FFVII fanfic: Phantom Emotions
Title: Phantom Emotions
Characters: Vincent
Pairings: Past(?) Vincent/Lucrecia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst. Slight mindfuckery. Post AC. Not DoC compliant.
Summary: The same nightmare. The nightmare he had continued to dream for over thirty years.
Disclaimer: The rights to FFVII and all its characters belong to SquareEnix. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
The same dusty yellowed skies. The same barren cracked earth. The same nightmare. The nightmare he had continued to dream for over thirty years.
Vincent.
And just like always, she materialized behind him. It was always the same. Obligingly, Vincent turned to fully face her, to find her, once again, standing at several feets distance.
Please dont be sad just because you couldnt save me.
She looked as Lucrecia did in life, wise and gentle. But he knew better. He knew how quickly the intelligent light in her eyes would be exchanged for a sadistic gleam, how speedily her serene aura would degenerate into an air of cruelty.
Yes, you couldnt save me.
Vincent stood still as she made her way over to him, didnt try to meet her halfway or turn away. He knew that he could never escape from her anyway. Stopping in front of him, she reached up and cupped his cheek with her right hand while her left slipped around his torso to hold him in a light embrace.
But it doesnt matter.
He didnt pay any heed to her words. After all, he knew what she was going to say after so many times of hearing the same speech. Nor did he feel any fear when he felt the transformation into Chaos spreading out from her touch on his cheek, changing what should have been his deathly white skin into black hard carapace. And soon, another voice inside his mind joined in:
Forgiven.
Vincent looked on indifferently where he would have been alarmed thirty years ago as the right corner of her forehead took on a mottled blue-grey hue, rapidly spreading out, the taint covering the whole of her visage in mere moments and still spreading. She leant up, and in a dark cloying voice the real Lucrecia lacked in life, whispered into his ear:
Because we can fall into oblivion together.
He continued to ignore the demonic impostors words, and instead chose to concentrate on the sickening twist and shift of his bones as Chaos wings ripped free from his back. Whilst his younger self would have panicked and struggled as he continually cited the mantra that the Lucrecia he loved would not be like this, he merely flicked his wings to rid himself of the newborn grime and continued to be oblivious to her advances as she tightened her embrace around his torso.
No forgiveness.
He stood stoically in her tightened hold, unresponsive as she laid her head on his shoulder. He knew what was coming. After all, he has had the same nightmare for over thirty years now.
Yes, together forever.
As her breath ghosted over his wing, unnatural limbs burst forth from her back and wound themselves around him in a suffocating parody of a hug, further entrapping him in her grip.
Unforgiven.
He waited patiently, waited for their last lines, their prelude to the epilogue of this nightmare.
Forever together in darkness. No.
And with those final lines given, darkness began to engulf their surroundings. She pulled back a small distance and gave Vincent a thin guileless smile before she too was swallowed by the shadows.
As the darkness of the night replaced the shadows from the nightmare, Vincent sat up and looked outside at the small sliver of the moon that hung in the skies.
The same nightmare. Always the same.
That specific nightmare no longer disturbed him as it once did. He was never especially disturbed by Chaos words, as he had always had little love for that demon. But Lucrecia, however
He had to wonder, was his lack of response to the phantom that wore Lucrecias image a result of only having numbed himself from this repeated nightmare? Or was it because his feelings for Lucrecia are no longer what they once were? But how could that be? His feelings for her were what shielded him from the horrors of the nightmare by constantly reminding him that the woman he had fallen for was never this callous, never this vicious.
But maybe his sentiments for her were nothing more than that now. Nothing more than a cloak that sheltered him from the darkness of within his mind. If that was the case, it would logically explain his current indifference to the monstrosity that masqueraded as Lucrecia.
Lying back down on his bed, Vincent rationally concluded that he didnt love Lucrecia anymore. His love for her was simply something that he chose to obsess on, something to use against her monstrous doppelganger, something to bring himself through this thirty year old nightmare. Something that was nothing more than residual feelings, much like the phantom pain of a patient with an amputated limb: something that he thought he should be feeling when that feeling should be long gone.
So he told himself with a note of finality, My feelings for you are in the past now, Lucrecia.
But the Turks in his day were all excellent liars.
Concrit will be much appreciated~ ♥