Fic: Unexpected Inevitability (Final Fantasy VII)
I originally wrote and posted this under an old journal a couple of years ago, so I figured an appearance here was probably more than overdue. Written for set gamma over at 1sentence.
Title: Unexpected Inevitability
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Yuffie and Vincent: friends, lovers and that whole grey bit in between in fifty sentences.
1. Ring: It’s not as if she’s asking for a ring on her hand or anything, but something more than the current cycle of stolen kisses followed by guilt and grief might be nice.
2. Hero: Yuffie sits back as soon as she’s certain Vincent is out of danger and smiles to herself, convinced she could get used to charging in at the last possible moment and reversing the roles.
3. Memory: She knows that most of Vincent’s memories are more than painful, so she sets about trying to forge newer, happier ones for him.
4. Box: When the strange man leaps out of his coffin, Yuffie- the Greatest Female Ninja the Planet has ever seen and the future ruler of Wutai- does the bravest thing she’s ever done...and screams at the top of her lungs.
5. Run: She wonders if Vincent has always been so inclined to flee from people and their problems so quickly.
6. Hurricane: Everyone is agreed that Yuffie is like a whirlwind, tearing through peoples’ lives, leaving pandemonium in her wake; yet Vincent finds that somehow he doesn’t quite mind the havoc she wreaks in his otherwise (too) ordered existence.
7. Wings: She’s fully aware of everything that Chaos stands for- impending Apocalypse and all- but she can’t help but want to ask Vincent what it’s like to really fly.
8. Cold: Yuffie didn’t mind the bitter winds and freezing snowdrifts at the Northern Cave as much as she’d expected- if nothing else, it meant she got to huddle close to Vincent without him staring at her in that terrifying way of his as though he thought she’d gone mad.
9. Red: The slightest smile tugs at Vincent’s lips as he watches Yuffie stumble around the bar after Marlene and Denzel, draped in his red cloak and roaring like a monster until she finds their laughter too contagious.
10. Drink: Yuffie wonders just how much alcohol she’d have to ply Vincent with before he’d not only willingly accept a hug from her, but also initiate one himself.
11. Midnight: As they lie beside each other in the dark, he clings to her tightly with a possessive affection she finds it hard to believe him capable of during the day; she starts to look forward to those hours more than any others.
12. Temptation: Upon seeing Vincent transformed into a (rather disgruntled) frog for the first time, the temptation to take as many blackmail photos as possible was almost too much for Yuffie to bear; unfortunately, there were no cameras to hand, so she settled for committing it to memory through her tears of laughter instead.
13. View: He’s stopped complaining when she hoists herself onto his back “for a better view”, because he knows from experience that it won’t stop her.
14. Music: Listening to her humming to herself as she polished her materia, Vincent had to wonder whether the ninja had ever heard of the concept of a tune before.
15. Silk: The first time he rushed to her aid in battle, she wondered whether there maybe was something softer underneath his steel upon granite exterior, a more delicate remnant of the man he might once have been.
16. Cover: He often wondered how she could expect him to “fight back” when he was always asleep when she (inadvertently, so she claimed) stole the covers.
17. Promise: Vincent doesn’t even have to see Yuffie’s fingers crossed behind her back to know that she doesn’t really mean it when she swears never to steal his material again.
18. Dream: When she’d asked what he had dreamt of during those thirty years spent locked in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, nothing could have prepared her for this.
19. Candle: Yuffie’s not so much a candle in the darkness of his mind as a flamethrower being wielded full force by a psychotic pyromaniac.
20. Talent: Yuffie has an incredible knack for tying herself up in knots with her millions of random tangents- and tangents of tangents- and Vincent finds it strangely endearing.
21. Silence: As much as he complained about her continually phoning him up, that week of unexpected silence was so unnerving that he even headed to Wutai to check up on her; of course, when he learnt that her phone was broken and she was waiting for a replacement, he’d felt more than foolish.
22. Journey: At night, when the sick are sleeping and Yuffie has a few hours to herself, she often finds herself watching the stars and wondering whether Vincent can see them too, wherever he’s ended up after their quest ended.
23. Fire: Vincent finds it difficult to believe that the young woman in front of him, decked out in formal kimono and full face paint, being sworn in by the Sacred Fires as the next Empress of Wutai, is really Yuffie; until, of course, she catches sight of him and grins widely, completely ruining the regal image.
24. Strength: The first time he saw her launch herself into battle, all grace and power, he had to admit, deep down, that he’d been somewhat fooled by her slight stance and loud mouth.
25. Mask: It’s a struggle to remain expressionless as she declares her love for him, but he forces himself to manage it; after all, it’d really be better for her to think he felt nothing in return.
26. Ice: Of course, he’s too stoic to flinch when Yuffie clambers into bed beside him and promptly decides to warm her freezing hands and feet on him, but she knows he wants to and the idea makes her giggle.
27. Fall: The first time Vincent had fallen in love it had been instantaneous and all-consuming, like something out of a fairy tale; the second time, it was so gradual and so natural that he barely even realised it had happened until he’d suddenly pulled Yuffie into his arms and kissed her.
28. Forgotten: He’d long since forgotten that love could take this form too: happy, reciprocated, carefree.
29. Dance: He watches her dancing in the pouring rain, looking for all the world as though she’s lost her mind, and wonders if he had ever been so carefree before.
30. Body: She doesn’t pretend that she can’t see the scars of the experiments marring his pale skin- that would be a lie she’s not willing to tell- but instead she traces them lightly with her hands and eyes and then smiles up at him to show him that she doesn’t care; even that she loves them as a part of him.
31. Sacred: She hates the way he sits there and gazes up at Lucrecia frozen in her Mako crystal, face full of regret and wonder and silent awe, as if she’s some kind of saint, some holy relic from his past.
32. Farewells: He didn’t say goodbye to her- he didn’t say goodbye to anyone- but he paused beside her as she slept, watched her strangely calm expression for a long moment, brushed back a stray strand of her hair...and then he was gone.
33. World: Centuries turn; battles are fought and won and lost; people and civilisations wither and crumble to dust around him; and yet all he can think of is her, the white rose of Wutai, as bright and vivid in his mind as she had been long ago in life.
34. Formal: When Tifa suggests that maybe Yuffie might want to be more polite in how she addresses the latest addition to their party, Yuffie starts referring to him as ‘The Count’.
35. Fever: And now, she thinks wryly as she watches Vincent’s unconscious form slumped in the back of the truck, all I need is for him to wake up delirious with some fever or something and declaring his undying love for me and my life will be complete- or at least I’d be somewhere in bizarro world...
36. Laugh: The first time she hears Vincent laugh, she’s so stunned that, for the first time in her life, she’s speechless.
37. Lies: And so Yuffie launched into yet another highly detailed- and highly implausible- explanation as to why she and Vincent had been inexplicably delayed for three days in Junon on their latest WRO assignment, not noticing Reeve’s knowing smirk or Vincent subtly checking for the nearest possible exit.
38. Forever: He will never age; he will never die; he will always be just as he is now, frozen in time even as everything around him withers and dies, and he wonders if Yuffie realises exactly what that means- though of course, it’d be just like her not to care.
39. Overwhelmed: The fact that she can stand there and say all this in the face of everything that’s ever happened is so enormous that Vincent has no words for it; instead, he draws her close and wraps his arms tightly around her.
40. Whisper: Vincent winces as her voices bounces and echoes around the narrow tunnel and reminds her for what must be the tenth time in two minutes to keep her voice down.
41. Wait: Never one for patience, Yuffie waited for all of thirty seconds before muttering, “Oh, to hell with this!” and leaning in first.
42. Talk: “Y-You-” she stutters, eyes wide as she points at him, “You just said more than five words in one go and I didn’t even get video evidence!”
43. Search: “Next time,” she says as she pulls back from the impulsive hug she’d just given him, face unusually serious, “you can search for me, alright?”
44. Hope: He knows he should hope that one day she’ll get over her feelings for him, that she’ll move on and live out a normal life- but somehow, he just can’t bring himself to do so.
45. Eclipse: It just struck him one night, all of a sudden: he realised that his thoughts of Yuffie were taking over from those of Lucrecia, indeed from those of any other person, and with it, he realised that his simple new found affection for the ninja had evolved unnoticed into something entirely different.
46. Gravity: Leaping between trees and buildings, gravity was Yuffie’s only enemy; luckily Vincent would be there whenever she fell with a potion in one hand and an amused smile hidden behind his high collar.
47. Highway: She has an idea of where he might be, an idea so obvious she’s not sure why it didn’t occur to her sooner; maybe it has something to do with the half hope of not finding him there as she grits her teeth, grabs her chocobo and sets out along the road for Lucrecia’s cavern.
48. Unknown: Yuffie knows it may well take a lifetime to uncover every last secret and mystery that makes up Vincent Valentine, but she’s young, she has years ahead of her and she loves a challenge, so why not try?
49. Lock: “And don’t you dare lock yourself back in that damn coffin, don’t you dare, because I swear to Leviathan, Vince, I’ll tear the whole mansion down around you and kick your ass!”
50. Breathe: Pinned against the wall and with his mouth crushing hers, Yuffie wonders in the back of her mind whether Vincent realises that she needs oxygen to, y’know, live...before deciding almost immediately that she’s not really too concerned- at least, not in this situation.
Title: Unexpected Inevitability
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Yuffie and Vincent: friends, lovers and that whole grey bit in between in fifty sentences.
1. Ring: It’s not as if she’s asking for a ring on her hand or anything, but something more than the current cycle of stolen kisses followed by guilt and grief might be nice.
2. Hero: Yuffie sits back as soon as she’s certain Vincent is out of danger and smiles to herself, convinced she could get used to charging in at the last possible moment and reversing the roles.
3. Memory: She knows that most of Vincent’s memories are more than painful, so she sets about trying to forge newer, happier ones for him.
4. Box: When the strange man leaps out of his coffin, Yuffie- the Greatest Female Ninja the Planet has ever seen and the future ruler of Wutai- does the bravest thing she’s ever done...and screams at the top of her lungs.
5. Run: She wonders if Vincent has always been so inclined to flee from people and their problems so quickly.
6. Hurricane: Everyone is agreed that Yuffie is like a whirlwind, tearing through peoples’ lives, leaving pandemonium in her wake; yet Vincent finds that somehow he doesn’t quite mind the havoc she wreaks in his otherwise (too) ordered existence.
7. Wings: She’s fully aware of everything that Chaos stands for- impending Apocalypse and all- but she can’t help but want to ask Vincent what it’s like to really fly.
8. Cold: Yuffie didn’t mind the bitter winds and freezing snowdrifts at the Northern Cave as much as she’d expected- if nothing else, it meant she got to huddle close to Vincent without him staring at her in that terrifying way of his as though he thought she’d gone mad.
9. Red: The slightest smile tugs at Vincent’s lips as he watches Yuffie stumble around the bar after Marlene and Denzel, draped in his red cloak and roaring like a monster until she finds their laughter too contagious.
10. Drink: Yuffie wonders just how much alcohol she’d have to ply Vincent with before he’d not only willingly accept a hug from her, but also initiate one himself.
11. Midnight: As they lie beside each other in the dark, he clings to her tightly with a possessive affection she finds it hard to believe him capable of during the day; she starts to look forward to those hours more than any others.
12. Temptation: Upon seeing Vincent transformed into a (rather disgruntled) frog for the first time, the temptation to take as many blackmail photos as possible was almost too much for Yuffie to bear; unfortunately, there were no cameras to hand, so she settled for committing it to memory through her tears of laughter instead.
13. View: He’s stopped complaining when she hoists herself onto his back “for a better view”, because he knows from experience that it won’t stop her.
14. Music: Listening to her humming to herself as she polished her materia, Vincent had to wonder whether the ninja had ever heard of the concept of a tune before.
15. Silk: The first time he rushed to her aid in battle, she wondered whether there maybe was something softer underneath his steel upon granite exterior, a more delicate remnant of the man he might once have been.
16. Cover: He often wondered how she could expect him to “fight back” when he was always asleep when she (inadvertently, so she claimed) stole the covers.
17. Promise: Vincent doesn’t even have to see Yuffie’s fingers crossed behind her back to know that she doesn’t really mean it when she swears never to steal his material again.
18. Dream: When she’d asked what he had dreamt of during those thirty years spent locked in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, nothing could have prepared her for this.
19. Candle: Yuffie’s not so much a candle in the darkness of his mind as a flamethrower being wielded full force by a psychotic pyromaniac.
20. Talent: Yuffie has an incredible knack for tying herself up in knots with her millions of random tangents- and tangents of tangents- and Vincent finds it strangely endearing.
21. Silence: As much as he complained about her continually phoning him up, that week of unexpected silence was so unnerving that he even headed to Wutai to check up on her; of course, when he learnt that her phone was broken and she was waiting for a replacement, he’d felt more than foolish.
22. Journey: At night, when the sick are sleeping and Yuffie has a few hours to herself, she often finds herself watching the stars and wondering whether Vincent can see them too, wherever he’s ended up after their quest ended.
23. Fire: Vincent finds it difficult to believe that the young woman in front of him, decked out in formal kimono and full face paint, being sworn in by the Sacred Fires as the next Empress of Wutai, is really Yuffie; until, of course, she catches sight of him and grins widely, completely ruining the regal image.
24. Strength: The first time he saw her launch herself into battle, all grace and power, he had to admit, deep down, that he’d been somewhat fooled by her slight stance and loud mouth.
25. Mask: It’s a struggle to remain expressionless as she declares her love for him, but he forces himself to manage it; after all, it’d really be better for her to think he felt nothing in return.
26. Ice: Of course, he’s too stoic to flinch when Yuffie clambers into bed beside him and promptly decides to warm her freezing hands and feet on him, but she knows he wants to and the idea makes her giggle.
27. Fall: The first time Vincent had fallen in love it had been instantaneous and all-consuming, like something out of a fairy tale; the second time, it was so gradual and so natural that he barely even realised it had happened until he’d suddenly pulled Yuffie into his arms and kissed her.
28. Forgotten: He’d long since forgotten that love could take this form too: happy, reciprocated, carefree.
29. Dance: He watches her dancing in the pouring rain, looking for all the world as though she’s lost her mind, and wonders if he had ever been so carefree before.
30. Body: She doesn’t pretend that she can’t see the scars of the experiments marring his pale skin- that would be a lie she’s not willing to tell- but instead she traces them lightly with her hands and eyes and then smiles up at him to show him that she doesn’t care; even that she loves them as a part of him.
31. Sacred: She hates the way he sits there and gazes up at Lucrecia frozen in her Mako crystal, face full of regret and wonder and silent awe, as if she’s some kind of saint, some holy relic from his past.
32. Farewells: He didn’t say goodbye to her- he didn’t say goodbye to anyone- but he paused beside her as she slept, watched her strangely calm expression for a long moment, brushed back a stray strand of her hair...and then he was gone.
33. World: Centuries turn; battles are fought and won and lost; people and civilisations wither and crumble to dust around him; and yet all he can think of is her, the white rose of Wutai, as bright and vivid in his mind as she had been long ago in life.
34. Formal: When Tifa suggests that maybe Yuffie might want to be more polite in how she addresses the latest addition to their party, Yuffie starts referring to him as ‘The Count’.
35. Fever: And now, she thinks wryly as she watches Vincent’s unconscious form slumped in the back of the truck, all I need is for him to wake up delirious with some fever or something and declaring his undying love for me and my life will be complete- or at least I’d be somewhere in bizarro world...
36. Laugh: The first time she hears Vincent laugh, she’s so stunned that, for the first time in her life, she’s speechless.
37. Lies: And so Yuffie launched into yet another highly detailed- and highly implausible- explanation as to why she and Vincent had been inexplicably delayed for three days in Junon on their latest WRO assignment, not noticing Reeve’s knowing smirk or Vincent subtly checking for the nearest possible exit.
38. Forever: He will never age; he will never die; he will always be just as he is now, frozen in time even as everything around him withers and dies, and he wonders if Yuffie realises exactly what that means- though of course, it’d be just like her not to care.
39. Overwhelmed: The fact that she can stand there and say all this in the face of everything that’s ever happened is so enormous that Vincent has no words for it; instead, he draws her close and wraps his arms tightly around her.
40. Whisper: Vincent winces as her voices bounces and echoes around the narrow tunnel and reminds her for what must be the tenth time in two minutes to keep her voice down.
41. Wait: Never one for patience, Yuffie waited for all of thirty seconds before muttering, “Oh, to hell with this!” and leaning in first.
42. Talk: “Y-You-” she stutters, eyes wide as she points at him, “You just said more than five words in one go and I didn’t even get video evidence!”
43. Search: “Next time,” she says as she pulls back from the impulsive hug she’d just given him, face unusually serious, “you can search for me, alright?”
44. Hope: He knows he should hope that one day she’ll get over her feelings for him, that she’ll move on and live out a normal life- but somehow, he just can’t bring himself to do so.
45. Eclipse: It just struck him one night, all of a sudden: he realised that his thoughts of Yuffie were taking over from those of Lucrecia, indeed from those of any other person, and with it, he realised that his simple new found affection for the ninja had evolved unnoticed into something entirely different.
46. Gravity: Leaping between trees and buildings, gravity was Yuffie’s only enemy; luckily Vincent would be there whenever she fell with a potion in one hand and an amused smile hidden behind his high collar.
47. Highway: She has an idea of where he might be, an idea so obvious she’s not sure why it didn’t occur to her sooner; maybe it has something to do with the half hope of not finding him there as she grits her teeth, grabs her chocobo and sets out along the road for Lucrecia’s cavern.
48. Unknown: Yuffie knows it may well take a lifetime to uncover every last secret and mystery that makes up Vincent Valentine, but she’s young, she has years ahead of her and she loves a challenge, so why not try?
49. Lock: “And don’t you dare lock yourself back in that damn coffin, don’t you dare, because I swear to Leviathan, Vince, I’ll tear the whole mansion down around you and kick your ass!”
50. Breathe: Pinned against the wall and with his mouth crushing hers, Yuffie wonders in the back of her mind whether Vincent realises that she needs oxygen to, y’know, live...before deciding almost immediately that she’s not really too concerned- at least, not in this situation.