In Your Eyes I Saw Hell

Author's Note- Just want to say thanks to everyone that's read this fic. I realize that not everyone has the time or inclination to write a review, which is why I look at the hits it's gotten. Again, thanks for reading, hope you enjoy this next chapter.


Chapter 4 - Crawling Through Broken Glass

While Reeve was speeding through Edge like a madman, Tifa slipped the PHS back into her apron's pocket, eyes not leaving the slightly hunched man.

Even though he sat in a darkened corner of the bar, his bright crimson cape stood out like a beacon. For a man who liked to hide, the cape didn't help camouflage anything.

Shaking her head with a sigh, the brown haired kick boxer went around the main floor, taking the chairs off the tables before unlocking the front door in preparation for the lunch crowd. She also kept an eye on the steadily declining level of scotch in the bottle. She'd never seen Vincent drunk, and therefore had no way to gauge his actions or reactions. As much as she cared for the man, she'd be seriously pissed off if he trashed her bar.

Vincent however was nowhere near drunk. Buzzed was only slightly closer to the truth.

The Mako, Chaos experiment, and various other sadistic treatments Hojo had subjected him to made all chemical substances burn through his system like wildfire.

Actually everything burned through his system quickly. Especially food. The treatments had put his body into a state of hyper metabolism, and as a result he was forced to carry portable ration packets with him in order to function. Which was why he always maintained an almost gaunt appearance.

His weekly grocery bill now generally ran about fifteen hundred gill, a sum that sickened him, as well as the delivery boy who brought it to his doorstep.

He was only slightly glad that when Hojo had finished playing God with him that he'd been put into stasis sleep, or his body would have starved itself within a week.

He could even eat out at a restaurant though. It just wasn't the fact that people would stare at how much he ate, but he couldn't trust anyone enough to prepare his food. Many of Hojo's experiments had come as additives to his meals, which resulted in his supreme paranoia about others handling what he ate.

Even when he'd come to 7th Heaven and Tifa handed him a glass with his ordered scotch, he wiped the rim carefully on his cape.

A force of habit for when he was forced to eat in strange places, but most definitely an insult to one of the few people who he actually did trust. One of the very few who might actually give a damn about him.

Ruby eyes gazed over the rim of the glass and drank in Tifa's profile. He'd never really lumped the girl in with his general assertion that the members of AVALANCHE were self-centered idiots. She, other than Reeve, had been the only person in the group that really tried to make him feel welcome. Though her childish dependence on her love for a man who'd strung her along bothered him. It had reminded himself all too painfully of his younger self. She'd quietly grown on him as time, and the quest progressed.

They'd all spent nearly a year together on the initial quest to defeat Sephiroth, and as such he had had quite a lot of time to do nothing but observe the others, and slowly remember humanity.

Tifa had made easier to remember that humanity. Her unwavering smiles and boundless optimism, even to his own morbid situation, had worn him down enough to carry on a civil conversation with her over a shared meal that she'd prepared. With him watching her do so of course.

He'd trusted her more than anyone of the team members that had found him. He hadn't wanted to do so at first. He'd wanted to hate her, wanted to blame her for everything. For the stares from the normal people in towns, for the warding signs from the superstitious, but mostly convincing him to leave the coffin of nightmares and step into that light. She hadn't given up on him, even when he was at his most anti-social and reclusive. Especially when he'd stare her down purposefully to make her uncomfortable and squirmy.

His paranoia's and phobias, which Tifa passed off as just things that he did, in his eyes were insults to the trust that he had placed with her. It made him curse Hojo even more for making him like this.

He wasn't in the mood for civil conversation with anyone, something he knew Tifa wanted. Right now he only hoped he could pour enough liquor into his system to override his metabolic state and become blinding, stinking drunk enough to forget the day.

He doubted he'd be allowed to though. One, the metabolism was too strong, and two, his boss. Oh, the little bartender had tried to be ticksey about talking in hushed whispers with Reeve, but his hearing was so sensitive he still heard her conversation from across the room.

Knowing the way Reeve drove, he should reach the bar in a few minutes, and that was such a shame. He'd finally decided, on the walk to work, that he didn't give a damn and wasn't going to go into the office. He didn't want to deal in the business of death and intrigue anymore.

All he wanted to do was finish atoning for his sins, which he'd also decided this morning, would end after he went back to Lucrecia's cave to say his final goodbyes, and then he'd fade back into the background.

He'd briefly toyed with the idea of suicide, but he wasn't quite sure he was allowed to die, and if he did succeed, would the demons within him die as well, or would they be loosed on an unsuspecting populous. His need for eternal peace wasn't worth the risk to the innocent people around, or to Tifa.

Ah, whom was he kidding, suicide was a coward's way out, and he was no coward. Back in the day he'd killed people for even insinuating it.

Those thoughts unfortunately brought his mind back to the reason he was here, in Tifa's bar, getting shitfaced.

He needed more liquor in his bloodstream.

As he was pouring a hefty amount of the amber liquid from the bottle into the glass, Reeve slammed open the front door and stood there for a moment, panting.

Tifa looked up from writing the today's specials on the ad board, and cocked an eyebrow at the man in the doorway. He looked like he'd run a few blocks at full speed. His hair was windblown and disheveled, his face ruddy with exertion, and his breath wheezed painfully from his lungs. He basically looked like shit.

"You know Reeve, there are parking spaces in front of the bar." Brown eyes sparkled in semi amusement.

"Yeah, and Reno's boat in occupying three of those spaces." The flushed man replied as he came into the bar, shutting the door behind him.

"I told him not to park the boat there." Tifa had a sinking feeling that she was going to be kicking Reno's ass before the day was through.

"The boat", as those that knew Reno well affectionately referred to it as, was actually an energy guzzling, broken down, rusting battleship of a car that dated to the days before ShinRa Company was a major power. Oh, it'd had an overhaul after the internal combustion engine became outlawed, but whatever junk heap Reno had had it pulled out of had not been kind to it. It leaked, clanked, and rumbled liked a monolith on a Sunday stroll. You heard, and felt it, miles before you saw it.

It was Reno's pride and joy. It was also his house of the moment.

Tifa didn't mind that he parked near the building, preferably on the side where it couldn't be seen by the general populous. It made it easier to get him home when he was stumbling drunk, but parking his homeless ass in front of the building, taking up three spaces, was where she drew the line.

"I'll take care of him when he comes in."

Reno was a regular at the bar. So regular you could tell time by him. He came in at noon exactly for lunch and left at two. Then dragged himself in again at five and stayed until close. Unfortunately, by the time close came Tifa had to either drag, coerce, or beat him to get him to leave.
He


The brown haired man acknowledged that he'd be down one less body at the office once Tifa was through with the red head, and walked over to the only other person in the bar.

Pulling out the opposite chair, the executive fell into the cushioned seat with a plop.

"This celebration of yours had better be worth nearly running over several pedestrians, and running four blocks at full speed to get here."

Tifa wandered by their table with a clean glass and another bottle of scotch. She had a feeling this was going to be one hell of a male bonding session.

Reeve nodded his thanks in her general direction before reaching for the opened bottle and poured two fingers worth into the tumbler.

Vincent raised his deep scarlet eyes from the table to look Reeve straight on. His mother had always brought him up to make eye contact with the person you were speaking with. Her belief in common courtesy was astounding in a world that didn't give a shit. He'd done it to please her though, with the added bonus that his naturally red eyes scared the begeezus out of the person they were directed at.

"It was a party of one, I assure you. Your presence is not necessary, and most definitely not wanted." Vincent countered with a tone that all but had icicles dripping from it.

"Tch, when has that ever stopped me." Reeve saluted Vincent with the tumbler and tossed the scotch back, letting the fiery burn spread its pleasant warmth throughout his body, calming frazzled nerves. The eye contact didn't bother him in the least though. He'd worked for ShinRa for more years than he could care to remember, nothing bothered him anymore. "I'm your friend Vincent, not just your boss. Yes, as an employer I'm concerned about why you didn't show up for work, but as a friend I'm sure as hell more worried about you. For as long as I've known you, and the crazy things we've done, and been put through, you've never been a drinker. Let alone to do so at the crack of early. Now here you are, it's only been an hour since you got here, the scotch is almost gone and your mood is icy at best. Talk to me Vincent."

"I'll write my formal resignation tonight and have it on your desk in the morning, but for now it will suffice to tell you that I quit." Black gloved fingers poured the remainder of the scotch into his tumbler and pushed the empty bottle towards the edge of the table. He eyed the cup for a moment before downing the entirety in several swallows.

"You can't do that Vincent. I won't let you."

Vincent's face twisted in a snarl of rage as the arm holding the tumbler hurled it with inhuman force into the closest wall.

"Gods damn you!" He screamed. "You won't let me? Who gave you dominion over my life?"

Reeve didn't even have time to let the shock register before movements like lightning had his collar in a cloth tearing grip, lifting him out of his chair to bring him eye to eye, nose to nose, breath to breath with a very enraged man. The stink of the scotch on Vincent's breath stung his nostrils unpleasantly as he attempted to breathe normally around the chokehold his clothing had become.

"Listen well to what I tell you. You don't know me. You don't own me. You can't control me, and I'll kill you if you try. I'm done with the lies. I'm done with your games, and if I choose to leave you can't stop me."

The words were surprisingly calm considering the violence that had only just been displayed.

"Vincent, stop it!" Tifa yelled as she darted across the barroom to their table.

"I will pay you for the glass that I broke, but I'm telling you to stay out of this."

Tifa approached the table closer to Vincent's side, but stayed a few feet away. It was as close as she dared at the moment. She could still attempt to save Reeve if it became necessary, or restrain Vincent if she could.

"I can't do that Vincent. I care too much about you as a friend to see you do this to someone else I care about."

"Friend? Is that what you all are? You sycophantic flotsams are not my friends. My friends are all dead. Everyone I knew is dead now. Hojo and ShinRa took care of that." Anger pumped adrenaline through Vincent's veins at such a rate that it wouldn't take much more for one of the demons to force their way out. He had to calm down; he knew that, but damned if his brain cared right now.

They were trying to cage him. Trying to steal his life, his choice, again. Hojo and Lucrecia. No! Reeve and Tifa. No one would control his life anymore! He wouldn't let them.

All he wanted was to be alone today. Why couldn't they understand that? He wasn't one of them. Talking about it wasn't going to make him feel better. It wasn't going to help them understand the scars on his soul that still bled fresh.

His control was slipping rapidly. He had to leave, leave now.

Sweat beaded up on his brow and his breathing began to become erratic.

The familiar feeling of a transformation sang through his body. The painful pulses of the summoning ripping through his bones, making him feel sluggish.

Vincent's vision began to fade at the edges. He was going to kill them; he knew it with certainty. There wasn't enough time now to get out before he lost complete control.

He couldn't remember letting Reeve go, and yet there he stood next to Tifa, terror etched in his care worn features. Vincent's body felt stiff and cold as his consciousness faded. He wasn't going to remain in control of his body for much longer, and there was nothing he could do.

The darkness crept in steadily before stealing his vision. His last sight was that of his only friends as they braced for death. His breath rushed raggedly in gasps, not enough air to say anything, to beg forgiveness for the sins he was about to commit, only a gurgle escaped his parted lips.

The last thing he felt was his body falling to the floor in convulsions as he fought the change. Tried desperately keep whichever demon within.

It was a loosing effort. The demon was too close to surfacing to be called back, and consciousness faded into black oblivion.

'Forgive me!' His mind screamed.

Then he ceased to exist.