(no subject)
Title: Silence
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: Vincent/Cloud
Genre: Romance/Angst
Word count: 3,284
Notes: Written for terr0rflare, Christmas 03. Okay, yes, I AM fully aware that there is no possible way they could have Christmas in FF7. Canon? We don't need no stinkin' canon! It's a Christmas fic. I decided to ignore that little detail. *shifty look* This fic was written to Silence, a song by Sarah McLachlan. Get it, people. Really.
Summary: Christmas, two years after the death of Sephiroth, Cloud reflects on the loss of three lovers, in particular the one who never gave him a reason.
It had been two years since Sephiroth’s death, and Cloud was still unsure of what he was doing. He had no permanent dwelling, no real job, and no proper family. Many of the others had settled down- Barrett and Elly had chosen to raise Marlene together, and the lack of any blood ties had no strength on their family bonds. Yuffie had returned to Wutai, determined to restore its beautiful culture and prestige back to the way they had been before the war. She also had a large number of suitors, and tended to delight in playing them off against each other. She wouldn’t marry until one of the men had proved himself worthy of her, she declared.
Personally, Cloud thought she just liked stringing poor Reeves along.
As for Reeves himself, he was doing a good job pulling the new ShinRa back into line, and Cloud was quietly proud of him, though he’d never say it. They’d come a long way, all of them.
Cid had finally got the clue when Shera decided that she’d had enough and packed her bags to stay with a friend for a while- she’d eventually returned, but the event had given Cid a scare. He was behaving much more civilly towards her now. This was not to say that he had stopped cursing, smoking or even bossing her around; he wouldn’t be Cid, if that were the case. He had finally admitted that he loved her, though. The wedding had been gorgeous.
RedXIII seemed to be in good spirits, and Cloud suspected he may have found himself a mate. He had absolutely no idea how, but as long as the intelligent canine was content, Cloud was happy for him. Things like details didn’t really matter.
Tifa didn’t seem quite so rooted as the others… she had returned to her bar, and Cloud had offered to come too out of a sense of both friendship and duty, but she had gently declined.
He suspected she missed Aerith even more than he did, although he couldn’t say why. It felt like 6th sense, almost.
Vincent? No one knew where Vincent was. They’d all tried to find him over the years, but he seemed to have all but vanished off the face of the Earth. Cloud, in particular, had looked everywhere, but to no avail. Truth be told, he was just a little bit worried.
As for Cloud himself?
He was a mercenary. How ironic.
~
Christmas was one of the worst times of year, Cloud found. For one thing, there were never any jobs. People seemed to have a thing about wars and violence over Christmas; it made them squeamish, or something, so Cloud was rendered rather short on cash. On top of that, it was cold, it snowed, and he suspected he was the only person who wasn’t happy in the entire world. Slight exaggeration, maybe, but the sad thing was it did have basis in fact. Christmas was the time of cheer; Cloud was not particularly cheerful.
He was rather lonely, actually.
Sure, the others had all sent him Christmas invites from whatever corner of the world they were in, and they would eventually arrive with more stamps and forwarding addresses than chain letters, but Cloud never accepted any of them. It made him wonder why they didn’t organise one Christmas party together, in Midgar or somewhere. Not that he would go anyway, but it seemed to make more sense.
Cloud didn’t like spending Christmas in large groups. Once upon a time, he’d been used to spending Christmas with just two or three.
Christmas with Zack had always been fun, if nothing else. Christmas with Sephiroth had been amusing, though it would surprise most people to hear it. Christmas with both had been… interesting.
Christmas with Vincent had been silent.
Christmas was also their anniversary, as it so happened.
Cloud didn’t like spending Christmas alone when he should have been celebrating with his lover, but he hadn’t seen Vincent for two years, so he hardly had a choice. He had survived last Christmas; he would survive this Christmas.
Cloud seemed to have a bad track record when it came to relationships. Two past boyfriends dead, and one missing. Damn.
The question, of course, was where he should spend the festive holiday season having refused all offers from friends. Last year, he had spent it with Tifa. It hadn’t exactly been depressing, but it had been very quiet with each of them mourning the loss of those they held dear. Tifa missed her father, but even more than that she missed Aerith. Cloud sometimes wondered if she had loved Aerith. She had, he thought, far more than he ever could. He had already given his heart away. Three times, to be more precise. He was starting to wonder if this made him flighty, but the term didn’t seem to fit.
Besides, he had never left any of them. They had always left him, in their own way.
Zack had died.
Sephiroth had gone insane.
Vincent had just… left.
It wasn’t altogether too surprising to find himself in the Icicle Inn region. This had been where they spent their first Christmas together. Cloud had said he wanted to check out some things, and the others had offered to come.
“No, that’s alright,” he had told them. “Stay in Costa Del Sol. It’s warmer here anyway, and I know you’d all prefer to have your Christmas here.”
“But what about you, Cloud?” Aerith had asked, a mere split second before Tifa had done the same.
Cloud just smiled. “Hey, I’m not a big fan of Christmas. I’ll be fine. You guys enjoy yourself.”
He hadn’t really wanted to check anything out. It was just an excuse, an excuse to be alone and an excuse to be in the snow. Sephiroth and Zack had both loved the snow, he recalled. So did he. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to spend such an emotional holiday in a tropical resort, but there you go.
Cloud had been preparing to leave when a voice had stopped him.
“I’d like to go with you, if you don’t mind,” Vincent said softly.
That had stopped him dead. It was rare enough that Vincent said anything, let alone asked someone for something. He had absolutely no idea why Vincent would want to go, but the silent red-eyed man was one of the few whose company he would not mind at this time of year. If Vincent wanted to go, Cloud wasn’t going to stop him.
~
“It must be hard.”
Cloud whipped around, eyes wide. They had just entered the cabin up in the mountains a few kilometres from the Icicle Inn, and Vincent had said that right out of the blue. “Pardon?”
“Christmas,” Vincent said, and that was the only explanation he offered. Cloud looked at him blankly, mentally willing him to elaborate.
“Sephiroth,” he added finally.
“How did you…” Cloud started, but trailed off. There was little use in asking, as Vincent was highly unlikely to respond. Besides, it was impossible to tell how much he knew anyway. He could have just been referring to the quest to stop Sephiroth, for all Cloud could tell, but it didn’t seem like that.
“Everyone will lose someone they love at one point in their lives,” Vincent said, voice in the same quiet tones as always, but somehow seeming gentler. “The only difference is between those who have, and those who will. And, of course, how they cope with it. Some losses are worse than others.” He turned to look outside the window, where it was impossible to see anything but the snow. “Either way, times of celebration are the hardest to bear.”
Cloud stared at him in stunned shock. Okay, that pretty well proved that Vincent had a fair idea of the nature of his relationship with Sephiroth, and furthermore understood how he was feeling. That may have been the longest speech he’d ever heard out of the mysterious man, come to think of it.
“If you wish to be alone,” Vincent told him, “I respect your right.”
He moved to walk past Cloud, but Cloud grabbed his arm. “Wait!”
There was a silence, and Cloud blushed, dropping his hand like it had been burned. “Sorry, I just…”
Vincent just gazed at him, blood red eyes calm. “You don’t have to apologise.”
“You don’t have to go,” Cloud blurted. “I… I mean, I don’t mind your company.”
Vincent continued to watch him closely for a minute more before nodding. “I understand.”
They had spent the rest of the night in companionable silence sitting on the couch in front of the fire. Cloud was subdued, yes, and he missed both Sephiroth and Zack, but… he could have imagined a worse way to spend Christmas. It was quite pleasant, sitting there with Vincent, and there was no need for words. Sometimes when there was silence, it would feel like a void and he would struggle to fill it, but this was comfortable.
Cloud had stared into the flames so long they were burned into his retina, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the after-images flickering. The glow from the fire began to make him sleepy, and without realising it Cloud ended up leaning on Vincent’s shoulder. If he hadn’t been so tired, he would have been embarrassed, but it felt nice and he couldn’t bring himself to worry.
Vincent didn’t seem to mind, didn’t shove him away or even comment on it, so Cloud continued to lie there half-sleeping in the warmth of the silence they shared. Talking was overrated, he found.
He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe Vincent reminded him of Sephiroth, maybe it was because he wasn’t thinking, or maybe he just subconsciously wanted to, but whatever the reason, at midnight on Christmas Eve Cloud leaned upwards and caught Vincent in a kiss.
Cloud couldn’t decide which was more surprising; that Vincent kissed back or that he did not in fact taste like blood. He was unsure where the idea that Vincent would had come from, but there it was.
As it so turned out, he tasted like exotic spices. Cloud decided he liked the flavour, and he also liked it when he discovered that Vincent’s hair was indeed as silky as it looked.
~
They hadn’t talked about it, the next day, and they hadn’t exchanged cards or gifts either, but Vincent kissed Cloud when he wished him a merry Christmas so Cloud guessed that that meant something, even if he wasn’t exactly sure what.
They had somehow found their way into a relationship after that, even though they’d never talked about it. They’d make love by candlelight when the others weren’t there, and Cloud would feel the stress of hunting after his ex-lover on a perpetual goose chase drain away. They never spoke, not about the terms or boundaries of the relationship, and never about emotions.
The word ‘love’ was never mentioned, but then again few words were.
They were cloaked in silence, surrounded by it, and it was as much a part of their relationship as talking was in the relationships of others. It was the silence that had drawn Cloud to Vincent in the first place; it was the silence that started to drive him mad.
He loved it, he hated it, he needed it, he couldn’t survive with it. There was a constant contradiction in his mind. Sometimes he’d crave the silence, and sometimes he felt like he was drowning. He wanted to scream, just so there’d be sound, something to reflect the state of his own mind. Cloud was sinking.
He wanted Vincent to speak to him.
~
After Sephiroth had died, Cloud had wanted nothing more than to let himself be pulled under by the silence. Let me lose myself, he wanted to say to Vincent, but he didn’t dare break the silence with words that held meaning.
Vincent had disappeared without even telling Cloud. It was nothing he didn’t expect- well, if he’d been expecting Vincent to leave, anyway. He knew Vincent wouldn’t warn him when he went away, but he’d been hoping it would never happen.
Did Vincent know he’d loved him? Cloud didn’t know. It was impossible to tell, in the silence.
So now, here he was back at the same cabin from three years earlier, and he didn’t know why he was even here. The silence was deafening, always silent, but it was a different kind from the one he had begun to capitalise in his mind.
“So you are here.”
Cloud whirled around and almost screamed. He wasn’t hallucinating, was he? He had thought that had stopped when Sephiroth died, but there was no way that Vincent could actually be standing in front of him.
“I came here last year, but you did not,” Vincent continued, Cloud still frozen in utter shock. “I wondered if you would eventually return.”
“Y-you…” Cloud stuttered. “Why?” he finally asked, voice weak.
Vincent’s eyes darkened. “You were drowning.”
Cloud wanted to ask how he knew, but couldn’t. Some habits were too deeply ingrained, and besides, Vincent never answered questions like that. One just had to accept that Vincent knew things, and move on.
Vincent moved to touch him, but Cloud shoved him back. “You left me,” Cloud said, gaining strength. “You left me, and you think we can just start where we left off?”
Vincent didn’t reply, just watching him calmly like he always did.
“Do we even have anything to piece back together?” Cloud asked, almost to himself, and laughed bitterly, a tinge hysterical. “We never talked. It could have been purely physical. Was it, Vincent?”
Cloud wondered if it had been a mistake to goad Vincent or possibly just to stand so close to the wall when he found himself slammed backwards against it, arms pinned painfully above his head. Vincent always had been stronger than him.
“Love,” Vincent growled, “is there whether it is acknowledged by words or not. Language can cheapen an emotion rather than clarify it.”
While Cloud was still reeling from this, Vincent swooped in and crushed their mouths together violently, kissing him with a heat and passion that Cloud had missed and nearly forgotten. He was prepared to yield himself to the silence again, his mind on fire and unable to focus, but something rather urgent was jumping up and down and demanding his attention.
Breaking his mouth away, Cloud struggled for breath and glared at Vincent with accusation in his eyes. “You never said you loved me.”
“You never asked,” Vincent answered, and kissed Cloud again before he could reply.
Gasping when Vincent slid his tongue into his mouth, Cloud realised that all the times he’d wanted to break the silence, he’d never tried. He’d always just supposed Vincent wouldn’t respond, and it might have saved both of them a lot of pain if he hadn’t made that assumption.
Cloud decided that there was no harm in surrendering now and talking later, and pointedly ignored the one lucid part of his mind left that insisted he was a fool.
Panting as Vincent licked a trail down his neck, Cloud bucked furiously and moaned at the friction he inadvertently created. He wanted his arms free, dammit!
Vincent always had known what he wanted without words, and maybe it was because he was so used to reading the silence. Cloud found his arms released and wound them around Vincent’s neck, tangling his hands in the raven hair and kissing him with renewed enthusiasm. He gave a startled yelp as his legs were lifted right out from under him, but it was muffled under Vincent’s mouth and soon turned to a whimper when Vincent dropped him on the couch and crawled on top of him, and Cloud was in heaven and a corny pun like that had never seemed so true in his life.
Crying out as Vincent pulled his clothes open and tongued his navel, Cloud arched upwards and wrapped his legs firmly around Vincent’s waist. He always had been the loud one in sex, at least with his ever-silent lover.
Vincent had moved further down, and his hair was tickling Cloud’s hips and Cloud literally screamed when the searing heat of Vincent’s mouth engulfed him, thrashing wildly with his hands tangled hopelessly in Vincent’s black mane. It must have hurt, but Vincent didn’t complain, had never complained.
Cloud was getting close, making the little whining noises that served as the most accurate warning anyone could ever ask for, but suddenly Vincent pulled away. Cloud protested non-verbally, trying to yank him back down, but Vincent just smiled at him, sliding back up his body to suck on his neck.
“Torture,” Cloud gasped breathlessly, squirming under Vincent restlessly.
Vincent paused and moved to Cloud’s ear, licking around the outer rim and chuckling when Cloud mewled. “I love the little noises you make,” he murmured, and it could practically be called a purr.
Cloud dragged him back to his mouth for another fiery kiss, barely processing what Vincent had just said. Once he had been afraid that Vincent would get angry if he became too loud; it seemed he was learning the folly for believing something and never stopping to ask.
“Please… inside me…” Cloud begged as he tore his mouth away again. Vincent’s burgundy eyes laughed at him, and his tone when he spoke was hoarse but amused.
“All you had to do was ask.”
Cloud had never asked. He had just accepted what he was given and hoped it would be enough.
Moaning again as Vincent’s cool fingers pressed into him, he briefly wondered where Vincent had found lube, but decided this was one of those things he really didn’t care about and didn’t actually want to ask. Vincent had most likely carried it with him. Cloud was for a moment insulted by the presumption in that, but remembered that Vincent was always prepared for anything. He probably had it hidden in the folds of his cloak at all times.
Now that was an intriguing thought.
Cloud may have continued down that line of thought, but when Vincent pushed inside him and hit the spot, he was rather preoccupied by screaming Vincent’s name at the top of his lungs.
Afterwards, when they were both sticky and exhausted and on the brink of sleep, Cloud sighed. “Now I suppose this is the bit where you disappear,” he thought, and didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until Vincent stiffened.
“Pardon?”
Always pardon, never what, Cloud thought muzzily, and this time managed not to say it. “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” He yawned, and tried to act as though the prospect wasn’t making his heart shatter all over again.
There was a pause, and Vincent frowned. “Why would I leave?”
“You left last time,” Cloud pointed out.
“… You weren’t ready. You needed to get over Sephiroth.”
Oh, great. Two years, and that was what this was about? Never underestimate the value of talking, Cloud decided grimly.
“So you aren’t leaving again?” He persisted.
Vincent managed to refrain, barely, from rolling his eyes. “No. Do you ever listen when I speak?”
Cloud thought about this, almost snapping yes without pause, when he realised that maybe Vincent wasn’t talking about speaking with words. Did he ever listen when Vincent spoke to him in body language?
Vincent must have said how he felt a thousand times by now.
“… No,” Cloud said softly.
“Will you listen now?” Vincent asked gently.
“Yes.”
Vincent kissed him, slowly and sweetly this time, and for once Cloud understood what he was saying.
I love you.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: Vincent/Cloud
Genre: Romance/Angst
Word count: 3,284
Notes: Written for terr0rflare, Christmas 03. Okay, yes, I AM fully aware that there is no possible way they could have Christmas in FF7. Canon? We don't need no stinkin' canon! It's a Christmas fic. I decided to ignore that little detail. *shifty look* This fic was written to Silence, a song by Sarah McLachlan. Get it, people. Really.
Summary: Christmas, two years after the death of Sephiroth, Cloud reflects on the loss of three lovers, in particular the one who never gave him a reason.
It had been two years since Sephiroth’s death, and Cloud was still unsure of what he was doing. He had no permanent dwelling, no real job, and no proper family. Many of the others had settled down- Barrett and Elly had chosen to raise Marlene together, and the lack of any blood ties had no strength on their family bonds. Yuffie had returned to Wutai, determined to restore its beautiful culture and prestige back to the way they had been before the war. She also had a large number of suitors, and tended to delight in playing them off against each other. She wouldn’t marry until one of the men had proved himself worthy of her, she declared.
Personally, Cloud thought she just liked stringing poor Reeves along.
As for Reeves himself, he was doing a good job pulling the new ShinRa back into line, and Cloud was quietly proud of him, though he’d never say it. They’d come a long way, all of them.
Cid had finally got the clue when Shera decided that she’d had enough and packed her bags to stay with a friend for a while- she’d eventually returned, but the event had given Cid a scare. He was behaving much more civilly towards her now. This was not to say that he had stopped cursing, smoking or even bossing her around; he wouldn’t be Cid, if that were the case. He had finally admitted that he loved her, though. The wedding had been gorgeous.
RedXIII seemed to be in good spirits, and Cloud suspected he may have found himself a mate. He had absolutely no idea how, but as long as the intelligent canine was content, Cloud was happy for him. Things like details didn’t really matter.
Tifa didn’t seem quite so rooted as the others… she had returned to her bar, and Cloud had offered to come too out of a sense of both friendship and duty, but she had gently declined.
He suspected she missed Aerith even more than he did, although he couldn’t say why. It felt like 6th sense, almost.
Vincent? No one knew where Vincent was. They’d all tried to find him over the years, but he seemed to have all but vanished off the face of the Earth. Cloud, in particular, had looked everywhere, but to no avail. Truth be told, he was just a little bit worried.
As for Cloud himself?
He was a mercenary. How ironic.
~
Christmas was one of the worst times of year, Cloud found. For one thing, there were never any jobs. People seemed to have a thing about wars and violence over Christmas; it made them squeamish, or something, so Cloud was rendered rather short on cash. On top of that, it was cold, it snowed, and he suspected he was the only person who wasn’t happy in the entire world. Slight exaggeration, maybe, but the sad thing was it did have basis in fact. Christmas was the time of cheer; Cloud was not particularly cheerful.
He was rather lonely, actually.
Sure, the others had all sent him Christmas invites from whatever corner of the world they were in, and they would eventually arrive with more stamps and forwarding addresses than chain letters, but Cloud never accepted any of them. It made him wonder why they didn’t organise one Christmas party together, in Midgar or somewhere. Not that he would go anyway, but it seemed to make more sense.
Cloud didn’t like spending Christmas in large groups. Once upon a time, he’d been used to spending Christmas with just two or three.
Christmas with Zack had always been fun, if nothing else. Christmas with Sephiroth had been amusing, though it would surprise most people to hear it. Christmas with both had been… interesting.
Christmas with Vincent had been silent.
Christmas was also their anniversary, as it so happened.
Cloud didn’t like spending Christmas alone when he should have been celebrating with his lover, but he hadn’t seen Vincent for two years, so he hardly had a choice. He had survived last Christmas; he would survive this Christmas.
Cloud seemed to have a bad track record when it came to relationships. Two past boyfriends dead, and one missing. Damn.
The question, of course, was where he should spend the festive holiday season having refused all offers from friends. Last year, he had spent it with Tifa. It hadn’t exactly been depressing, but it had been very quiet with each of them mourning the loss of those they held dear. Tifa missed her father, but even more than that she missed Aerith. Cloud sometimes wondered if she had loved Aerith. She had, he thought, far more than he ever could. He had already given his heart away. Three times, to be more precise. He was starting to wonder if this made him flighty, but the term didn’t seem to fit.
Besides, he had never left any of them. They had always left him, in their own way.
Zack had died.
Sephiroth had gone insane.
Vincent had just… left.
It wasn’t altogether too surprising to find himself in the Icicle Inn region. This had been where they spent their first Christmas together. Cloud had said he wanted to check out some things, and the others had offered to come.
“No, that’s alright,” he had told them. “Stay in Costa Del Sol. It’s warmer here anyway, and I know you’d all prefer to have your Christmas here.”
“But what about you, Cloud?” Aerith had asked, a mere split second before Tifa had done the same.
Cloud just smiled. “Hey, I’m not a big fan of Christmas. I’ll be fine. You guys enjoy yourself.”
He hadn’t really wanted to check anything out. It was just an excuse, an excuse to be alone and an excuse to be in the snow. Sephiroth and Zack had both loved the snow, he recalled. So did he. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to spend such an emotional holiday in a tropical resort, but there you go.
Cloud had been preparing to leave when a voice had stopped him.
“I’d like to go with you, if you don’t mind,” Vincent said softly.
That had stopped him dead. It was rare enough that Vincent said anything, let alone asked someone for something. He had absolutely no idea why Vincent would want to go, but the silent red-eyed man was one of the few whose company he would not mind at this time of year. If Vincent wanted to go, Cloud wasn’t going to stop him.
~
“It must be hard.”
Cloud whipped around, eyes wide. They had just entered the cabin up in the mountains a few kilometres from the Icicle Inn, and Vincent had said that right out of the blue. “Pardon?”
“Christmas,” Vincent said, and that was the only explanation he offered. Cloud looked at him blankly, mentally willing him to elaborate.
“Sephiroth,” he added finally.
“How did you…” Cloud started, but trailed off. There was little use in asking, as Vincent was highly unlikely to respond. Besides, it was impossible to tell how much he knew anyway. He could have just been referring to the quest to stop Sephiroth, for all Cloud could tell, but it didn’t seem like that.
“Everyone will lose someone they love at one point in their lives,” Vincent said, voice in the same quiet tones as always, but somehow seeming gentler. “The only difference is between those who have, and those who will. And, of course, how they cope with it. Some losses are worse than others.” He turned to look outside the window, where it was impossible to see anything but the snow. “Either way, times of celebration are the hardest to bear.”
Cloud stared at him in stunned shock. Okay, that pretty well proved that Vincent had a fair idea of the nature of his relationship with Sephiroth, and furthermore understood how he was feeling. That may have been the longest speech he’d ever heard out of the mysterious man, come to think of it.
“If you wish to be alone,” Vincent told him, “I respect your right.”
He moved to walk past Cloud, but Cloud grabbed his arm. “Wait!”
There was a silence, and Cloud blushed, dropping his hand like it had been burned. “Sorry, I just…”
Vincent just gazed at him, blood red eyes calm. “You don’t have to apologise.”
“You don’t have to go,” Cloud blurted. “I… I mean, I don’t mind your company.”
Vincent continued to watch him closely for a minute more before nodding. “I understand.”
They had spent the rest of the night in companionable silence sitting on the couch in front of the fire. Cloud was subdued, yes, and he missed both Sephiroth and Zack, but… he could have imagined a worse way to spend Christmas. It was quite pleasant, sitting there with Vincent, and there was no need for words. Sometimes when there was silence, it would feel like a void and he would struggle to fill it, but this was comfortable.
Cloud had stared into the flames so long they were burned into his retina, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the after-images flickering. The glow from the fire began to make him sleepy, and without realising it Cloud ended up leaning on Vincent’s shoulder. If he hadn’t been so tired, he would have been embarrassed, but it felt nice and he couldn’t bring himself to worry.
Vincent didn’t seem to mind, didn’t shove him away or even comment on it, so Cloud continued to lie there half-sleeping in the warmth of the silence they shared. Talking was overrated, he found.
He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe Vincent reminded him of Sephiroth, maybe it was because he wasn’t thinking, or maybe he just subconsciously wanted to, but whatever the reason, at midnight on Christmas Eve Cloud leaned upwards and caught Vincent in a kiss.
Cloud couldn’t decide which was more surprising; that Vincent kissed back or that he did not in fact taste like blood. He was unsure where the idea that Vincent would had come from, but there it was.
As it so turned out, he tasted like exotic spices. Cloud decided he liked the flavour, and he also liked it when he discovered that Vincent’s hair was indeed as silky as it looked.
~
They hadn’t talked about it, the next day, and they hadn’t exchanged cards or gifts either, but Vincent kissed Cloud when he wished him a merry Christmas so Cloud guessed that that meant something, even if he wasn’t exactly sure what.
They had somehow found their way into a relationship after that, even though they’d never talked about it. They’d make love by candlelight when the others weren’t there, and Cloud would feel the stress of hunting after his ex-lover on a perpetual goose chase drain away. They never spoke, not about the terms or boundaries of the relationship, and never about emotions.
The word ‘love’ was never mentioned, but then again few words were.
They were cloaked in silence, surrounded by it, and it was as much a part of their relationship as talking was in the relationships of others. It was the silence that had drawn Cloud to Vincent in the first place; it was the silence that started to drive him mad.
He loved it, he hated it, he needed it, he couldn’t survive with it. There was a constant contradiction in his mind. Sometimes he’d crave the silence, and sometimes he felt like he was drowning. He wanted to scream, just so there’d be sound, something to reflect the state of his own mind. Cloud was sinking.
He wanted Vincent to speak to him.
~
After Sephiroth had died, Cloud had wanted nothing more than to let himself be pulled under by the silence. Let me lose myself, he wanted to say to Vincent, but he didn’t dare break the silence with words that held meaning.
Vincent had disappeared without even telling Cloud. It was nothing he didn’t expect- well, if he’d been expecting Vincent to leave, anyway. He knew Vincent wouldn’t warn him when he went away, but he’d been hoping it would never happen.
Did Vincent know he’d loved him? Cloud didn’t know. It was impossible to tell, in the silence.
So now, here he was back at the same cabin from three years earlier, and he didn’t know why he was even here. The silence was deafening, always silent, but it was a different kind from the one he had begun to capitalise in his mind.
“So you are here.”
Cloud whirled around and almost screamed. He wasn’t hallucinating, was he? He had thought that had stopped when Sephiroth died, but there was no way that Vincent could actually be standing in front of him.
“I came here last year, but you did not,” Vincent continued, Cloud still frozen in utter shock. “I wondered if you would eventually return.”
“Y-you…” Cloud stuttered. “Why?” he finally asked, voice weak.
Vincent’s eyes darkened. “You were drowning.”
Cloud wanted to ask how he knew, but couldn’t. Some habits were too deeply ingrained, and besides, Vincent never answered questions like that. One just had to accept that Vincent knew things, and move on.
Vincent moved to touch him, but Cloud shoved him back. “You left me,” Cloud said, gaining strength. “You left me, and you think we can just start where we left off?”
Vincent didn’t reply, just watching him calmly like he always did.
“Do we even have anything to piece back together?” Cloud asked, almost to himself, and laughed bitterly, a tinge hysterical. “We never talked. It could have been purely physical. Was it, Vincent?”
Cloud wondered if it had been a mistake to goad Vincent or possibly just to stand so close to the wall when he found himself slammed backwards against it, arms pinned painfully above his head. Vincent always had been stronger than him.
“Love,” Vincent growled, “is there whether it is acknowledged by words or not. Language can cheapen an emotion rather than clarify it.”
While Cloud was still reeling from this, Vincent swooped in and crushed their mouths together violently, kissing him with a heat and passion that Cloud had missed and nearly forgotten. He was prepared to yield himself to the silence again, his mind on fire and unable to focus, but something rather urgent was jumping up and down and demanding his attention.
Breaking his mouth away, Cloud struggled for breath and glared at Vincent with accusation in his eyes. “You never said you loved me.”
“You never asked,” Vincent answered, and kissed Cloud again before he could reply.
Gasping when Vincent slid his tongue into his mouth, Cloud realised that all the times he’d wanted to break the silence, he’d never tried. He’d always just supposed Vincent wouldn’t respond, and it might have saved both of them a lot of pain if he hadn’t made that assumption.
Cloud decided that there was no harm in surrendering now and talking later, and pointedly ignored the one lucid part of his mind left that insisted he was a fool.
Panting as Vincent licked a trail down his neck, Cloud bucked furiously and moaned at the friction he inadvertently created. He wanted his arms free, dammit!
Vincent always had known what he wanted without words, and maybe it was because he was so used to reading the silence. Cloud found his arms released and wound them around Vincent’s neck, tangling his hands in the raven hair and kissing him with renewed enthusiasm. He gave a startled yelp as his legs were lifted right out from under him, but it was muffled under Vincent’s mouth and soon turned to a whimper when Vincent dropped him on the couch and crawled on top of him, and Cloud was in heaven and a corny pun like that had never seemed so true in his life.
Crying out as Vincent pulled his clothes open and tongued his navel, Cloud arched upwards and wrapped his legs firmly around Vincent’s waist. He always had been the loud one in sex, at least with his ever-silent lover.
Vincent had moved further down, and his hair was tickling Cloud’s hips and Cloud literally screamed when the searing heat of Vincent’s mouth engulfed him, thrashing wildly with his hands tangled hopelessly in Vincent’s black mane. It must have hurt, but Vincent didn’t complain, had never complained.
Cloud was getting close, making the little whining noises that served as the most accurate warning anyone could ever ask for, but suddenly Vincent pulled away. Cloud protested non-verbally, trying to yank him back down, but Vincent just smiled at him, sliding back up his body to suck on his neck.
“Torture,” Cloud gasped breathlessly, squirming under Vincent restlessly.
Vincent paused and moved to Cloud’s ear, licking around the outer rim and chuckling when Cloud mewled. “I love the little noises you make,” he murmured, and it could practically be called a purr.
Cloud dragged him back to his mouth for another fiery kiss, barely processing what Vincent had just said. Once he had been afraid that Vincent would get angry if he became too loud; it seemed he was learning the folly for believing something and never stopping to ask.
“Please… inside me…” Cloud begged as he tore his mouth away again. Vincent’s burgundy eyes laughed at him, and his tone when he spoke was hoarse but amused.
“All you had to do was ask.”
Cloud had never asked. He had just accepted what he was given and hoped it would be enough.
Moaning again as Vincent’s cool fingers pressed into him, he briefly wondered where Vincent had found lube, but decided this was one of those things he really didn’t care about and didn’t actually want to ask. Vincent had most likely carried it with him. Cloud was for a moment insulted by the presumption in that, but remembered that Vincent was always prepared for anything. He probably had it hidden in the folds of his cloak at all times.
Now that was an intriguing thought.
Cloud may have continued down that line of thought, but when Vincent pushed inside him and hit the spot, he was rather preoccupied by screaming Vincent’s name at the top of his lungs.
Afterwards, when they were both sticky and exhausted and on the brink of sleep, Cloud sighed. “Now I suppose this is the bit where you disappear,” he thought, and didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until Vincent stiffened.
“Pardon?”
Always pardon, never what, Cloud thought muzzily, and this time managed not to say it. “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” He yawned, and tried to act as though the prospect wasn’t making his heart shatter all over again.
There was a pause, and Vincent frowned. “Why would I leave?”
“You left last time,” Cloud pointed out.
“… You weren’t ready. You needed to get over Sephiroth.”
Oh, great. Two years, and that was what this was about? Never underestimate the value of talking, Cloud decided grimly.
“So you aren’t leaving again?” He persisted.
Vincent managed to refrain, barely, from rolling his eyes. “No. Do you ever listen when I speak?”
Cloud thought about this, almost snapping yes without pause, when he realised that maybe Vincent wasn’t talking about speaking with words. Did he ever listen when Vincent spoke to him in body language?
Vincent must have said how he felt a thousand times by now.
“… No,” Cloud said softly.
“Will you listen now?” Vincent asked gently.
“Yes.”
Vincent kissed him, slowly and sweetly this time, and for once Cloud understood what he was saying.
I love you.