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This is my first Vincent/Tifa fic as I recently started going all fangirl on them as a couple XD
I hope you like and leave a review letting me know what you think (if you want to etc..) :)
“Not Yuffie…she’d only want to ‘talk’ about it and that’s the last thing I need right now, Cid hardly anchors his airship in Edge every night so he and Shera aren’t an option, Barret would still be out on a Friday night…same for the Turks not that I’d want to stay there anyway. What I need is someone non-talkative who doesn’t go out a lot…wait perfect.” She realizes with a bitter smile as a dull sodium streetlamp casts a ruddy glow across the shining road in the run-off from the day’s rain, “Vincent.”
Vincent Valentine detects footsteps ascending the groaning staircase and pacing along the entrance hallway floor, which sings under the weight of the intruder, long before he hears the knock at his door. Pulling himself reluctantly from the chair in which he was sat and answering the call he wonders who of the people that know his address would call at this hour; swearing that if it is Yuffie then the door is being slammed shut in her face without a moments hesitation, however of the few women he knows it is not her that he recognizes as he opens the heavy fire door into the hall, but Tifa, scowling in a way that puts him to shame.
“Hey, Vincent.” She says deceivably cheerfully through her locked jaw, as even he can see she is completely despondent and carries an overnight bag in her strained white knuckles, implying that she isn’t here for a social visit, “mind if I come in?” he steps backwards and allows the door to swing open a little way with the fingers of his claw still gripping the edge, so she has to duck under his arm to enter,
”Why are you…?’ He begins to enquire in a low tone, the sounds barely rolling out of his chest when she interrupts him fiercely,
“I’m having a Cloud problem.” She states, finally dropping her bag in the hall and stretching out her fingers which cramp up painfully to her macabre contentment, “which I’d rather not talk about right now if you don’t mind.” Avoiding the subject of people’s problems is never an activity Vincent has found particularly hard, so as hypocritical as it may be to turn up at a friend’s house in the middle of the night and say you don’t want to talk he accepts her request. He wanders back over to a small table and chair made of a curious form of black glass, circular at the top and bottom but tapering inwards around the middle, the sparse lights of the room are drawn out into long spindles of illumination as he resettles himself in the singular chair and returns his attention to the chessboard Tifa had removed him from. He is playing through a standard problem but with the colours reversed so that he was black, he always played as black despite the tradition boding for the opposite, a morbid habit that he feels inclined to and after all there isn’t ever anyone around to criticize him for it.
Tifa shifts her weight from foot to foot indecisively, all she had focused on was getting here and persuading him to let her in, which was much easier than she expected, so she suspects she may have invoked a little bit of sympathy from him as his crimson eyes catch hers across the room.
“Where are Denzel and Marlene?” He asks monotonously, placing his fingers around a black rook but removing them after some deliberation; it is like him to name them as people because ‘children’ is not a word or concept he is particularly at ease around in general, although Marlene in particular is very fond of him all the same. Tifa knows that secretly Vincent has a soft spot for her as well, but naturally he would never let it slip; apart from the one time she barged into Marlene’s room to find Vincent lounging on the floor docilely allowing her to braid his hair, to her embarrassment the only thing she could do at the time was burst into fits of helpless laughter as he scowled at her as Marlene shrieked, making her promise later not to tell anyone or ‘Vincent might not like her anymore.’
“Sleeping over at their friends’ houses.” She replies guiltily, although she did not send them there because of the ‘Cloud problem’, in fact their being out for the night was the very source of it, she still feels that she’s abandoned them by leaving the place empty, “do you have another chair?” She inquires when her legs call to have the weight taken off them lest they buckle, he stares menacingly down at the white pieces dotted around his king and flicks his fingers offhandedly towards a doorway,
“In there.” She pokes her head through into a small and rather basic kitchen with a similar chair to his stood in the very center for no apparent reason; she decides not to question its origins or how it came to be there but as quietly as possible picks it up and sets it opposite him around the table: still totally engrossed in the chessboard. She looks at him for a while as he fails to acknowledge her presence, his long hair hanging messily under and over his headband she watches a particular shine on the raven curtain moving up the fine strands as he bows his head closer to the problem, which she brings to her attention next.
Knowing the rules of chess fairly well she spends several minutes studying the layout carefully but eventually resigns to the fact that she doesn’t know it that well and looks instead to the crafting of the pieces; the white half of this set are not white at all in reality, but made of glass so are consequentially transparent, capturing the dim light and casting odd refractions across the board. He finally picks up a knight and moves it two spaces towards her and one to his right, which puts the king into check. She looks at the new arrangement and reasons that the only apparent move is sacrificing a bishop by taking the knight. Eyeing the piece carefully she looks for another option that she may’ve missed seeing as she isn’t exactly a grand master, but comes to the conclusion that there aren’t any and without thinking lifts her hand to move the piece just as he lowers his to do the same, noticing her movement he halts his seconds from accidentally grabbing hold of her hand as she recoils like the piece had stung her.
“Sorry I wasn’t thinking,” she apologizes hurriedly, not wanting to intrude on him any further as part of her wishes she had stayed at home; but he turns over his outstretched hand and gestures that she play the move, so she gingerly takes hold of the bishop and moves it onto the knight’s square, trading their places and withdrawing the fallen stallion as she glances quickly up at him to find he is staring straight into her soul through his deep scarlet eyes. She draws a sudden breath feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights and he reaches forwards without breaking this silent interrogation, wrapping his gloved fingers around the black queen and moving it across to usurp the place of the cleric,
“I’m afraid that is check-mate.” He remarks as his gaze becomes less focused and she doesn’t feel like she is under a magnifying glass anymore,
“It’s not like I’m playing or anything, you don’t have to apologize,” she replies quickly as he studies the solution thoughtfully, releasing a quiet breath as she decides that she’d give an arm to know what goes on in his head sometimes; and another peaceful silence elapses before anyone speaks again.
“I assume you don’t intend to return to the Seventh Heaven tonight…” he remarks knowingly as if it wasn’t obvious enough already, but when she goes to reply cuts her off, “would you like to play?” he asks, she does a quick double take but realizes he means the chess,
‘Well what else would he be referring to?’ she chides herself quickly, giving him a small nod and beginning to gather up the white (or transparent) pieces; this gesture implies that he doesn’t intend to throw her out and puts her worries at rest, as she had feared he might’ve suddenly turned around and asked her to leave,
“There isn’t even anyone there now…” she comments after another long pause, as they each lay out their own pieces, “I just needed to get out and somewhere neutral, I couldn’t stand another night there alone so I’m truly sorry for causing you all this trouble, Vincent,’ she pleads haphazardly but he manages to silence her with another look,
“There is no need for you to apologize,” he announces, “as you are not causing me anything untoward,” he sets his last piece in place and waits for her to make the first move as white always goes first, she hesitantly jumps forwards a pawn and the game begins.
For the longest time yet the only sound to be heard in the small apartment is the sinuous clink of the glass pieces against the smooth granite of the chessboard. Vincent is winning but Tifa has a sneaking suspicion that he is still holding back on her, the atmosphere is muted but not uncomfortably so; when she is with Cloud it always feels like there are millions of things that he wants or ought to say, but he won’t take the first step and evades her when she pushes him for it. So the pressure grows until the weight of it could crush her… then he always disappears for a while and comes back pretending that ‘now’ they can function, as if everything had changed when he was away even if it hasn’t in the slightest. Even if it’s just a viscous circle that she gets sick of as she grows older and tired of the same thing repeating over and over. In comparison Vincent is like a cool towel to her head, he sits detachedly fixating on the chess and the pieces without weighing down the calm, he is a silence that lets you know that there is still someone there without ever having to acknowledge him, you can just share the mutual acceptance of each other’s existence,
“Check.” He suddenly breaks the quiet as he closes in on her king, the clipped word escaping his lips abruptly enough to raise doubts as to whether he said it at all in the first place. She obligingly nulls the threat but knows that from here on it is a case of how many teeth she can cling onto as she falls into the jaws of the demon, she obviously hadn’t expected to win but is reluctant to leave this company and situation because despite arriving here ready to punch a hole through the wall he has mollified her without a real word being spoken. She begins to deliberately draw her turns out, toying with the pieces before she moved them and lining up the ones of his she’s captured in order of height and then rank. However he is too observant for that, realizing what she is doing and making no comment but instead closes his trap around her, chasing the king around the tiled squares until she is pinned into a corner, “mate.” The other short word leaps off his tongue resistantly and ends the game; then when raised they can see the tiredness in each other’s eyes,
“This place doesn’t look like it has a spare room, Vincent,” she murmurs drowsily, it is nearing three a.m. and she’d got up at seven yesterday thinking it would just be a normal day…turns out it was rather to the contrary.
“It doesn’t.” is his reply, he drums his fingers once on the table and lets them rest as he waits for her to realize what the next obstacle for her choosing him to visit him in the middle of the night is; which she soon discovers as she looks about what could be called the living room, finding that apart from some shelves the only other furniture in here is what they are currently sitting on.
“This place doesn’t even have a couch…” She murmurs uncertainly with a glance at the one closed door, which must be the bedroom and necessary bathroom, “Please don’t tell me you have a coffin in there?” She implores with a tired tinge of humor that causes a twitch at the corner of his mouth,
“Not quite.” He replies wryly, rising and crossing the short distance to the door in about two paces as she follows slowly while trying to keep her eyes open, however she wakes up considerably after seeing what’s kept behind the door as he quietly opens it…a bed larger and wider than her and Cloud’s pushed together (not that that was a regular occurrence in the ‘Seventh Heaven’ anymore, the name now so hypocritical it’s astounding.) The no-less-than-king-size bed dominates the entire of Vincent’s room and she almost thinks she can hear a soft chuckle as he slips out behind her to pick up the bag she left by the front door, “after thirty years in a coffin I am somewhat ‘particular’ about my sleeping arrangements,” he elaborates, “you look in need of a good night’s sleep so I think…”
“Vincent I could live in a bed that size,” she announces as she picks up on what he was going to say next and interrupts it, “sharing it with a friend for a night is nothing, and you are not sleeping anywhere else because there isn’t anywhere you can go that won’t make me feel chronically guilty for kicking you out,” she badgers, seeing as he appears reluctant to give in, “I don’t bite.” She murmurs with a longing glance at the tempting retreat, “we won’t even touch, I swear,” he appears to relent and lets go of a defeated sigh as she unzips her practically empty bag, pulling out a t-shirt far too big for either her or Cloud, he assumes it to be worn as nightclothes,
“You can change in…” he points towards the bathroom but she shakes her head and drags the baggy top over her clothes,
“It’s fine I can…” she interrupts offhandedly, trailing off as she shifts her arms inside the top and makes odd writhing motions underneath the light cotton, then all of a sudden pulls her top and undergarments out one of the sleeves and stuffs them into the bag; he smiles at her with his eyes amusedly, “ta-da,” she grins, “impressive right?”
“Hm.” He mutters quietly, which she takes to be secret concurrence, “I’d suggest you sleep on the left, this doesn’t make a very good companion at night,” he holds up his mechanical arm and flexes the fingers demonstratively,
“Okay,” she replies casually, but stands awkwardly by the giant bed unsure if she should just hop in or wait for him to do or say something. He is standing upright with his arms crossed thoughtfully and she wonders again what he is thinking about…which actually is her. She sways indecisively as he remains stoically by the door and tries to work out what events led into this situation, and why he hadn’t just bought a couch; probably due to the fact that he never thought anyone would be desperate enough to turn up here in the middle of the night after ‘running away from home’ to use a trite expression. He definitely wouldn’t consider himself a suitable candidate for sheltering for emotionally fraught women, which is also why he raised so few objections, because in all honesty she has stunned him into malleability with the irrationality of her actions.
“Go ahead and sleep,” he tells her emotionlessly, “you look tired.” He sounds more like he is making an observation than being concerned but it doesn’t bother her in the slightest,
“I am,” she answers dejectedly, “but…sleep on the bed, Vincent,” she suddenly requests again, sensing that he is still unwilling to ‘join’ her, “I’d feel awful if you didn’t, you shouldn’t have to sleep on the floor in your own home,” she stares up at him through the weak light and he can see reflections off of her eyes,
“Fine.” He concedes again, finally resigning to the fact that there is not much else he can do and leaving the room to take off his boots and heavy articles of clothing; to his relief when he returns she had already curled up in his bed and fallen contentedly asleep, so he settles on the other side as she stirs a little but thankfully not enough to wake; laying on top of the covers still largely clothed he drifts off to a marginally fitful slumber, continually awakening when he thinks he can feel her touching against him during the night but realizing after a brief start it is only his imagination.
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