Fic: Not-So-Sleeping Beauty
Title: Not-So-Sleeping Beauty
Author: white_cross_b
Type: Fiction
Characters: Vincent Valentine & Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
Rating: PG (maybe?)
Beta:
whymzycal
Notes: Apparently this is the the first fic I ever wrote. It was over a year and a half ago, and I had planned on it being much longer. I started writing One then, and put it away. I forgot all about it until last week, and decided when I read it over that I'd go ahead and post it. This is for
elflady_2001. Sorry there's no smut, sweetie. *hugs*
He didn't hear the hesitant knock that came at the door, though he would have been surprised if he had -- no one had touched that door in all the years he had been asleep. Workers were known to hurry past, sometimes crossing themselves as they went by, particularly if it happened to be late and well past the time when the company doors were locked. He slept on, undisturbed, not even when the knocking turned into a loud, rhythmic thudding that was followed by the sound of splitting wood and the shriek of harshly torqued hinges.
He didn't react to the lid of his coffin being lifted, to light spilling onto his pale features, nor to the moths that rose and fluttered frantically in the sudden illumination, disturbed from their feast at the long, crimson cape that was as a bed for the sleeping figure.
Somewhere in the black tunnel of his mind, amidst the sound of gunshots and the distant crying of a child, he thought he heard his name being called. He accepted the voice as just part of the dreams -- or nightmares, really -- that cycled through his sleep in a perpetual loop, but it became harder and harder to ignore the more insistent the voice became.
"Vincent, can you hear me? Vincent Valentine..."
Waking up would mean too many possibilities, so he struggled harder to remain in darkness -- in sleep. Would the child have died? Or worse yet, would it live, cursing Vincent for his weakness despite his strength and skills of a Turk? Forgiveness was something that he could not fathom; something he had never wanted nor sought out. He felt the memory of dull pain in his stomach, the echo of his life slowly bleeding away into the bite of sharp, steel claws.
In his dreams, he didn’t fight against the purposefully inflicted pain, nor against the thick straps holding his wrists and ankles. He would welcome the stretching of skin and muscles against his shoulder blades, the pain that would pull his voice from his throat -- the sound of his own screams as the wings took shape. He deserved this, if only it would kill him.
He felt warmth breaking through the haze of pain: a tingling in his lips that traveled down his wasted body to his toes. He floundered then, trying to push back down into the darkness and away from the light. Instead, he opened his eyes to see a pair of soft, full lips pulling back from his own and heard a gasp.
"I read that in one of Tifa's books when I was a kid, but who ever thought something like that would actually work?"
Vincent's brain struggled to make sense of the words being spoken over his head, struggled harder to focus on the person before him. It was bright -- too bright -- and he blinked several times before clearly seeing the blue eyes staring down at him.
"Am I alive?"
The harsh rasp of his own voice surprised him, as if his throat were choked with dust.
"I wasn't so sure at first, but yeah, you are. Name's Cloud. Are you Vincent?"
The question surprised him, not because someone actually knew his name, but because it belonged to someone else -- someone from long ago, who he had hoped would be dead and buried.
"Perhaps I was, once," he replied, feeling like he wanted to laugh and weep all at the same time.
Cloud looked back at him, his blue eyes unblinking.
"Then who are you now?"
The wood of the coffin creaked as Vincent sat up slowly, lifting his left arm to flex the metal claws of his hand. Cloud looked neither surprised nor repulsed as the metal fingertips bit into the wood, splitting the mahogany planks with the lightest touch.
"I am a monster," Vincent answered simply, looking Cloud in the eye.
To Vincent's surprise, Cloud reached over, taking the metal wrist with his hand and turning it over so that Vincent’s hand rested in his own, palm up. He lightly touched the gloved hand underneath, sending tingling sensations all the way up Vincent's arm and reminding him of what it was like to feel. Vincent almost did weep, then, as Cloud's voice told him something he‘d never again thought he'd hear.
"No. You're a man, and your name is Vincent Valentine."
Author: white_cross_b
Type: Fiction
Characters: Vincent Valentine & Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
Rating: PG (maybe?)
Beta:
whymzycal
Notes: Apparently this is the the first fic I ever wrote. It was over a year and a half ago, and I had planned on it being much longer. I started writing One then, and put it away. I forgot all about it until last week, and decided when I read it over that I'd go ahead and post it. This is for
elflady_2001. Sorry there's no smut, sweetie. *hugs*
He didn't hear the hesitant knock that came at the door, though he would have been surprised if he had -- no one had touched that door in all the years he had been asleep. Workers were known to hurry past, sometimes crossing themselves as they went by, particularly if it happened to be late and well past the time when the company doors were locked. He slept on, undisturbed, not even when the knocking turned into a loud, rhythmic thudding that was followed by the sound of splitting wood and the shriek of harshly torqued hinges.
He didn't react to the lid of his coffin being lifted, to light spilling onto his pale features, nor to the moths that rose and fluttered frantically in the sudden illumination, disturbed from their feast at the long, crimson cape that was as a bed for the sleeping figure.
Somewhere in the black tunnel of his mind, amidst the sound of gunshots and the distant crying of a child, he thought he heard his name being called. He accepted the voice as just part of the dreams -- or nightmares, really -- that cycled through his sleep in a perpetual loop, but it became harder and harder to ignore the more insistent the voice became.
"Vincent, can you hear me? Vincent Valentine..."
Waking up would mean too many possibilities, so he struggled harder to remain in darkness -- in sleep. Would the child have died? Or worse yet, would it live, cursing Vincent for his weakness despite his strength and skills of a Turk? Forgiveness was something that he could not fathom; something he had never wanted nor sought out. He felt the memory of dull pain in his stomach, the echo of his life slowly bleeding away into the bite of sharp, steel claws.
In his dreams, he didn’t fight against the purposefully inflicted pain, nor against the thick straps holding his wrists and ankles. He would welcome the stretching of skin and muscles against his shoulder blades, the pain that would pull his voice from his throat -- the sound of his own screams as the wings took shape. He deserved this, if only it would kill him.
He felt warmth breaking through the haze of pain: a tingling in his lips that traveled down his wasted body to his toes. He floundered then, trying to push back down into the darkness and away from the light. Instead, he opened his eyes to see a pair of soft, full lips pulling back from his own and heard a gasp.
"I read that in one of Tifa's books when I was a kid, but who ever thought something like that would actually work?"
Vincent's brain struggled to make sense of the words being spoken over his head, struggled harder to focus on the person before him. It was bright -- too bright -- and he blinked several times before clearly seeing the blue eyes staring down at him.
"Am I alive?"
The harsh rasp of his own voice surprised him, as if his throat were choked with dust.
"I wasn't so sure at first, but yeah, you are. Name's Cloud. Are you Vincent?"
The question surprised him, not because someone actually knew his name, but because it belonged to someone else -- someone from long ago, who he had hoped would be dead and buried.
"Perhaps I was, once," he replied, feeling like he wanted to laugh and weep all at the same time.
Cloud looked back at him, his blue eyes unblinking.
"Then who are you now?"
The wood of the coffin creaked as Vincent sat up slowly, lifting his left arm to flex the metal claws of his hand. Cloud looked neither surprised nor repulsed as the metal fingertips bit into the wood, splitting the mahogany planks with the lightest touch.
"I am a monster," Vincent answered simply, looking Cloud in the eye.
To Vincent's surprise, Cloud reached over, taking the metal wrist with his hand and turning it over so that Vincent’s hand rested in his own, palm up. He lightly touched the gloved hand underneath, sending tingling sensations all the way up Vincent's arm and reminding him of what it was like to feel. Vincent almost did weep, then, as Cloud's voice told him something he‘d never again thought he'd hear.
"No. You're a man, and your name is Vincent Valentine."