To Death, Chapter 4: After Death
Title:To Death
Author: Dreaming of Everything, dreams_of_all
Series: Final Fantasy VII
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Final Fantasy VII, or the poem "On the Terrace," which is by Landis Everson.
Characters/Pairings: Cid/Vincent
Rating/Warnings: Deathfic, angst, the mentally unstable. M for general themes.
Summary: Cid is getting older, and Vincent isn't.
The lonely breakfast table starts the day,
an adjustment is made to understand
why the other chair is empty. The morning
beautiful and still to be, should woo me. Yet
the appetite is not shared, lost somewhere in memory.
How lucky the horizon is blue and needs
no handwriting on its emptiness. I am
written on thoroughly, a lost novel
found again. I remember the predictable plot too late,
realize the silly, sad urgency of moss.
--“On the Terrace” by Landis Everson
oOo
Vincent was surprised every day by the violent, painful love that ended up sweeping through him.
oOo
For Cid, he wouldn’t try to die, even though he wanted to. He wanted to so very much-it was so much easier than this was, than it would be a year, ten years, a hundred a thousand ten thousand years from now.
A day at a time. You can always manage things a day at a time. Cid had growled that at him once, saying Shera had told him to repeat it to him, looking embarrassed at saying anything so trite.
Vincent could live a day at a time. He could adjust to being so utterly, utterly alone.
He had done it before, and, now, he had memories of love.
He had failed before, though, he had failed at almost everything he had attempted. He had failed Lucrecia. Failed Cid. Would fail him again, now that he was dead.
oOo
Nobody had come to visit, although people had called. Vincent hadn’t answered the phone; it was Cid’s.
While he understood what they were trying to do-they were trying to give him space, let him mourn the way he needed to. It made sense. Logically, sensically, he appreciated it.
He was still afraid of being alone. Painfully afraid, and it wasn’t just because of what he might become.
He cried every morning he woke up alone, and thought about getting a pet just to have another breathing body around. And then he thought about what he could do to an animal, accidentally with his claws or half-purposefully if he ever lost control of his demons or on purpose if his mind snapped. And he knew it might.
oOo
He cried every morning he woke up alone, and then pretended he hadn’t, because what you don’t recognize can’t kill you. Acknowledging that he felt pain at all had to be enough.
It was stupid and irrational, but he hadn’t stopped yet. And it would maybe be for the best if he ended up dead of something as cute, as trite, as swooningly romantic, as a broken heart.
oOo
He sat still for a week, doing nothing, fighting to keep from slipping into the deep sleep, into the coma, that he wanted so desperately to indulge himself in.
When he woke he threw out the bread because it had gone moldy, and then ate instant noodles because it was all that was left. Cid had eaten them before he had lived with Vincent, before Sephiroth, when he had come in dead-tired, bone-tired, and hungry. He had acquired a taste for them that Vincent had never shared, and so they usually had had some around.
His hands, his hand and his claw, curled nearly into a loose fist at the sheer visceral pain of memory.
oOo
He had found a bag of drowned puppies in the creek. He had never thought about whether or not materia would work on animals before.
He hadn’t named the three survivors yet, but he found himself clinging to them. They were warm, the heat fierce against his skin.
They squirmed and smelled, and yapped at nothing in the corners, but it made the world feel less empty.
oOo
Everyone had been surprised to see the dogs when they had come trooping up to his door, bags of food in hand.
Vincent didn’t know what they had been expecting-or did, but didn’t want to think about it-but was pleased at their surprise, irrationally.
oOo
He missed Cid, missed him more fiercely than he had known he could. It was all that was keeping him from going entirely numb.
oOo
“I love you,” he said, one day, and he knew he was talking Cid.
The admission broke something, and he sobbed on the floor like a little girl, more painfully joyous and fiercely mixed-up than he had ever been before.
oOo
He started a garden, and learned every type of butterfly that visited the fields around the house. He almost laughed, watching one of his puppies fight a rat almost as big as she was and come carting the carcass up the stairs, looking proud and noble and almost like Cloud. He cried and laughed when the Cid-puppy jumped on his sister’s head, chewed on an ear and stole the dead animal from her.
The third one just watched them, panting in the heat, until Vincent urged her towards the others and she was jumbled up into their play.
Four mornings later, she turned up dead on the front porch. Vincent had killed every raccoon for three square miles within a week, piled the carcasses in the woods, and the neighbors whispered, no matter how far away they were from his land, and Tifa left a worried message saying she had stopped by but he had been out, and how was he doing? Were things doing alright?
oOo
Every morning he woke and hauled water from the stream to boil for tea-weaker than Cid’s, and with milk-and then worked in the garden, and then lunch. And he wandered the woods in the afternoons, learned every nook and cranny and idiosyncrasy of the land, learned where the wild ginger grew, and where the pileated woodpeckers nested. And in the evenings he sat and remembered, then pretended he was tired and let himself sleep. He woke with the sun, and worried about what he’d do in winter, when it would rise later and later.
oOo
A neighbor left him a box of chicks, and he waited an entire afternoon before he felt strong enough to ask what you did to take care of poultry. His neighbors laughed, and he felt alive again, as embarrassment twitched within him.
The next day he went to the nearest town for lumber, chicken feed and groceries. He ate fresh fruit for lunch, and was content with simplicity.
oOo
He only called someone because he didn’t know what else to do, but the entire group showed up on his front porch, grinning cheerfully-almost manically, if you were Yuffie.
When he explained that, Tifa said “Vincent, three months ago you wouldn’t have thought of us at all.”
The words shook him, but he simply accepted the new rounds of ammunition for his gun and gave everyone fresh eggs to take home. Aeris, Tifa and Cloud’s daughter, named one dog Flower; their son, Aidan, named his Spike, and Yuffie named hers something unpronounceable in Wutain, though she said it translated to ‘peach.’
“You’ve got a peach tree in your back yard, after all,” she said, as if it explained something.
“You both picked girly names,” said Aidan, voice laden with all the disgust he could manage.
“I think they’re all good names,” said Tifa quickly, her tones the too-patient, over-practiced ones of a mother.
“Except mine’s better,” added Yuffie, grinning broadly.
oOo
Cloud was still alive, the mako extending his life, when Vincent first noticed that his hair was starting to gray, that he was getting the faint beginnings of wrinkles. That he was aging.
He will never have to face forever again, even a day at a time. He falls asleep happy, and ignores one of the dogs, Alleluia, creeping up onto the bed with him. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t allow it.
oOo
He will die.
--END--
Author: Dreaming of Everything, dreams_of_all
Series: Final Fantasy VII
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Final Fantasy VII, or the poem "On the Terrace," which is by Landis Everson.
Characters/Pairings: Cid/Vincent
Rating/Warnings: Deathfic, angst, the mentally unstable. M for general themes.
Summary: Cid is getting older, and Vincent isn't.
The lonely breakfast table starts the day,
an adjustment is made to understand
why the other chair is empty. The morning
beautiful and still to be, should woo me. Yet
the appetite is not shared, lost somewhere in memory.
How lucky the horizon is blue and needs
no handwriting on its emptiness. I am
written on thoroughly, a lost novel
found again. I remember the predictable plot too late,
realize the silly, sad urgency of moss.
--“On the Terrace” by Landis Everson
oOo
Vincent was surprised every day by the violent, painful love that ended up sweeping through him.
oOo
For Cid, he wouldn’t try to die, even though he wanted to. He wanted to so very much-it was so much easier than this was, than it would be a year, ten years, a hundred a thousand ten thousand years from now.
A day at a time. You can always manage things a day at a time. Cid had growled that at him once, saying Shera had told him to repeat it to him, looking embarrassed at saying anything so trite.
Vincent could live a day at a time. He could adjust to being so utterly, utterly alone.
He had done it before, and, now, he had memories of love.
He had failed before, though, he had failed at almost everything he had attempted. He had failed Lucrecia. Failed Cid. Would fail him again, now that he was dead.
oOo
Nobody had come to visit, although people had called. Vincent hadn’t answered the phone; it was Cid’s.
While he understood what they were trying to do-they were trying to give him space, let him mourn the way he needed to. It made sense. Logically, sensically, he appreciated it.
He was still afraid of being alone. Painfully afraid, and it wasn’t just because of what he might become.
He cried every morning he woke up alone, and thought about getting a pet just to have another breathing body around. And then he thought about what he could do to an animal, accidentally with his claws or half-purposefully if he ever lost control of his demons or on purpose if his mind snapped. And he knew it might.
oOo
He cried every morning he woke up alone, and then pretended he hadn’t, because what you don’t recognize can’t kill you. Acknowledging that he felt pain at all had to be enough.
It was stupid and irrational, but he hadn’t stopped yet. And it would maybe be for the best if he ended up dead of something as cute, as trite, as swooningly romantic, as a broken heart.
oOo
He sat still for a week, doing nothing, fighting to keep from slipping into the deep sleep, into the coma, that he wanted so desperately to indulge himself in.
When he woke he threw out the bread because it had gone moldy, and then ate instant noodles because it was all that was left. Cid had eaten them before he had lived with Vincent, before Sephiroth, when he had come in dead-tired, bone-tired, and hungry. He had acquired a taste for them that Vincent had never shared, and so they usually had had some around.
His hands, his hand and his claw, curled nearly into a loose fist at the sheer visceral pain of memory.
oOo
He had found a bag of drowned puppies in the creek. He had never thought about whether or not materia would work on animals before.
He hadn’t named the three survivors yet, but he found himself clinging to them. They were warm, the heat fierce against his skin.
They squirmed and smelled, and yapped at nothing in the corners, but it made the world feel less empty.
oOo
Everyone had been surprised to see the dogs when they had come trooping up to his door, bags of food in hand.
Vincent didn’t know what they had been expecting-or did, but didn’t want to think about it-but was pleased at their surprise, irrationally.
oOo
He missed Cid, missed him more fiercely than he had known he could. It was all that was keeping him from going entirely numb.
oOo
“I love you,” he said, one day, and he knew he was talking Cid.
The admission broke something, and he sobbed on the floor like a little girl, more painfully joyous and fiercely mixed-up than he had ever been before.
oOo
He started a garden, and learned every type of butterfly that visited the fields around the house. He almost laughed, watching one of his puppies fight a rat almost as big as she was and come carting the carcass up the stairs, looking proud and noble and almost like Cloud. He cried and laughed when the Cid-puppy jumped on his sister’s head, chewed on an ear and stole the dead animal from her.
The third one just watched them, panting in the heat, until Vincent urged her towards the others and she was jumbled up into their play.
Four mornings later, she turned up dead on the front porch. Vincent had killed every raccoon for three square miles within a week, piled the carcasses in the woods, and the neighbors whispered, no matter how far away they were from his land, and Tifa left a worried message saying she had stopped by but he had been out, and how was he doing? Were things doing alright?
oOo
Every morning he woke and hauled water from the stream to boil for tea-weaker than Cid’s, and with milk-and then worked in the garden, and then lunch. And he wandered the woods in the afternoons, learned every nook and cranny and idiosyncrasy of the land, learned where the wild ginger grew, and where the pileated woodpeckers nested. And in the evenings he sat and remembered, then pretended he was tired and let himself sleep. He woke with the sun, and worried about what he’d do in winter, when it would rise later and later.
oOo
A neighbor left him a box of chicks, and he waited an entire afternoon before he felt strong enough to ask what you did to take care of poultry. His neighbors laughed, and he felt alive again, as embarrassment twitched within him.
The next day he went to the nearest town for lumber, chicken feed and groceries. He ate fresh fruit for lunch, and was content with simplicity.
oOo
He only called someone because he didn’t know what else to do, but the entire group showed up on his front porch, grinning cheerfully-almost manically, if you were Yuffie.
When he explained that, Tifa said “Vincent, three months ago you wouldn’t have thought of us at all.”
The words shook him, but he simply accepted the new rounds of ammunition for his gun and gave everyone fresh eggs to take home. Aeris, Tifa and Cloud’s daughter, named one dog Flower; their son, Aidan, named his Spike, and Yuffie named hers something unpronounceable in Wutain, though she said it translated to ‘peach.’
“You’ve got a peach tree in your back yard, after all,” she said, as if it explained something.
“You both picked girly names,” said Aidan, voice laden with all the disgust he could manage.
“I think they’re all good names,” said Tifa quickly, her tones the too-patient, over-practiced ones of a mother.
“Except mine’s better,” added Yuffie, grinning broadly.
oOo
Cloud was still alive, the mako extending his life, when Vincent first noticed that his hair was starting to gray, that he was getting the faint beginnings of wrinkles. That he was aging.
He will never have to face forever again, even a day at a time. He falls asleep happy, and ignores one of the dogs, Alleluia, creeping up onto the bed with him. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t allow it.
oOo
He will die.
--END--