Light and Shadow

Light and Shadow

A/N: I'm a huge fan of the Vince/Aerith pairing, but damned if you can find anything like that on the net. I finally got frustrated enough to write something of my own (and this is an acomplishment for me). My first finished "adult" fanfic and who better to write about? :)

None of these characters belong to me, blah blah blah.

*~*~*~*~*~*

She looked so loney sometimes. Vincent Valentine, the self-styled emotionless ghoul couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Aerith when he caught her on those rare moments. It hadn't entirely escaped his notice that everyone they were traveling with had some kind of sob story to go with their lives; the death of a loved one, false childhoods, fractured dreams. They were walking ads for anti-depressants. The idea never failed to stir a grim kind of amusement from Vincent whenever it crossed his mind. If anything, they should've been able to understand eachother, been able to find some kind of support from their friend's pain but they were so often just wrapped up in their own angst that they never even noticed the rest of the bleeding hearts around them. If Vincent actually cared, he might have held it against them. Let them destroy themselves from the inside out. Vincent didn't need their help, and he rationalized that he wasn't obligated to give any to them.

Aerith, though... maybe that's who he should have been like. She gave and gave and gave some more. In return, she tucked her own pain away behind that pretty smile of hers, never asking for much in return. Sometimes... just sometimes, he saw that smile fade when she thought no one else was looking and he saw someone he could sympathize with. They were both alone, weren't they? Creatures without another soul like them in the world. If Vincent had any pity for himself, he might've had some for her, too.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The unsettling thing about the Forgotten City was it's lack of noise. No crickets, birds, settling... even the old mansion had more character than this place. Then again, Vincent assumed it was proper for a dead city. It was almost pretty, in a dried out sort of way. However, just like the dead corpse the city seemed to be emulating, it wasn't giving up any of it's secrets. They had been over the city with a fine tooth comb, searching it all afternoon and into the evening with little results. When their illustrious leader finally called it a day in something that passed for a house, he caught her with that look again.

She was sitting outside the house, a little ways down the shale walkway. When he approached her, she smiled over her shoulder.

"Hello, Vincent!" she greeted cheerfully enough, as if just a few moments earlier she hadn't looked like she was ready to jump off a cliff. "You're the last person I expected to see. Cloud didn't send you off after me, did he?" Even her voice was groomed. Light and upbeat, like it always was. Who could imagine her any other way?

Vincent shook his head, regarding Aerith in silence for a moment. She tilted her head and her expression grew confused. "Aerith," he started slowly, "don't.. you ever stop smiling?"

His question drained the girl before him of her former warmth. From anyone else, she might have just brushed the question off... but when Vincent took the time to speak, it wasn't for nothing. "Why are you always so dour? It's how we cope, Vincent. I just can't go on if I don't believe there's something better around the corner."

"How do you know there isn't just more suffering? Why get your hopes up?"

Aerith stood up, brushed herself off and placed her hands on Vincent's arms. "Because joy is what you make it, no matter how insignificant. A bird, a flower, a cloud in the shape of a boat, your friends... the world could fall apart and there would still be something to find happs ins in. You can't have shadows without light, Vincent. It isn't possible."

With that, her smile returned in full and she moved around him, back towards the house. She was in the doorway by the time he called out to her. "Where's your shadow?"

Her face only lit up in amusement. "I'll tell you later!" She vanished inside before he could get another word out.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"AERITH!"

She spun around, almost etheral in the moonlight. Vincent stood, barely visable, at the end of the path that led to the northern house and lake of the City. Aerith froze at the edge of the lake, eyes wide. She had thought everyone had been asleep.

"Vincent, what are you doing here?" she asked as he drew closer to her. She had dropped all her masks and what was before him was little more than a sad, tired woman. He backed her against the lake shore, red eyes staring down at her intently.

"I should ask you," he replied. "Where are you going all by yourself at this hour?" Aerith bit her lip hard, her expression pained. Vincent was normally so stoic; so quiet. The fact that he had come out here by himself after her made it hard to convince herself that she should lie to him. Besides, there had always been something about him that she connected with. She could almost empathize with the guarded look in his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but quickly snapped it shut and turned away.

His voice made her cringe. "Why, Aerith? Why are you acting like this? Why now? Is this your.. is this your shadow?"

Her feet splashed in the water as she tried to get around him, but the sharp feel of his steel claws on her arm stopped her. "Please, let me go, Vincent!"

"No! What's going on?"

"I'm going to die!"

The silence was suffocating. All Vincent could manage was a tiny, barely audiable 'what?' Tears filled Aerith's eyes and her voice hitched as she answered. "I can't go any farther than this, Vincent. I have to do this for the Planet... for my friends. Please, please just let me go."

Vincent was stunned. For the first time in decades he could feel panic rising in his chest. "No... no... what happened to 'just around the corner'? There's nothing for you there! Noth--"

"I have to!"

"No one has to do anything!"

"I do!"

"It's not FAIR!!"

For the second time they were both mute. Both panting from their outbursts, Vincent's hand shaking on her arm. After a long, stunned moment, Aerith yanked her arm free and started to run, but not before Vincent had regained his grip, sending the two splashing through the shallow water in a desperate struggle of catch and escape.

"Nothing's fair, Vincent!" Aerith protested as he finally managed to lay both hands on her shoulders and turn her around to face him.

"Let us help you," he offered breathlessly, searching her face for any kind of reluctance, but all he found was a tortured kind of acceptance.

She shook her head. "I have to do this by myself." With that, she pulled herself free and ran towards the house on the shore. He called out for her again, just like that evening and again she turned. He was on his knees in the water, his expression begging her to stop. 'Please don't go' his red eyes asked. She hesitated only a second before she flew into his arms and they clutched eachother as if their lives depended on it. For Aerith... it just might have. He couldn't stand the idea of not seeing her smile anymore; of missing her tragically cheerful expression every day. Who would he have to remind him to keep expecting the next turn in life if she left? He pressed his face against her neck and tightened his arms around her.

She stroked his dark hair lightly and shut her eyes. Out of anyone else, Vincent perhaps came the closest to understanding her. They were so similar, yet that similarity set them apart. Neither of them would ever be really able to find their place in the world; the best they could do was live with the days. Her heart ached with sorrow for them both, but their fates were sLiviLiving their lives brooding over the injustice of their lot would do nothing and she had hoped that one day he'd realize that. Instead, in the short time they had spengethgether, she had watched him watch her from behind that impenitrable wall built on dead emotions. How could she have ever told him that he had wounded her more than once with just a glance?

Slowly, Vincent leaned back look down at Aerith. He ran his hands across her cheeks, threading his frs trs through her bangs, mindful of the sharp points of his left hand. "You shouldn't have to die for this," he choked, framing her face with his hands. She shushed him quietly, still stroking his hair, her mind racing trying to find the words to put him at ease. They never came. Both of them were trying hard to deny the fact that, just once, they wanted to really belong. They had been cast out long ago and if it was only in each other that they could regain that, then they were swiftly running out of time.

He leaned his face close to hers, his eyes heavy lidded, and when their lips met, the kiss was clumsy and desperate. Hands clutched heads, shoulders, and arms, pawing with barely restrained urgency. Vincent crushed Aerith against his chest, his mouth closing firmly over hers and stemming the heady rush of long repressed emotions. When they parted, gasping for breath, he had already pushed her jacket down her arms and tossed it onto the grass. She needed this... just this once, the Planet could allow her this moment of belonging before she left. She gasped as his teeth found the soft skin between her neck and shoulder at the same time that his arms wrapped around her waist and he lifted her bodily from the shallow water.

She could feel the sharp pricks of his metal hand through her dress as he laid her in the grass on the shore. He crouched beside her and had barely shrugged off his heavy crimson cloak before she had sat up, her fingers attacking the buttons on his shirt. They had no time to be graceful, to draw anything out, or to make it lasts has hands gripped her bare thighs under his dress as she leaned forward to kiss his exposed chest. He was so pale, his skin scared with surgical precision in several places: testiment to the life forced on him years ago. She kissed her way up his chest, climbing into his lap as he yanked her hips up roughly to meet his, splaying her legs around him and hiking her dress up.

Aerith gasped sharply, rising against Vincent and tangling her fingers in his thick hair. He mumbled delirious nothings and she kissed him between words. Stay. Don't go. Run. His hands slid around to cup her rear, rocking her hips against his languidly as she moaned into his mouth. She could feel him through the fabric of his pants and she squirmed pointedly. Vincent jerked his head back and groanerougrough clenched teeth. This wasn't the Aerith she let everyone else see. She was loney, wounded and desperate. She was without masks and more human than anyone else. This was Aerith the woman... who knew her life was about to end.

His right hand left her leg then and opened the first few buttons on her dress, pushing the fabric down to her elbows. He dipped his head and he sucked sharply on one small breast through her thin bra. She cried out, dropping her arms and practically forcing the twin belts open at his waist. As he switched his attention to her other breast, she worked his pants open and slipped his manhood free, earning her a surprised nip in responce.

Vincent raised his head, expression tense as she stroked him. "Aerith... I..."

"Shhh," she whispered, placing a finger lightly against his lips. "This is what my joy is tonight... let it be yours, too."

"We should've been there for each other," he whispered, his right hand joining hers between them, pushing aside her panties. She lifted her hips, letting him help guide her before she suddenly fell onto him, enveloping him all the way in her warmth in one motion. She yanked his hair painfully and he could feel the tick of her nails against the glove covering his hand below. He didn't miss the tiny squeek of pain that escaped her either. Instantly, both his arms were around her, cradling her against his shoulder, rocking back and forth slowly. He murmured guilty appologies against her ear, moving slow against her until she stopped shaking.

No other words were spoken between them as they begain to move in tandem, each feeling for the other's rhythm. Her arms circled his shoulders, fingers digging into the back of his shirt, clutching fistfulls of the fabric. His hands slid under her thighs, the sharp pricks of his left hand sending goosebumps up and down her body as he helped guide her motions. She bit down on the edge of his ear and his hips jerked sharply, inspiring him to increase their pace.

Her head rolled back, mouth open as she gasped for breath against the frantic pace they were both reaching. Vincent reached up, tracing the curve of her jaw and neck with the deadly claws of his left hand, relishing in the whimper he recieved in return. The talons closed abruptly around her shoulder as her hips lurched against his eractically, Aerith's desperate mewlings accompaining each downstroke. She was close and Vincent wouldn't last much longer either.

She rode him unsteadily for only a few short seconds more. Without warning, he pushed her into the grass in one smooth motion, following her down and slamming his hips against hers. Hrrierried his claws violently into the earth beside her head, supporting himself on that arm as he leaned over her and hooked her leg into the crook of his elbow. He growled low in his throat as she cried out, her back arching from the ground as he thrust himself into her mindlessly. Claiming. Pssinssing. With a final thrust, he threw his head back with a gutteral cry and joined her in climax.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Vincent stood with Aerith at the edge of the lake as if nothing had happened. Only the gentle hand he pressed against her check any hint to what they had shared not long ago.

"There was a woman, a long time ago... Lucrecia. You remind me of her." He smiled a little. "She was very beautiful and kind."

Aerith tilted her head against his warm palm. "Did you love her?"

He paused, then answered, "I did. Maybe I still do. Have you ... ever loved anyone, Aerith?"

Her face lit up as it always did when she found something funny. "Maybe. Once. Don't let that love sour, Vincent. I can see it in you," she admonished, tapping his nose lightly. "If you're looking for some joy... let that be it. Maybe you could even think of me once in a while?"

"I might," he answered quietly, his smile warming.

"I'd like that." She took his hand in hers and squeezed it lightly before turning and walking towards the house on the shore. He watched her go; didn't call out to her, or try to stop her this time. Instead, when she was out of sight, he returned to the others and laid down on his spot of the floor. He didn't sleep. Cloud awoke not much later, as dawn was approaching to find Aerith missing. Vincent didn't say a word.

As he watched Sephiroth's sword peirce the young woman's heart, he caught her smile for a brief second. It dawned on him that she had never really answered his question. "Where's your shadow?" "I'll tell you later!" He raced to the altar with Cloud, wondering if just maybe... she really would tell him later.