Title: A Little Bit Unexpected
Author: Emerald Embers
Rating: R
Warnings: Yaoi, bad language
Pairing: Cid/Vincent
Word count: 1531
Prompt: Cid and Vincent: Bodyswitch - "...I’ve never seen you from this angle before."
Notes: So, so sorry for lateness. THEY WOULDN'T SHUT UP. *hugs*
Fair enough, it wasn’t as if there was a manual for this sort of thing. Even so, pretty much every ailment, transformation or very strange hallucinogenic going normally wore off after twenty-four hours and a good night’s sleep. As such, Cid Highwind - not a man known for his patience in the best of circumstances - was in something of a foul mood.
This, of course, depended on how you defined ‘Cid Highwind’, because if you defined him as a slightly short, blond, chain-smoking man with hands befitting a life-long engineer then the truth would be that he was handling it quite well.
If you defined ‘Cid Highwind’ by personality, the original statement still applied whilst being accompanied by a gratuitous fit of swearing, given he’d woken up from one of the more disturbing and uncomfortable nights of his life to find out he was still wearing Vincent Valentine’s body.
Once upon a time a much younger Cid realised he was never going to break the six foot mark. Moreover, he would be lucky to break the five foot ten mark.
As a general rule, there are two ways to deal with being short. The first is to accept it, laugh about it, and get on with things. The second is to accept it, resent it, and spend the rest of your life taking it out on other people in between getting on with things.
Being thrust into Valentine’s body in the sort of way he hadn’t fantasised about had left him feeling decidedly jealous as looking down on the world from an angle where everyone else seemed shorter was just as good as he’d imagined, if not better.
Sadly, it was pretty much the only good part of walking - or, rather, lumbering given the awkwardness - around as Vincent. Vincent’s joints felt like his growing pains had never gone away, the internal twitchiness of something very wrong when he got angry was creepy as fuck, that stupid bandana did sod all to keep Vincent’s hair out of his face, and Vincent’s eyesight was freakily good. Not just perfect eyesight good, but could focus enough to snipe without mechanical assistance good.
He wasn’t really sure how he felt about the no cigarette cravings issue yet, but it was one of the few things Vincent huffed about until Cid had yelled “You’ve got cravings, I’ve got fucking possessed!”
Okay, so he’d lost a few diplomacy points for that one. He even thought about apologising for a few minutes while contemplating a cigarette and deciding it’d be a bit much to get Vincent addicted too. Imagining Chaos with nicotine-withdrawal symptoms pretty much sealed that deal.
The worst thing about the whole business? It was boring. In between the creepy bits, it was really, really boring. He couldn’t fly anything because he didn’t trust Vincent’s body to do exactly what he told it to, and he couldn’t go jerk off because it wasn’t his dick to jerk off. Hell, he’d felt guilty getting a boner daydreaming about that one time when Tifa couldn’t find a clean bra and it had rained. Happy days for any red-blooded mostly hetero male. Provided they weren’t in the wrong fucking body.
Goddamnit.
“Cid.” Cid opened his eyes, watching himself attempt to loom despite the height with the sort of carefully blank expression he was praying wouldn’t stick once he got his body back.
“Uh huh?”
“I don’t know how to shave.”
“Fuck off, even girls know how to shave.”
“Never had to. Check my armpits.”
Cid blinked, lifted the T-shirt’s collar away from his neck and looked through it. Those scars were still freaky, and would bother him a lot less once Vincent started talking about them. Sure enough though, there weren’t enough hairs to count as post-puberty growth. “What the hell?”
“It’s a condition. Now either shave yourself or show me how.”
Cid briefly debated repeating the ‘fuck off’ before concluding Vincent might attempt doing it himself and wind up slicing his throat open in a fit of sheer stubbornness. Hell, it might even be instinctive with all that Turk training. “Fine,” Cid growled, rolling reluctantly out of bed and heading for the bathroom.
“Wh-”
“Shut it!” Cid yelled, nerves on edge as things already stood. “I don’t want to cut my face off, quit talking!” Vincent kept his gaze level with a slight hint of pissed off, and Cid had to be impressed with how much scarier it looked coming from blue eyes. “I know I talk when I’m shaving, but it’s different when you can’t feel what you’re doing, alright?”
Even wearing the wrong body Vincent was pretty much the only person who could get Cid rambling explanations with a look.
“Right, that’s one side done - not that it makes much of a difference, it’ll be back by afternoon.” Cid grabbed his chin, tilting it and frowning. “Can you twist to the side?”
“Not enough unless you want a broken neck.”
Cid rinsed off the blade, tried to speed decide whether it’d be weirder to kneel between his own legs or to sit on them, figured the former was probably his best bet.
Great. So now he was resting Vincent’s elbows on his own knees whilst shaving his chain-smoking, death-breath self despite not even occupying that body. Not right. And if Aeris hadn’t kicked the bucket she’d probably have a good giggle in between trying to fix the problem.
“This is strangely familiar,” Vincent said about half a second before Cid applied the razor, leading to jerking back and another stream of swearing followed by,
“...And I told you not to speak when I’m doing this so shut the fuck up after telling me what the hell is strangely familiar?”
“This angle. Not what you’re doing. It’s just disconcerting to be short.”
Cid contemplated the razor for a second before remembering he wasn’t suicidal enough to slit his throat even if he wasn’t the one using it. “Good to know. Shut up.”
Silent, ever so slightly smug amusement definitely didn’t suit him, but at least Vincent kept quiet until he was done. Pretty good job, all in all.
“Hm. Thank you.”
“Good to see we’re looking gorgeous.”
“You could wash my hair,” Vincent suggested, and Cid climbed back up, still not used to how long it took with what felt like five feet of legs to straighten.
“I’m not getting in the shower with you.”
Vincent narrowed his eyes. “I’ve had to take this body of yours to the bathroom three times. I’m pretty much as intimately acquainted with it as I’m going to get.”
It shouldn’t have been that surprising. A week in the wrong body was enough to at least get confident with it, although there had been one odd moment when Cloud phoned - actually phoned, without being beaten into doing it first - and got very confused by hearing ‘Vincent’ swear and ‘Cid’ use the word obfuscating.
And it wasn’t as if you could just stop wondering how it’d feel to jack yourself off with a stranger’s hands, when you knew what your body liked.
Still felt weird having his own body kissing him while one hand worked his cock and the other stuck two fingers up his ass. Kind of fun getting to hear undeniably Vincent-ish moans from the wrong mouth though, and definitely good getting bitten on the shoulder when he came.
Always figured Vincent would be a kinky bastard in or out of his body, and it was definitely gratifying to pass Vincent a cigarette afterwards, without needing one himself.
Cid woke up feeling strangely comfortable, definitely secure, happily afterglowy and aching for a cigarette.
Patting his groin happily in satisfaction now he was reattached to the right body and the right penis, Cid went to roll over but found himself incapable given he’d ended the previous night by spooning around himself. Vincent asleep was Vincent the six foot or so fucking ton. Ah well, at least he could breathe comfortably enough, nicotine cravings aside.
Turk senses apparently tingling unless he’d somehow just timed his wake-up call really, really well, Vincent stirred and nuzzled Cid’s neck. “Hope last night gave you a few pointers for future reference.”
“Who says I want to keep going with your lanky self?”
“The fact I’ve caught you checking my backside out before you got to give it a test run.” Cid was pretty sure getting his hair ruffled qualified as ‘kind of gay’, but honestly couldn’t really bring himself to be bothered.
“Just don’t go whining on my ass and I’ll let you stick around.”
“Hmph,” Vincent replied with a half-chuckle that only he could make sound sexy. “I’ve never seen you from this angle before.”
“What angle?”
“Paranoid. And cute.”
“Fucker,” Cid grumbled, but the ongoing lack of being bothered could only really continue given Vincent leapt up enough to grab the cigarettes and pass them over.
“I won’t miss these.”
“No one would,” Cid agreed, grinning anyway as he lit one up. “Get to boss everyone around again now.”
“Whatever you say, chief.”
Cid let the smirk into his hair slide without comment. Wasn’t as if it didn’t look better on Vincent anyway.
The End