Chapter Text
Cloud was so frustrated by her conversation with Vincent that she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept supplying things she could have said differently. The first proper love confession in her life at the ripe age of twenty-four and it had gone horribly.
Her watch read two in the morning when she finally gave up and got out of bed. The Shera was making its return trip to the Eastern Continent and wouldn’t be arriving until the next morning. Cloud would get off at Edge and Vincent would stay on until Kalm. They would have to go their separate ways after that.
When they were on the hunt for Sephiroth, Cloud would spend nights on the command deck of the Highwind with Vincent. She liked to watch the view, and the pilot crew was so sparse it felt like privacy.
She shuffled out into the Shera’s bridge to find that the night shift was no less populated than the day. The large windows were lined with WRO members at their consoles. Too many people for a quiet moment.
Cloud went to the med bay next, and almost wished she hadn’t. Vincent stood at one of the computers, leaning down and typing commands rapidly on the keyboard. Cloud had forgotten that Vincent would be awake too.
“Cloud,” Vincent greeted before she could slip back to her room. Her eyes didn’t leave the monitor. The interface read white against a dark blue.
“...Vincent,” Cloud begrudgingly said back.
“The passenger bay is quiet. Nobody usually goes there,” said Vincent. Cloud wondered how she knew exactly what she wanted.
“I, uh,” said Cloud. “Don’t know where that is.” She never spent as much time on the airship as she could have. She had been on the ground for both the Remnants and Deepground, and never received a formal tour.
“I’ll show you.” Vincent typed a few more keys before shutting the program and putting the computer to sleep.
Cloud quietly followed Vincent’s flowing red cape down the corridors. It was riddled with holes and tears and stains. When she first found her in the coffin, it had been so pristine. The first tear in the fabric had been on Mount Nibel, when Vincent offered it to her as a cloth to wipe the blood from her face.
Just as Vincent said, nobody was in the passenger bay. The side walls held rigid metal seats separated by tall, angled armrests.
Cloud sat down in one, and was surprised when Vincent sank into the seat beside her. She slumped against the backrest. Cloud didn’t think she had ever seen Vincent with such bad posture before. The only noise was the hum of the engine underfoot.
“You’re right. You're nothing like Lucrecia,” Vincent began. “You would never use me like she did.” She fiddled with the fingers of the claw on her lap. Cloud had never seen her act like this before.
“She used you?” Cloud asked warily. She didn’t want a rehash of earlier, and meant to tread carefully.
“Chaos wasn’t given to me in the cave, it has been with me for years,” Vincent explained. “Hojo’s experiments would have killed me. I was near death until Lucrecia imbued me with the Weapon’s power. I was the perfect test subject to finish her thesis.”
Vincent’s boots shuffled against the floor, and Cloud realized she was being shy.
“I could never be mad at her,” continued Vincent. “As much as I might wish to have passed on then, it’s not as if I hate my life. She saved me, even if she did so selfishly.”
“Maybe I am a bit like her,” Cloud conceded. “I would have saved you by any means necessary, no matter how selfish.”
Vincent sat up and turned to face Cloud. “No,” she said. “You’re nothing like her. I want to believe that. You’ve never used me or lashed out at me, and you most certainly will never marry Hojo.”
Cloud scrunched up her nose. “Ew.”
“I want to believe it, even if it feels wrong.”
“Does it feel wrong?” Cloud whispered, leaning in closer.
Vincent inhaled sharply. “No,” she admitted. “But it should. I expected it to.”
“I read this book when I was younger,” Cloud began. “And I can’t remember the name. But it was about a vampire and a girl. And I think it was supposed to feel wrong, but it didn’t, even though it should’ve.”
“Carmilla?” Vincent supplied.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Cloud nodded.
“Quite an old book. You read it as a child?”
“Multiple times, I think.”
“I find myself like her,” said Vincent. She turned forward and looked down at the hands in her lap. “A horrible vampire that preys on girls.”
“But when I read it,” Cloud admitted. “I wanted to be the girl– I forget her name. I wanted someone to look at me like that and say those words to me.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, saying these things to me.”
“Yes, because you’re a big bad predator.” Cloud couldn’t help it, she smiled mischievously. “And I’m just a poor little girl, asking to be bitten.”
Vincent looked at the grin on Cloud’s lips, and then met her eyes. Her face steeled in a serious furrow on the brow. “You need to consider what you’re getting into more. If you’ll have me, you might regret it.”
“How could I ever regret it?” Cloud murmured. “Even if it’s not meant to be, I still wouldn’t regret you.”
“I’ll hold you so tightly. I’ll suffocate you.”
“I’ve never been held in the first place. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I have terrible mood swings. I won’t be consistent.”
“I’m well aware.”
“I’m a hypocrite, as you say.”
“I know.”
“And I’m awful and ugly underneath all this,” Vincent looked down and gestured to her elaborate getup.
“Show me,” Cloud blurted out. Vincent leaned away from her a hair. “I mean. Uh. Don’t. Not like that.” She reached over the high armrest to tap upon Vincent’s gauntlet. “This. Right?”
Vincent looked at the fingers resting on her armor and sighed. She reached between them and flipped up the armrest. It slid into a recess in the wall between the two seats. Cloud did not know it could do that.
Vincent moved herself so that their knees knocked together. “You must promise me that if you don’t like what you see, you’ll run away forever,” she said.
“Usually people make you promise the opposite,” said Cloud. “Like, you won’t judge them or something.”
“I can’t ask of others what I can’t do myself.” She gripped at the wrist and pulled the armor sleeve off the arm. It left behind a leather glove that was identical to the right. She looked just as she had that night in Kalm a year ago.
She slid her finger under the leather and pulled it back, revealing the skin underneath inch by inch.
It was discolored to a cool gray, almost purple in the light. The nails sat thicker on the fingers, cut and filed down messily with jagged edges.
“Galian…” Cloud whispered. When she reached a hand out to touch the skin felt soft, like peach fuzz. It had been years since she had seen the behemoth hybrid.
“It’s stuck in between, not able to fully change back,” Vincent explained. She curled the fingers in, flexing them. They looked a bit shorter and thicker than the fingers on her other hand, reminiscent of Galian’s large paws.
“I miss her,” Cloud admitted. “She was always my favorite.”
“She’s back now.”
“Really?” Cloud asked, hopeful.
“Chaos’ consciousness went to the Lifestream,” Vincent said. “I can hear the others again, like I used to.”
“That’s great. I always hated Chaos,” Cloud said. She ran a thumb gently down the monstrous forearm. Vincent shuddered a little. “Ticklish?”
“…Yeah…” she ducked her head, a little embarrassed. “The outside is numb, but the inside is still tender.”
Cloud met her bowed head by bumping their foreheads together. Vincent looked at her with wide eyes. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes, if it’s going to rain,” Vincent answered. “What about yours?”
Cloud glanced down at her left arm, wrapped in a compression sleeve underneath Aerith’s memorial band.
“It still gets sore.”
Vincent hummed. Her eyelashes fell over her eyes and she pushed back a little. Cloud thought of Galian’s headbutting when she wanted scratches.
Cloud thought maybe it was the right moment. Vincent’s face was so close. Her lips were a distracting focal point. Cloud leaned in for the kiss.
“Wait,” Vincent said. She drew back a little. “Don’t make that choice now. There’s more than this.”
Cloud should have had the mind to be hurt, maybe even embarrassed. It didn’t change that her heart swelled at the notion that Vincent was like a shy cat. She really did want to believe in Cloud. She wanted to be loved, but she needed it to be slow. If anything, that meant Vincent was being serious in her sudden vulnerability. There was no impulsive drive pushing her forward.
“What else?” Cloud asked gently. She was smiling. She was smiling at having her kiss rejected.
Vincent looked down at herself, covered from head to toe. “I have lots of scars.”
“I like scars.
“No, not attractive ones.”
“Let’s see, then,” said Cloud. She had never been more excited to see someone’s deformities.
When Vincent took off her cape, it was like that night in the cold, but Cloud wasn’t scared of it. She knew it was fine to feel the attraction she did, because Vincent felt it too. The irony was not lost on her that such a feeling was inspired only by removing a tertiary layer. Vincent was still fully clothed underneath.
She moved her hands, one gray and one leather-bound, to the buttons on her high-collared top. They paused there, poised at the clasp. Her eyes grew unfocused.
“I can’t do it,” Vincent said after a moment. “I’ve never…”
“We don’t have to,” assured Cloud. She took Vincent’s frozen hands and lowered them.
“No, we do.” Vincent looked down at their joined hands with frustration. “We need to. I need to… I mean, I want to.”
“We can take it slow,” Cloud suggested. “It’s okay to get cold feet.”
“No, I want to do this now. I just need help,” Vincent admitted. She bowed her head again. “I can’t do it myself.”
Cloud knew what that felt like, wanting to do something but being unable to move in the face of it. She spent a whole year of her life like that. Catatonic, but fully aware, stuck inside her own head.
“Okay. That’s fine,” said Cloud.
Instead of going right for the shirt, Cloud took Vincent’s right arm and peeled the other glove off. She remembered there were no scars on the forearm, but there were a few old cuts and marks on the hand.
“Those are older,” Vincent explained when Cloud swiped a thumb over a pink line between two knuckles. She seemed to relax at Cloud’s lower pace. “Turk training.” Cloud didn’t have pretty hands either, littered with nicks and callouses.
“I want to take this off next,” Cloud said, raising her hand to touch the red wrapped headband. She had never seen Vincent without it, but she had fantasized about it.
“Those ones are bad,” warned Vincent.
“I won’t run away,” Cloud promised. She flashed her pinky, because she liked when Tifa did that to her. “Give me the go ahead.”
“Go ahead,” said Vincent, but she reflexively reached out and grabbed Cloud’s wrist. It didn’t stop her when she untucked the fabric and let gravity unfurl it into her hand. She thought maybe it was to ground Vincent. She really was nervous and shy. If Cloud thought of herself like a dog at the pound, Vincent would be the stray cat in the pen next to her, jumpy and distrustful of humans. They could meet in the middle and sniff each other through the bars.
Vincent really had a beautiful face. There was no face in the world prettier than hers. Dark hair fell over her forehead, contrasting starkly against pale skin. Without the bright red piece, her eyes were left striking in their saturation. Her eyebrows continued their upward arc toward her temples, mirroring the angle of her nose. All of her features pointed downwards to her permanent frown.
Cloud could see it, of course. The dotted line across her forehead of pink scar tissue. They rose off the plane of her face, creating a series of little bumps. In terms of look, they were standard keloid surgical scars. It was the placement and numbers that gave them a sense of brutality.
“I wanna kiss you so bad,” Cloud whispered, ignoring the scars. Vincent furrowed a shadow over her deepset eyes. “You’re crazy gorgeous.”
“You…” Vincent started. “You’re not very patient, are you?”
“That’s not true,” Cloud argued, pouting. “I’ve been plenty patient. At least a year of patience.”
“A year? Since the time you ate all my bread?” Vincent asked.
“No, since I told Tifa I was going to ask you out next time I saw you,” answered Cloud.
“Tifa?” Vincent’s eyes grew wide. “Tifa knows about this?”
“Yeah?” Cloud said, confused. “I told her I liked you when I came out to her.”
“And she’s not disgusted?”
Cloud got defensive at that. “No. You think she’s that kinda person? Tifa’s great.”
Vincent had the faraway unfocused look in her eyes again. “Cloud…” she started. “Has the world’s view on homosexuality changed in the last thirty years?”
“Uh,” said Cloud. It was a loaded question, but a lot of things made more sense now. “More or less. It depends. Um. I know Edge and Junon have gay marriage. And the WRO supports it.”
“Marriage…” Vincent looked like she had seen a Dorky Face.
“…Yeah.”
“How did I not learn this?” Vincent groaned, bowing her face into her hands. “You let me run my mouth and didn’t think to correct me?”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” Cloud defended. She tried to get Vincent to lift her head to no avail. “I just thought you were really self-hatey.”
A sigh went through Vincent’s whole body before she sat up straight. Her face was neutral again. “Alright. This changes things,” she announced.
“It does?”
“Yes,” Vincent said. “I thought you were throwing away your life to be with me.”
Cloud chuckled. “No. No, I’m not.”
In a way that suggested a wise proverb, Vincent said, “It’s hard to be a predator if you’re not killing your prey.”
“I’ll bet.” Cloud smiled and quirked her brow. She hoped it looked smug and teasing. “What’ll you do instead?”
“It’s not entirely solved,” cautioned Vincent. “I’ll still have the scars and the mood swings and the hypocrisy you hate so much. I think being with me will also corrupt your loveliness, regardless of general acceptance.”
“Oh geez,” said Cloud. Her face felt hot. “Corrupt me? I’m looking forward to it.”
Vincent shook her head in disbelief. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. Do you like the idea of becoming perverted?”
Cloud was probably blushing at that point. “Holy moly,” she huffed. “Are you saying these things on purpose?”
“What?”
“…Nevermind.”
Vincent resettled herself. “Alright, I’m ready,” she announced. “Take this off me.” She indicated her shirt.
“Oh gosh,” muttered Cloud, but the command drove her fingers to the two columns of buttons down the front. “Y’know Vincent,” she said as she unbuttoned. “Have you ever considered that I might be tempted by you the same way you are by me?”
“No,” Vincent answered honestly. “I figured you would be disgusted.”
“Well I’m not,” said Cloud. “For all that talk of you being dangerous. It’s dangerous for you to have me strip you like this.”
“It’s not the same,” Vincent said. “That night, you said you found yourself looking at Aerith and Tifa, not me. Your feelings are born of admiration and a sense of kinship. It’s a matter of curiosity, not lust.”
Cloud paused in her unbuttoning. She was over halfway through. “Did I not say I look at you too?”
“No,” answered Vincent. “You didn’t.”
Cloud furrowed her brows. “What are you saying? Of course I lust after you or whatever. I looked at you the most, back then and now.”
“Oh,” Vincent mouthed. A little sound escaped, but it was barely audible. “Are you… right now?”
Cloud hummed, thinking about it. “I’m not really aroused right now, but I could be. Easily. I’m just, uh. Excited?”
“From me?” Vincent asked, like it was the craziest idea in the world.
“Yeah.”
“Should we stop?”
“No.” Cloud resumed undoing the clasps. She was nearing the bottom. “I have to know what I’m getting into, right?”
“Wait,” Vincent said. Cloud waited. “This was me trying to be honest with you. I didn’t mean to tempt you, and I don’t want to have sex with you right now.”
“I’m on the same page. We’re not having sex,” confirmed Cloud. She removed her hands from Vincent’s top, even though only the last two buttons were remaining. “But I am attracted to you, and I would like to make out, at least. And you said I couldn’t kiss you unless we took your shirt off. So that’s what we’re doing.”
Vincent sighed. Her shoulders relaxed with the motion. “Yes. Okay, good. Continue.”
Cloud gave a small smile that was aimed at reassuring. She undid the last two buttons, and untucked it from the high-waisted double belt. Pulling it back revealed yet another layer of clothes underneath, a dark gray tank top.
“Okay, that makes sense,” said Cloud.
“Did you think I would be naked under this?”
Cloud turned pink. “Well, y’know. Scars are on skin,” she defended. “And that’s what you’re showing me, so. I thought you would have a bra on at least.”
Vincent huffed. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves.
Seeing Vincent in only a tank top was surreal. Cloud had imagined things, but seeing the real deal was completely different. Without all the extra layers, she was quite small. Incredibly skinny, almost concerningly so if Vincent were to function by living human standards.
There were more keloid scar marks, guiding a map along the intersections of her body parts. A thick, raised line came up from the collar and parted in two along Vincent’s collarbones. It was a massive autopsy scar, ushered along by little dot marks left from surgical staples.
“Okay. Can we kiss now?” said Cloud. She had her priorities straight.
“Cloud,” disparaged Vincent. “I told you to back out if you saw something you didn’t like.”
“Who says I don’t like what I’m seeing?” challenged Cloud.
“Common sense, beauty standards, et cetera. Take your pick.”
Cloud huffed in frustration. “They’re not pretty or anything. But I’m not disgusted.”
“Being with me is like laying with a corpse,” argued Vincent.
“But you’re not a corpse.”
“I’m not alive either.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Cloud held up her hand. “We gotta stop. I don’t want to argue again.”
Vincent waited quietly, functionally fully clothed but contextually practically naked. Cloud had never seen her neck, and as absurd as that concept seemed she now knew why. A series of vertical lines indicated past incisions and cuts, right over delicate arteries. There was a reason that Vincent wasn’t living in the traditional sense.
“I thought being assertive would be good,” Cloud continued. “But you just get defensive and double down.”
Vincent glanced away. She didn’t have much to offer.
“You keep saying I’ll be scared away or that I should be scared. But, you’re the one who’s scared, right?” asked Cloud.
There was a slight dip to Vincent’s head. It was the shyest nod Cloud had ever seen. Barely perceptible to anything farther away than she was.
“If you’re pushy to the stray cat, it’ll hiss at you,” Cloud whispered, finally understanding.
Vincent peered out from beneath her bangs. “Stray cat?”
“That’s you,” Cloud said, and because she was feeling particularly defenseless, “Meow, meow.”
“You think I’m like a cat?” Vincent asked, bemused.
“Yeah. Like Galian.”
Vincent frowned. “Galian is a behemoth. That’s a completely different animal.”
“I know,” said Cloud. “She’s not a cat, but she’s like a cat. Unless she’s being like a dog.”
“Is this supposed to make sense to me?” Vincent asked incredulously.
“No, it’s just for me,” Cloud smiled gently. She reached out and traced a thumb across Vincent’s bicep, where the half-Galian skin faded back to pale white. “I don’t care what you’re supposed to look like. I’m a genetically enhanced woman with crazy muscles and weird eyes.”
“We both make poor excuses for women, don’t we?” Vincent’s lips curled sadly.
“Like hares amongst rabbits,” Cloud agreed.
“Hares?”
“I have the sword and the bike, you have your gun and fifteen layers of badass clothes,” elaborated Cloud. The train of thought made perfect sense in her head.
“You think I’m badass?” Vincent seemed to shrink a little. For such a tall woman, she really did seem so small.
Cloud was feeling particularly affectionate. “Oh, I think you’re so cool,” she gushed, leaning into Vincent’s space. She pushed her forehead against the dark curtains Vincent used to hide. “I like you. Please go out with me.”
“You would have me?” breathed Vincent, barely audible. Cloud heard it perfectly.
Vincent’s lips were cool and smooth under her thumb and softer against her own. It was a simple kiss, just a gentle peck. There were no sparks or fireworks, only the press of soft skin meeting in the middle. It still inspired a giddy feeling blooming in her chest, and Cloud found that she understood why people liked kissing so much.
When she withdrew, Vincent followed back to press another kiss. It was a little longer, from a single moment to a few seconds. Cloud’s hand was on her cheek. Vincent’s hand was on Cloud’s shoulder.
They parted, and Cloud reached out her other hand to rest on Vincent’s waist. “Yeah?” she asked.
“Yes,” confirmed Vincent. “I’ll… go out. With you.”
Cloud couldn’t help it, she laughed at her.
Vincent dipped her face into Cloud’s shoulder, hiding. Her full head of hair tickled at Cloud’s throat. The hand that was on Vincent’s cheek moved to feel at the strands where they fell on her upper back. They were a little oily. Maybe she needed a shower. She did just fight Deepground by herself, after all. It didn’t stop Cloud from rubbing her cheek on her head.
“Come back to Edge with me,” Cloud murmured. She couldn’t see, but she thought she was speaking right into Vincent’s ear. “We can tell Cid to go straight to Kalm and grab your stuff. Then you can come back and live with me and Tifa and Denzel. Marlene and Barret too. We have the space, but you could just stay in my room with me.” It was unfiltered wish fulfillment, said without thinking.
“I’d like that,” Vincent whispered back. “But I might get in the way of what you have. Tifa and Barret may not want me, and Denzel might dislike me.” She knew Marlene loved her, though.
“That’s not true,” Cloud said, nuzzling with her cheek. “Denzel would love you.”
“Barret and Tifa? I’d just be taking up their space.”
“We can get more space, we’re kinda rich. Seventh Heaven is doing well and we sold a bunch of Materia recently.”
“Okay,” Vincent lifted her head off Cloud’s shoulder, but her face still looked unsure. “Alright, if you say so.”
“I know so,” assured Cloud. They kissed again, with Cloud rubbing circles in Vincent’s waist while her hands framed Cloud’s ears. The Galian arm felt fuzzy on her face. She turned to rub against it.
Vincent watched her for a quiet moment. “We don’t need to stop at Kalm,” she said after a beat. “My house was destroyed when Deepground invaded. I don’t have any more belongings.”
Cloud paused what she was doing to stare at Vincent with wide eyes. “What?”
“All my property was in there,” Vincent said, like that clarified things.
“You should have led with that. Like, ‘Hi, I’m homeless now, I need a place to stay.’”
“I didn’t, though,” said Vincent. “I was going to stay at the WRO headquarters. Reeve offered.”
“What the hell…” muttered Cloud.
“Is that no good?” Vincent looked concerned. “I thought that would work out nicely. We wouldn’t need to make the extra stop.”
Cloud sighed. “I can’t judge you too hard because I wouldn’t say anything either.”
Vincent nodded. “You didn’t tell anybody you had Geostigma.”
Cloud huffed. She couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t. “So you’ll move in with me and we can get you some new belongings.”
“New clothes would be nice,” admitted Vincent. “And maybe some wine.”
Cloud scrunched up her nose. “Not whatever garbage you were drinking, but Tifa has wine.”
Vincent had the audacity to look disappointed.
Cloud checked her watch. It was only half-past three, even though it felt like an eternity had passed. The time passed in quiet intimacy had lulled her into sleepiness. She hadn’t stayed up this late in a long time.
Cloud showed Vincent the digital display on her wrist. “I want to go to bed,” she said. “And I want you to come with me to cuddle, even if you don’t actually sleep.”
“If you would have me.”
“I’ll always have you,” Cloud insisted.
The passenger bay felt colder when they parted, separating their legs from where they had become entangled. The cool lighting from the monitor cast long shadows as Vincent shrugged on her top and Cloud grabbed at the discarded cape and gauntlet.
Vincent remembered the way back to the room Cloud was using, so she walked just a pace ahead. In her confident steps she looked wonderfully graceful, with her tall stature, long hair, and long limbs. She looked like she ought to be there, right at home in the WRO’s command ship. Just days ago she had prevented the end of the world, and just minutes ago she had given an emotionally stunted twenty-four year old her first kiss.
Clad in black leather, belts, and knee-high boots, Cloud found her exceptionally pretty. She was a dream of beauty, but one that would not pass. She would remain in wakefulness. If anything, she would not exist without it. Cloud spent her nights three years ago putting off sleep to meet with Vincent, with only passing interactions in the sun. It seemed fitting that their romance would start in that same way.
The equalizing shadows of darkness had provided a cover from judgement. A chance at vulnerability for two girls pretending to be vampires. A moment of quiet reprieve for hares amongst rabbits, pretending to be wolves.
***
“...[C]uriosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another. What harm could it do anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to know? Had she no trust in my good sense or honor? Why would she not believe me when I assured her, so solemnly, that I would not divulge one syllable of what she told me to any mortal breathing?
There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light.”
– Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla