Work Text:
She and Fang haven't really been separated for that long – really, because that five-hundred-year thing doesn't count as separation if they were unconscious for it all – it's been, what, how many days (has it been weeks?) since they woke up here on Cocoon, and even fewer since Fang sent her up the elevator for her own safety: Vanille hasn't been on her own that long, not really. So it doesn't make sense to her how she can have Fang back but not yet have it fit, the way they used to: her the flowering vine entwining around Fang's tall-rooted tree, tangled until they were one beautiful whole.
It isn't that way. It isn't that way at all, because Fang has holes in her memory: time and crystalline have eaten away at it, taken bits and pieces. And Vanille hates this, hates this feeling, because she wants Fang to forget – wants Fang to forget all of it, the beautiful terror and absolute hate and desperate, undying love that forged Ragnarok out of a wild girl from wild Pulse and the spear-like intensity of her devotion and protective spirit. Fang's memory is like lace, delicate and gaping, tangled and transparent: gaps in all the right places. Fang's brand is bleached to white. It's what she should want.
So she hates herself for wanting, because it'd be easier and better if she didn't. But she does. Fang remembers her brand, Vanille's brand, but whenever she looks at it, she simply stares, or maybe traces a finger or two along the spines. She doesn't press her cheek against it the way she did in Oerba, surrounded by sun and sea and peace; nor does she turn her lips to it, in that gentle and possessive way Fang had, as if she could kiss it gone. And it feels like a gap, like an ache: like a hole in Vanille's memory, because Fang doesn't remember this; it's too close to their Focus, swallowed up in the white flash of her ashed-away brand.
And she starts to wonder what of their relationship Fang does remember: their mutually possessive, dependent, head-strong and fool-hardy devotion to and faith in one another, yes; but does Fang remember the way her fingers trail fire up Vanille's thigh, or her tongue down Vanille's stomach? She looks at Vanille and it's as if there's a veil between them, a transparent knit of lace and regrets: holes in all the wrong places, gaps beneath her feet. If she doesn't have Fang, she – it isn't that she has nothing, because you can start a life from nothing; she'll have less than nothing; negative; black holes; time in reverse, crystal stasis, the empty void that fuels Ragnarok's rage.
Fang watches her across the campfire and Vanille says nothing. What can she say?—the words die on her tongue, crumbling like poison under the weight of it. If she tells Fang she remembers: she cannot tell Fang she remembers. She cannot break the peace of Fang's paled brand. But she doesn't know if she can bear the cost, if the price of Fang's forgetful peace is the fire of them.
They haven't truly been separated that long, but Vanille feels like she hasn't yet got Fang back.
- - -
Later that night she and Fang set up their tent – it's been instinctive to share, but now Vanille feels the weight of it on her shoulders like stones. She unrolls her bag and starts setting her things aside for the night, trying desperately to convince herself that she's doing the right thing – hasn't all of this been her fault, for not being able to do the things she so desperately needs to? Her hands are tugging at her hair when she feels Fang's strong quick fingers atop hers. "Here," Fang says, and she makes quick work of Vanille's hair ties: the hands remember the motions, even if the mind doesn't, because when Vanille turns around Fang is staring at the two small loops bemusedly.
"Here," Fang says again, and hands them to her. "I guess I've done this before." Her lips quirk upwards, because of course Fang would find amusement in her own amnesia: that's what holds off the raging despair. Fang has always laughed in the face of fate and darkness.
Vanille wants to sob – wants to throw herself at Fang – she swallows instead, and says, "Sometimes that happens to me too. I feel like," and she's lying again, but she can't help it, "I feel like there are these shadows sometimes, things that feel familiar and I don't know why."
Fang laughs, and Vanille blinks in surprise before she realizes it's relief. "Happens to me too. Makes me wonder how much isn't in there, you know? Like it isn't just the Focus they wiped out of my brain."
"Do you think," Vanille begins, and she hates how she's so timid because she's never been shy before when it comes to Fang – brave, glorious Fang, as bright and bold as the brassy blue sky above Pulse – "Never mind."
"Oh, none of that, now," Fang says with a chuckle, and she taps Vanille on the chin playfully – and then her entire face changes, as her fingers linger on Vanille's cheek; her exhale is surprisingly soft. "Like this," Fang says, bemused and curious, and something wondering on her breath. "Why is your face familiar?"
"We've known each other for a while," Vanille says, joking and noncommittal and not even daring to hope or think. Her entire self has frozen as Fang's fingers trace her jawline.
"I wonder," Fang says. But then she drops her fingers and the moment breaks, shattering around them like l'cie crystal, and Vanille's heart gives a painful little throb of something she doesn't even want to put words to. They get ready for bed with the silence laid across them like a veil, knit like lace.
- - -
Later that night, Vanille awakens to warm breath in her ear and a strong arm tucked familiarly around her waist. Fang's curled around her in sleep, a protective parenthesis. The body remembers, even if the mind doesn't.
It's somehow more comforting than any conversation or confession would ever be because Fang knows, somewhere. Vanille wraps the comfort of it around her – Fang's paled brand, the strings of their memories, the warmth of what they had – like a blanket, and breathes deep.