Viral Love

Another damned raft. At least this one was strong, able to take us all over the five fucking oceans if need be. I dearly hoped it wouldn’t need to carry us farther than the port at Costa del Sol.

Shit. I was roasting in this black leather. How did Valentine stand it? The salt water and the sun made it shrink against my body. The leather now fit me as well as it did him, but that just meant it felt like I had a black, heat-absorbing skin.

“I know you’ve done something to me, damn it,” he said, catching my eyes.

“Why?” I asked immediately. “What’s different? How could I affect Chaos?”

Valentine frowned. He started to say something, then turned his head away. I’d never learn anything like this. How could I help him if he wouldn’t go into his symptomology? I’d already done the noble thing and decided not to actively conceal what he’d done to me as Chaos. Couldn’t he meet me halfway, too?

I stripped off my top. I couldn’t stand it anymore. So constrained, and in every way. I felt the suffocation of not speaking, of not confessing, of not laying my soul as bare to him as my body.

I stretched out, used my rolled up shirt for a pillow and closed my eyes. If only he wasn’t tender with me while in his demonic form! Did he only give himself permission to feel things while Chaos had his reins?

“I’m thirsty,” he murmured.

I could bet. We’d floated all day and all night on this raft, barely speaking to one another. Now, with the sun high into the next morning, he felt the pinch of hunger, thirst, and boredom. He knew the truth of his demons and now felt resolved to never let them out, effectively trapping us here.

I’d give him the coming night to make up his mind about himself, then, I’d push. Better to deal with him as his demon, anyway. He seemed eager to please me when in that form. And, if reasoning failed, I’d just use my materia to get us off this accursed, floating skin cancer platform.

“Why does Samuel Quinn want us, Hojo?” he asked, his raspy voice very quiet.

“I believe he must want us to prevent the cure of X2Geostigma,” I answered, seeing no reason not to be civil with him if he could treat me likewise. “I have nothing to support that, however. Just a feeling…”

“Then, he might have orchestrated your assassination attempts, not Scarlet and Heideggar?” he asked.

“Possibly. And, what of Rufus? Where did he go?” I rolled to my side and looked at him. “What if Quinn got him first? Would he still be alive?”

Valentine lay down beside me and shielded his eyes with an outstretched hand. “Rufus is more good alive than dead,” he said, thinking out loud.

Did he have to be so unfuckingbelievable in his beauty? It wasn’t fair. Vincent Valentine or Chaos, he was nothing but goddamn magnificent.

“Hojo?”

“Yes?”

“Did I… fuck you?” he asked quietly.

Our faces lay only inches apart. I tried to wet my lips, but my tongue had turned to sandpaper yesterday. “In what sense?”

He bared his lovely teeth at me. “Did I put my dick in you?”

“No,” I answered quite honestly, hating him for his immediate sigh of relief. “What makes you think you did?”

He averted his eyes again. Patience gone, reached for his jaw and yanked him back. “You look at me, pretty Turk,” I demanded. “You owe me your eyes no less than I owe you mine.” I stared into that gorgeous, distressed crimson, seeing just how unsteady he was.

I deeply regretted figuring out his demonic possession. He’d embraced his nature until I’d blurted out a bit of intuitive genius. Without me screwing him up, he’d be quite content to believe his demons came from the outside, not the inside. Once again, my best intentions only brought someone pain.

“What makes you think you put your dick in me,” I repeated, grabbing onto my last, emergency-ration shred of endurance. “You wouldn’t ask that without a reason.”

Again, he frowned. “It’s a fog, but I keep seeing you under me,” he confessed.

I nodded. “Well, your dick didn’t go where select few have gone before, I assure you,” I said gently. I’d let him figure it out on his own. “Now, you were awake before me in the helicopter, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I overhead that Samuel Quinn bought us from Scarlet and Heideggar, and we were flying to Nibelheim to be delivered.” Valentine shrugged slightly. “I think we should go there and ruin any future plans to grab us.”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan.” I rolled to my back. “In the meantime, I think I’ll get a tan.” I started shucking my pants.

“You aren’t,” Valentine almost whispered.

“I am.” Once upon a time I’d loved doing this, sunbathing naked. No better opportunity than now to remember that indulgence. “I can’t really get burned, even if I feel like I’m going to ignite. I might as well take advantage.”

Even though I quickly settled into a sun-worshipping sleepiness, I felt him looking at me. I felt those eyes. He examined every inch of me, and, when I turned over, he started from that angle. My ass burned more from his stare than the sun.

Hours passed before I grew tired of sunbathing. I put my pants back on, feeling woozy and drained, yet also warm and relaxed. I’d darkened four shades and felt proud of it. I liked olive bronze a lot better than ghostly green. When I got back to Shin-Ra, and killed the Terrible Two, I’d find the cure for X2Geostigma, then schedule a vacation in Costa del Sol.

“You tan quickly,” Valentine murmured.

“Genetics, Jenova, mako and prior exposure,” I explained. My face itched. I couldn’t wait to get somewhere I could shave. I stroked my little goatee, remembering having had one for awhile… When had I shaved it off?

“I have Jenova and mako,” he replied. “Why don’t I tan? Is it the vampirism?”

“Maybe. Your father was fair skinned even with dark hair. I think a lot of us became that way over generations of living under the plate.” I sat up. “Any sign of land?”

“I think we’re getting close to land. I feel a difference in the way the waves rock our raft.” Valentine scanned the sky, but fitfully, since the direct sunlight pained him. “Keep an eye out for birds. That’s a good clue, too.”

He was such an outdoorsman. While I sunbathed, he paid attention to the waves and the sky as well as to me. Hypervigilance…

I put my boots back on, happy my socks were dry again.