In Your Eyes I Saw Hell

Chapter 5: Nobody Listens to the Silences

Hellfire blazed through his closed eyelids and every minute muscle twitch, even involuntary, caused spasms of agony to wash through his body.

Tifa must have given him one hell of a work over before Chaos claimed her.

How many more sins would stain his tattered soul, how many years of atonement would it take to wash off the blood of his only friends in the day and age. He doubted that the planet would cycle long enough for him to find out.

It wasn't that Vincent was immortal, his father's research on Mako exposure and prolonging life had influenced one of his young assistants, James Hojo, who years later would use that research to it's fullest.

Countless bouts of Mako poisoning later, the former Turk stood ageless, and would remain so for what would seem like an eternity.

Vincent wondered briefly what had happened to his father in the thirty odd years he'd been asleep.

Hopefully he had never gotten a chance to try his own theory on himself. The last thing he'd want would to do was encounter his father.

His thoughts about possibly seeming father again were interrupted by a small argument that was gaining volume not to far away.

"Just how high did you have that thing turned up? He's been twitching for ten minutes."

"Not high enough to kill him, yo. If he's still twitching he's still alive. Quit'cher bitchin'."

That Midgarian slum drawl was poking at him with familiarity, but big fluffy sheep were crowding Vincent's brain, and he couldn't quite figure out whom it belonged to.

"Reno!"

Ah, there was the connection. But why would a pyramid hurt so much? Granted the change from human to beast and back again always caused discomfort, it had never felt like the Temple of the Ancients had landed on him before.

"Did you remember that his arm is a mythril plated prosthetic, or that he wears armor?"

"So he can't pass through a metal detector at Junon airport, what's that got to do with the price of whiskey in Wutai?"

"Metal conducts electricity. You could have cooked him."

The argument progressed as Vincent's sheep laden brain began to clear. He made a mental note to introduce Reno to the business end of his own EMR. See how he liked it then. For now he'd just listen to what was going on around him while he waited for his nerves to stop screaming.

"Like I said, quit bitchin'. I came in for lunch and see him about to turn scary. Now I got two options, yo. One, I hit him with enough juice to knock him out before he finishes changing. Or two, drop a pyramid on his ass and pray.

"Now you know, like I do, that droppin' a pyramid on his ass is only gonna hold off the scary for maybe seven minutes tops, and we run for high ground cause there is no way we're gonna win. If we run though, we're only gonna get a few blocks in the boat, but in the meantime there's a whole lot 'a innocent people he can play with, yo.

"So I picked option one and juiced him. Argue with me all you want about it, but I figured saving all our asses was worth it. Gods damn I need a drink."

A clink of glass on wood was heard only moments later.

"Thanks, yo."

"Why are you all shaky?" Tifa asked as she poured a healthy shot of the red head's favorite single malt into the tumbler.

"I just juiced my superior in the back of the neck, yo. He saved my partner and boss, saved my ass, and the planet too. He scares the mother lovin' shit outta me, but I respect him, yo. When he gets up he's gonna gut me an use my entrails for guitar strings." The shaking of Reno's hand grew steadily worse as he thought about the painful death that awaited him.

"As...graphic as that image was, I doubt Vincent would actually do it," a deeper, masculine voce spoke up softly had to be Reeve, Vincent mused silently, "and what was that about a superior?"

"He's a Turk. Only way you leave Turks is in a bag. Before he went MIA, Valentine was second in command, an until Rufus gives the word otherwise he's got more seniority than me." Reno explained, pouring more amber goodness into the glass.

The three coherent people in the bar continued discussing the odd hierarchal tree that made up ShinRa employees; completely oblivious to the fact that one of the people they were discussing was attempting to regain motor skills.

The nerve receptors in Vincent's prosthetic arm had taken quite a zap and only worked to a certain extent, thus when he thought he was only flexing his fingers, he was really shredding the floor.

"What was that noise?" Drink in one hand, EMR in the other, the slightly paranoid Turk turned toward the noise with all haste.

Tifa, knowing nothing could have gotten into her bar, rushed back to the prone man on the floor.

"Vincent, thank gods."

Said man could only wince, as the longhaired woman's voice seemed piercingly loud in his sensitive ears.

Reno and Reeve were slightly more reluctant to leave the safety of the bar, even though it was mere feet away from the fallen man.

"You're his boss, right?" Reno whined at the executive. "You can make him not kill me, right?"

"He doesn't listen to me Reno. Not that I'm not grateful for the save today, but I can't help you out if Vincent decides to play Turk Hunt with you." Reeve explained, downing a fortifying glass of vodka from the bar.

The plaintive whine he received in response was more suited to a child on the verge of a tantrum, than a full-grown man, and Turk at that.

"But you're his friend."

"What happened to your nerves of steel Reno?"

"More like buns of steel boss man, but unless he's into skinny ass white boys, they won't help me. I'm gonna die, yo!"

The whining continued for far longer than inhumanly tolerable, and Vincent wished he had enough coordination to make him stop. At the moment though he could still only move his fingers and toes.

Knowing Reno, as Vincent did, he knew that the badass talker kept the EMR set at just under enough juice to nuke a cow's brain. Add the metal arm and the fact that he had been in the middle of a change, it was lucky that he had even survived.

He wondered momentarily if this was how stroke victims felt.

Too bad the jolt hadn't killed him though. It would have saved so much time and agony in the long run.

Would have been bad for Reno though. The rest of the AVALANCHE members would have hounded him, if only to thank him for doing it. There'd be no peace for him, they'd show up out of nowhere unexpectedly, especially Yuffie, and annoy the bejeezus out of him.

Tifa and Reeve would have torn the Turk a new one, maybe.

It wasn't like Reno would feel any guilt about it. He'd dropped the plate on thousands of people, yet he got on with his life, and even made nice nice with the people who had given they're all to kill him.

Did that make Reno a masochist, or just stupid?

Did that make them all masochists for being friendly with him?

How in the three hells did he get on this line of thought? And why was he starting to feel giddy? Probably just the adrenaline.

Slowly, Vincent pried his eyelids open and made them focus. Only to blink in a startled manner as he realized just how damn close Tifa was leaning toward him.

So close he could see the individual flecks of red violet that made her brown eyes appear rich claret. So close he could smell the delicate flowery sent of her bath soap. So close her breath washed over the skin of his face.

She had never been more beautiful to him than at that moment.

"Ti...fa." Her name rasped through parched throat, even as he forced his gloved human hand up towards the curve of her cheek.

He felt sick to his stomach with the movement, but he couldn't stop himself now that he'd started the motion.

Noticing Vincent's half clenched hand having trouble rising, Tifa grasped the strong hand in both of hers and brought it to her chest.

"Don't force it Vincent. I'll take care of you until you feel better." Speaking softly, the woman pushed stray strands of hair away from his face, caressing him in a covert manner.

What she really wanted to do was move closer and rain kisses over his face and weep out her thanks that he was unharmed. Seeing as he only viewed her as a friend, or maybe only a comrade in arms made her choice for her. At least he was allowing her to hold part of him close.

Next to her, Vincent was moving slowly in an attempt to rise, if only a little. He could blame it on sheep, or fuzzy whatever's. Hell he could blame it on Reno, but right then, with Tifa so close, he wanted to kiss her.

Just a soft press of her warm, full lips against his. Just once.

"Ti...fa."

Thinking he was trying to tell her something, Tifa leaned even closer to Vincent, even as he strained to rise a few meager inches.

So close yet so far.

"Tifa...I..."

The sudden slamming of the door startled them both, making Tifa pull away from him. His only opportunity lost; perhaps it was for the best.

"Tifa, I'm home. Can we talk?"

Blinking in bewilderment, Tifa stared at the last person she thought she'd see.

"Cloud?"