Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7
Theme for 30_nights: #5 Release my darkness; Bring me warmth
Disclaimer: This author doesn't own anything except for a plot in here.
Vincent Valentine would have never thought he would miss Chaos. Not in a thousand lifetimes nor the direst of circumstances. Being without Chaos meant he was partially human again, something he had stopped thinking possible, so he didn't dwell much on the changes his parting with the demon would bring. It had never occured to him what benefits Chaos' presence had given him. Something he regretted very much, given his current situation. Vincent was human again and humans had a tendency to take certain things for granted and forget about them. And after almost thirty years of having a demon share his body, Vincent Valentine had forgotten one extremely important thing. Humans tended to get sick.
"Ah-choo!"
"Bless you, Vincent," his self-appointed nurse said cheerfully as she opened the door just in time to hear him. She entered slowly, balancing a tray loaded with several cups. She kicked the door closed and approached him, grinning all the time. "I've got your tea - black, a teaspoon of honey - and a chicken soup. Tifa insists that's what sick people have to eat and we wouldn't want to get her angry, would we?"
"Stop patronizing me, Yuffie."
"Sorry, Vince, couldn't resist it," Yuffie answered and set the tray down on the night table. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't going to do anything about it. He had already lost that argument the day before. "The fever seems to have gone down a bit."
Vincent nodded, not bothering to reply verbally. Every sign that his sickness was going away was welcome since it meant his humiliation wasn't going to last much longer. How could he have been such a fool and not realize he was sick, he'd never know. It grated on his nerves that he let himself be so careless. Being sick happened to other people, not him.
Looking at the situation in retrospect, it all started so simply. He had been caught in a storm. It hadn't been the first nor last time and he had never had any problems with his health before. His immunity system was extremely effective in the cases like this and Vincent had realized too late that maybe being a pain in the ass hadn't been his demons' only purpose. Even so, he could have avoided all this fuss if he had stayed in Kalm after he had noticed the first signs - a sore throat and a migraine. But no, he had promised Cloud and Tifa he'd visit them and he wanted to keep the promise. And from that point onwards, everything went to hell.
When he had arrived, he had asked for a glass of water from Tifa, hoping to soothe his throat. All he succeeded in was to irritate it even more and the gathered members of AVALANCHE were privy to a rare sight - Vincent Valentine coughing his lungs out in a spectacular semi-public display. Of course, it led to Tifa and Yuffie crowding him, trying to find out what was wrong. When the truth came out, Yuffie herded him upstairs to one of the rooms reserved for AVALANCHE when they were staying overnight and ordered him in a no-nonsense voice to /get in the bed and stay put, or Leviathan help me, I'll kick your ass to Nibelheim and back faster than you can sneeze/. And then she started laughing because at that exact moment Vincent sneezed. She left him for a moment and came back with a tea done exactly the way he liked it and after he drank it, she dropped the bombshell. He was going to stay in the bed until he was okay and she was the one who was going to take care of him.
He tried to protest, of course, but Yuffie, being Yuffie, didn't hesitate to use even the underhanded tactics to reach her goal. She blackmailed him using a guilt. Tifa was in the third month of her pregnancy and as Yuffie reminded him, she was not to be stressed or worried. Vincent was left no choice after that and grudgingly accepted Yuffie's terms. The fact that he was starting to feel dizzy and nauseous also helped him to realize he might have been worse off than he had thought. And so he obediently laid down and let Yuffie do her worst.
Which brought him back to the present. He eyed the steaming cup of tea. He felt like he had drunk litres of the liquid over the past two days and maybe he had. Yuffie proved to be an excellent nurse, if somewhat overbearing in her manner. Nonetheless, he appreciated that she had stayed up with him throughout the previous night, cooling his fevered forehead with a wet rag, talking to him in a soft voice and taking his mind off the things his fever-induced delirium had brought up. For that, he was very grateful.
"Yuffie."
"Hmm," she muttered as she busied herself with rearranging the cups on the tray, setting one aside for herself and handing the other to him. Vincent propped himself up on his right elbow and took the proffered cup with his claw. After taking a sip of the black tea, he spoke again.
"I'd like to thank you. For taking care of me."
Yuffie beamed at him and she plopped down into a chair.
"You're welcome, Vinnie. After all, what are friends for? I mean, this is no bother. I kinda like it, looking after someone and stuff."
"You do?"
"Mhm," Yuffie nodded and then added in a conspirational tone. "I don't want to spoil my tomboy image, so don't tell anyone, but I'm afraid I might have more feminine instincts and urges than I let on. Or Tifa is rubbing off on me. Do you think that mothering people I care about is contagious?"
"I wouldn't know," Vincent answered truthfully. Yuffie shrugged and finished her tea.
"Anyway, who do you think the baby will take after? I pray to Leviathan it doesn't inherit Cloud's hair. That's too cruel a fate for an innocent kid."
Vincent snorted and promptly choked on his tea. Yuffie immediately snapped into a nurse mode, sat him up and started thumping on his back to help him cough out any stray liquid that had gone down the wrong way. After a minute or so, his coughing calmed down and Vincent took a couple of deep breaths to get his breathing back to normal. When he looked at Yuffie, she was looking slightly apologetic.
"I'm sorry, Vinnie. I didn't mean to make you choke."
"It's all right," Vincent croaked. His throat was sore again and to top it off, the migraine from the day before came back and brought along a friend in the form of a sudden vertigo. He groaned and massaged his temples, hoping to ease the pain a little bit.
"Vincent?" Yuffie sounded very concerned. "Are you all right?"
"My head hurts," he admitted. Yuffie seemed to think about something for a bit, nodded to herself and started unlacing her boots. Vincent blinked in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" she retorted as she finished taking off one boot and started on the other. "I'm going to climb onto the bed and I don't want to get the covers dirty."
"Why?"
She gave him a half-exasperated, half-mischievous look.
"Do you need to ask? So I can have my way with you while you are all weak and defenseless. Geez," she sighed, yanked off her other boot and winked at him. "I'm gonna try a special Wutainese technique to help you with that headache and I can't do that sitting in a chair. So move over a bit."
"It isn't necessary," Vincent protested.
"Stop arguing," Yuffie leaned forward until they were nose to nose. "You forget how weak you are right now. Marlene armed with a teddybear could beat you up without breaking a sweat so don't make me use a force. Just let me help you," her tone was frustrated as she kept the eye contact with him.
They stared at each other for a couple of tense moments before Vincent admitted defeat and looked away. He wasn't blind. He knew she cared for him far more than just a friend. He just hadn't decided yet how to react to it. He didn't want to ignore her feelings but wasn't sure if he could return them. Dweeling on this dilemma had only one effect so far - slowly but surely she started dominating his thoughts. Her changed behaviour didn't help either. Ever since the Deepground incident several months ago, she grew a lot bolder around him and even started flirting with him, her words a minute ago being a prime example of that. What would he do if she was serious? Vincent shook his head. The illness was influencing his mind processes and the migraine was becoming unbearable. He should let her do as she wanted before he started voicing his thoughts aloud.
"All right," he agreed. "You may try it."
"Great," Yuffie climbed on the bed and sat down with her legs across the width of it. She leaned her back against the wall and patted her thighs. "Lay down," she instructed and he hesitantly did so. His head now laid in her lap and he was looking up at her. She grinned at his anxious look. "Don't worry, I won't kill you even though that's what the technique is used for primarily."
If that was supposed to make him feel better... He startled a bit when her cold fingers brushed his hair away from his face and then settled at his temples, applying a soft pressure at first and then their touch grew firmer and they started to move in a soothing pattern. He could feel the pain abating slowly and his thoughts scattered in all directions as his breathing evened out, his eyelids grew heavy and in a matter of minutes, he was asleep.
He wasn't sure at first what had woken him up. Yuffie was still on the bed, holding his head in her lap but instead of massaging his temples, she ran her hands through his hair in the slow strokes which were just as soothing and pleasant as her previous touches. Then he heard the creak of the floorboard and realized there was someone else in the room with them.
"How is he?"
He recognized Tifa's voice immediately but didn't open his eyes. He still felt drowsy and wanted to get back to sleep. He knew she wouldn't mind since the rest helped his recovery.
"He's still asleep," Yuffie answered. "He still has a fever, although it isn't as bad as the last night. I think he'll be fine in about two days."
"What about you? You haven't slept since he became sick."
Vincent frowned mentally. This was news for him. She had disappeared in the morning for about four hours and he thought she had been catching up on her missed sleep.
"This is more important than my beauty sleep," Yuffie responded defensively, her hands stilling in his hair. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same in my position."
"Yuffie," Tifa sounded exasperated. "I understand better than anyone what you are feeling. I just want you to take care of yourself as well."
"Don't worry. I promise that as soon as Vincent is okay, I'll sleep for a week. All right?"
"You promise?"
One hand left his hair as Yuffie made a child-like gesture.
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
He heard Tifa turn around and slowly walk out of the room. She paused in the doorway.
"I hope Vincent realizes how lucky he is," she said. "Good night, Yuffie."
"'Night Tifa."
The door closed quietly and Yuffie returned to playing with his hair, humming some melody under her breath. It started to lull him back to sleep but there was something he needed to say.
"Yuffie?"
There was the slightest pause before she answered.
"What is it, Vinnie?"
"I'm glad you're the one taking care of me."
"Really?"
Vincent muttered his assent. Feeling a shift in the air, he opened his eyes to find Yuffie's face inches from his own. She was smiling at him.
"Thank you," she whispered before she straightened up and tucked his blanket more securely around him. "Now go to sleep."
He obeyed immediately and as he fell asleep, he felt a warmth within him that had nothing to do with the fever. Because this warmth was to stay for a long time. As long as Yuffie was there.
THE END
Disclaimer: This author doesn't own anything except for a plot in here.
Vincent Valentine would have never thought he would miss Chaos. Not in a thousand lifetimes nor the direst of circumstances. Being without Chaos meant he was partially human again, something he had stopped thinking possible, so he didn't dwell much on the changes his parting with the demon would bring. It had never occured to him what benefits Chaos' presence had given him. Something he regretted very much, given his current situation. Vincent was human again and humans had a tendency to take certain things for granted and forget about them. And after almost thirty years of having a demon share his body, Vincent Valentine had forgotten one extremely important thing. Humans tended to get sick.
"Ah-choo!"
"Bless you, Vincent," his self-appointed nurse said cheerfully as she opened the door just in time to hear him. She entered slowly, balancing a tray loaded with several cups. She kicked the door closed and approached him, grinning all the time. "I've got your tea - black, a teaspoon of honey - and a chicken soup. Tifa insists that's what sick people have to eat and we wouldn't want to get her angry, would we?"
"Stop patronizing me, Yuffie."
"Sorry, Vince, couldn't resist it," Yuffie answered and set the tray down on the night table. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't going to do anything about it. He had already lost that argument the day before. "The fever seems to have gone down a bit."
Vincent nodded, not bothering to reply verbally. Every sign that his sickness was going away was welcome since it meant his humiliation wasn't going to last much longer. How could he have been such a fool and not realize he was sick, he'd never know. It grated on his nerves that he let himself be so careless. Being sick happened to other people, not him.
Looking at the situation in retrospect, it all started so simply. He had been caught in a storm. It hadn't been the first nor last time and he had never had any problems with his health before. His immunity system was extremely effective in the cases like this and Vincent had realized too late that maybe being a pain in the ass hadn't been his demons' only purpose. Even so, he could have avoided all this fuss if he had stayed in Kalm after he had noticed the first signs - a sore throat and a migraine. But no, he had promised Cloud and Tifa he'd visit them and he wanted to keep the promise. And from that point onwards, everything went to hell.
When he had arrived, he had asked for a glass of water from Tifa, hoping to soothe his throat. All he succeeded in was to irritate it even more and the gathered members of AVALANCHE were privy to a rare sight - Vincent Valentine coughing his lungs out in a spectacular semi-public display. Of course, it led to Tifa and Yuffie crowding him, trying to find out what was wrong. When the truth came out, Yuffie herded him upstairs to one of the rooms reserved for AVALANCHE when they were staying overnight and ordered him in a no-nonsense voice to /get in the bed and stay put, or Leviathan help me, I'll kick your ass to Nibelheim and back faster than you can sneeze/. And then she started laughing because at that exact moment Vincent sneezed. She left him for a moment and came back with a tea done exactly the way he liked it and after he drank it, she dropped the bombshell. He was going to stay in the bed until he was okay and she was the one who was going to take care of him.
He tried to protest, of course, but Yuffie, being Yuffie, didn't hesitate to use even the underhanded tactics to reach her goal. She blackmailed him using a guilt. Tifa was in the third month of her pregnancy and as Yuffie reminded him, she was not to be stressed or worried. Vincent was left no choice after that and grudgingly accepted Yuffie's terms. The fact that he was starting to feel dizzy and nauseous also helped him to realize he might have been worse off than he had thought. And so he obediently laid down and let Yuffie do her worst.
Which brought him back to the present. He eyed the steaming cup of tea. He felt like he had drunk litres of the liquid over the past two days and maybe he had. Yuffie proved to be an excellent nurse, if somewhat overbearing in her manner. Nonetheless, he appreciated that she had stayed up with him throughout the previous night, cooling his fevered forehead with a wet rag, talking to him in a soft voice and taking his mind off the things his fever-induced delirium had brought up. For that, he was very grateful.
"Yuffie."
"Hmm," she muttered as she busied herself with rearranging the cups on the tray, setting one aside for herself and handing the other to him. Vincent propped himself up on his right elbow and took the proffered cup with his claw. After taking a sip of the black tea, he spoke again.
"I'd like to thank you. For taking care of me."
Yuffie beamed at him and she plopped down into a chair.
"You're welcome, Vinnie. After all, what are friends for? I mean, this is no bother. I kinda like it, looking after someone and stuff."
"You do?"
"Mhm," Yuffie nodded and then added in a conspirational tone. "I don't want to spoil my tomboy image, so don't tell anyone, but I'm afraid I might have more feminine instincts and urges than I let on. Or Tifa is rubbing off on me. Do you think that mothering people I care about is contagious?"
"I wouldn't know," Vincent answered truthfully. Yuffie shrugged and finished her tea.
"Anyway, who do you think the baby will take after? I pray to Leviathan it doesn't inherit Cloud's hair. That's too cruel a fate for an innocent kid."
Vincent snorted and promptly choked on his tea. Yuffie immediately snapped into a nurse mode, sat him up and started thumping on his back to help him cough out any stray liquid that had gone down the wrong way. After a minute or so, his coughing calmed down and Vincent took a couple of deep breaths to get his breathing back to normal. When he looked at Yuffie, she was looking slightly apologetic.
"I'm sorry, Vinnie. I didn't mean to make you choke."
"It's all right," Vincent croaked. His throat was sore again and to top it off, the migraine from the day before came back and brought along a friend in the form of a sudden vertigo. He groaned and massaged his temples, hoping to ease the pain a little bit.
"Vincent?" Yuffie sounded very concerned. "Are you all right?"
"My head hurts," he admitted. Yuffie seemed to think about something for a bit, nodded to herself and started unlacing her boots. Vincent blinked in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" she retorted as she finished taking off one boot and started on the other. "I'm going to climb onto the bed and I don't want to get the covers dirty."
"Why?"
She gave him a half-exasperated, half-mischievous look.
"Do you need to ask? So I can have my way with you while you are all weak and defenseless. Geez," she sighed, yanked off her other boot and winked at him. "I'm gonna try a special Wutainese technique to help you with that headache and I can't do that sitting in a chair. So move over a bit."
"It isn't necessary," Vincent protested.
"Stop arguing," Yuffie leaned forward until they were nose to nose. "You forget how weak you are right now. Marlene armed with a teddybear could beat you up without breaking a sweat so don't make me use a force. Just let me help you," her tone was frustrated as she kept the eye contact with him.
They stared at each other for a couple of tense moments before Vincent admitted defeat and looked away. He wasn't blind. He knew she cared for him far more than just a friend. He just hadn't decided yet how to react to it. He didn't want to ignore her feelings but wasn't sure if he could return them. Dweeling on this dilemma had only one effect so far - slowly but surely she started dominating his thoughts. Her changed behaviour didn't help either. Ever since the Deepground incident several months ago, she grew a lot bolder around him and even started flirting with him, her words a minute ago being a prime example of that. What would he do if she was serious? Vincent shook his head. The illness was influencing his mind processes and the migraine was becoming unbearable. He should let her do as she wanted before he started voicing his thoughts aloud.
"All right," he agreed. "You may try it."
"Great," Yuffie climbed on the bed and sat down with her legs across the width of it. She leaned her back against the wall and patted her thighs. "Lay down," she instructed and he hesitantly did so. His head now laid in her lap and he was looking up at her. She grinned at his anxious look. "Don't worry, I won't kill you even though that's what the technique is used for primarily."
If that was supposed to make him feel better... He startled a bit when her cold fingers brushed his hair away from his face and then settled at his temples, applying a soft pressure at first and then their touch grew firmer and they started to move in a soothing pattern. He could feel the pain abating slowly and his thoughts scattered in all directions as his breathing evened out, his eyelids grew heavy and in a matter of minutes, he was asleep.
He wasn't sure at first what had woken him up. Yuffie was still on the bed, holding his head in her lap but instead of massaging his temples, she ran her hands through his hair in the slow strokes which were just as soothing and pleasant as her previous touches. Then he heard the creak of the floorboard and realized there was someone else in the room with them.
"How is he?"
He recognized Tifa's voice immediately but didn't open his eyes. He still felt drowsy and wanted to get back to sleep. He knew she wouldn't mind since the rest helped his recovery.
"He's still asleep," Yuffie answered. "He still has a fever, although it isn't as bad as the last night. I think he'll be fine in about two days."
"What about you? You haven't slept since he became sick."
Vincent frowned mentally. This was news for him. She had disappeared in the morning for about four hours and he thought she had been catching up on her missed sleep.
"This is more important than my beauty sleep," Yuffie responded defensively, her hands stilling in his hair. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same in my position."
"Yuffie," Tifa sounded exasperated. "I understand better than anyone what you are feeling. I just want you to take care of yourself as well."
"Don't worry. I promise that as soon as Vincent is okay, I'll sleep for a week. All right?"
"You promise?"
One hand left his hair as Yuffie made a child-like gesture.
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
He heard Tifa turn around and slowly walk out of the room. She paused in the doorway.
"I hope Vincent realizes how lucky he is," she said. "Good night, Yuffie."
"'Night Tifa."
The door closed quietly and Yuffie returned to playing with his hair, humming some melody under her breath. It started to lull him back to sleep but there was something he needed to say.
"Yuffie?"
There was the slightest pause before she answered.
"What is it, Vinnie?"
"I'm glad you're the one taking care of me."
"Really?"
Vincent muttered his assent. Feeling a shift in the air, he opened his eyes to find Yuffie's face inches from his own. She was smiling at him.
"Thank you," she whispered before she straightened up and tucked his blanket more securely around him. "Now go to sleep."
He obeyed immediately and as he fell asleep, he felt a warmth within him that had nothing to do with the fever. Because this warmth was to stay for a long time. As long as Yuffie was there.
THE END
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