myself stay away from the only person I want to be close to right now. We could hurt each other... but I feel like we could help each other, too."
This time he did snort. "And you want to test the hypothesis."
"I feel using science against me is unfair in my delicate state."
"Was it against you?" He asked, and the even cadence of his voice passed this once for feigned innocence.
His tone forced a smirk out of her as she turned towards him again, leaning closer. "A low blow, really."
"Are you saying you don't want to test it?"
"I do," she corrected him, moving in to press a kiss against the side of his mouth. "Do you plan to let me?"
He hesitated before shifting, allowing their bodies to fold closer. "I shouldn't," he said again, though the fight in the thought seemed to have abated.
She allowed one arm to drop around his waist, brushing her lips against his as she kissed him a third time, lingering. "Please do."
As was so often the case, Vincent said nothing. But a moment later, he leaned in to kiss her back.
So he was very much annoyed when a knock on the door interrupted them.
"Ello? Hey! Vin! Are ye in there, laddie?"
Lyla went very still all of a sudden, one arm still firmly around Vincent's waist even as she frowned against his lips. "No," she said under her breath after a moment, "You're not."
Vincent shifted just enough to see the door over Lyla's shoulder, frowning at it.
"He-llo-oh."
The brunette followed his gaze towards the door. Maybe if they kept quiet long enough, he would wander off... eventually.
"C'mon, Vin! I know yer in there! Yer nae at the bar!"
She narrowed her eyes hatefully at that door. Sighing, she eased her hold on Vincent, shifting so that she was no longer bearing down on him, allowing him room to move if he so desired. "Great."
With a sigh, Vincent cleared his throat. Then, in a light, clear voice, said, "Think you have the wrong room, friend!"
There was a pause outside, and the shuffling of small robotic feet. "Ey? O-oh! Aye! Sorry, there!"
The shadow beneath the door moved, and within the minute, they were alone.
Lyla stared at the door for another moment in mild disbelief before turning her attention back to the darkhaired man, unable to keep herself from grinning broadly. "Nicely done," she told him.
Vincent wasn't smiling at her. Instead he had gotten to his feet, and had his hand extended. "Come on." He rasped. "We probably have three minutes max before he sorts it out."
She looked mildly disappointed even as she took his hand and followed him to her feet, though she made a valiant attempt to hide it. "Time to tell the others already, then?"
"No." He murmured, "Time to find somewhere to hide."
She put her free hand over her mouth for a moment to stifle a laugh. "We can hide in my room for a little while, I'm one floor up."
"Sounds like a plan."