Out With a Bang

Out With a Bang


Tifa poked her head into the cabin, customary invitation to another rowdy dinner poised on her lips, only to find stillness and shadow peering back at her. Not unusual. Peace and quiet was an elusive goal on the Highwind, but that never stopped him from seeking it in whatever obscure little nook or corner might escape the attentions of a certain swift-fingered thief or a certain prying spy.

She had begun to withdraw from the doorway with every intention of joining her friends when the glimmer of polished metal hooked her attention. The curious fingers of a half-full moon had slipped in through the cabin's sole window and were currently caressing one of Vincent's handguns. It beckoned her, smooth and glowing silvery pale along sleek contours. Curiosity beat at the insides of her mind until it overcame her better judgment. With a glance to her left and a glance to her right, she slid into the room.

The gun was sitting alongside a cleaning kit. The guts and bones of one of his rifles were spread out over the desk as well, and she gave each piece a cursory glance before settling her attention on the handgun again. It had been awhile since she’d seen him use this one, but she liked it more than his others. Though each one fit his hand like an extension of his body, the rifles by themselves had always looked a tad unwieldy to her. Not like this one. This one was something that she could handle.

Her fingers hung poised just above the grip, longing but reluctant. No one else had ever touched his guns, not since they had become his. No one else could hold them with such graceful ease; no one else possessed those long, dexterous fingers.

Tifa swallowed against the sudden constriction in her throat and scooped the weapon into her hand. Its weight was unfamiliar, but pleasantly chill in her bare palm. Her hands were accustomed to emptiness. It was fulfilling to hold something for once.

She’d picked up the unique weapons of her friends before. Cid’s spear had felt awkward, like an accident waiting to happen. She had nearly sliced her fingers on the edges of Yuffie’s shuriken. Cloud’s sword was a cumbersome affair that she’d never even gotten off the ground. Barret’s massive arm attachments had always made her a little nervous, and Nanaki hated it when someone touched his combs.

Vincent’s gun, however, settled into the nearly reverent cradling of her hand just fine. She straightened her arm and held it out before her, closed one eye as she gazed down the barrel and allowed herself a little apprehensive giggle when she realized how childish she must look.

At one time she had hated guns, because all she had known of them was the rapid, aimless spray of Shinra-issued machine guns. In her mind they’d been little more than artless devices used to bully innocents, relegated to sloppy soldiers without an inkling of skill. Then Vincent had joined their team.

For Tifa, fighting was about pouring her strength and her anger into every strike. Sometimes her body would turn wild when she was caught in the thrall of an emotional high, as she’d been during the battle after Aerith’s murder. Vincent had his wild moments too, moments that still made her shiver in memory, but when his gun was in his hand he was the embodiment of restraint. Every bullet landed with surgical precision, even in the face of a roaring dragon or a metamorphic hunk of alien corpse. His hand never wavered or shook, even when he was bleeding profusely and only one little scrape away from unconsciousness. Anyone that thought of him as cold had never noticed the flicker of heat in his eyes as he sought out his opponents’ weaknesses and tracked their movements.

That look of singular fixation when he was taking aim never failed to capture her notice, sometimes to the point of painful distraction. Sometimes to the point of sleepless hours spent in memory.

She drew her arm back to her body and gently—ever so gently—ran the pad of her index finger against the trigger. His sensitive digits would know how to apply exactly the right amount of pressure here.

With a shuddering sigh, she allowed her fingertips to ghost along the shining slide. She imagined how it would jolt when fired, how her palms would tingle from the recoil. She thought about how hot his hands must be after a round of monster-slaying and-

Movement in her peripheral vision. Nervous fingers fumbled the weapon she had been admiring and in the space of her startled gasp she found herself pressed back against the wall, empty-handed, icy muzzle pressed just below her left collar bone.

Vincent was looming over her, body hidden in shadows and face partially obscured by the damp length of his hair. His cloak was absent and he was close enough that each of her gulping breaths brought her a lungful of Icicle Inn’s homemade soap. Faintly luminescent eyes narrowed in confusion.

It was only then that she realized what she must look like to him. Her cheeks were warm and her breathing was shallow and while either of those things might’ve been explained by more common emotions, her nipples pressed insistently against the thin fabric of her shirt and were only growing more desperate for notice the longer she spent beneath the attentions of him and his gun. The very gun she’d been stroking moments ago with all the care of a cautious lover.

“S-sorry.” The word was merely a formation on her lips. Tifa found she had no sound to offer.

His brow wrinkled with questions that seemed reluctant to leave his mouth. He lowered the gun, or started to, but it dragged against her skin all smooth and cool and lethal and she arched into it’s pinpoint of pressure with a tiny half-formed noise that he should never have been able to hear.

He heard. He paused. Tifa very abruptly found herself the subject of that intense focus she had daydreamed about so often. It was more than her body could handle and she was reduced to a finely trembling mess.

Any second he would grow angry at her intrusion. Any second his wondering stare would become a glare of disgust. Any second her nerves were going to break her or the erratic throbbing of her pulse would kill her.

The muzzle slid across her skin again, slowly. Purposeful, but testing. A mixture of relief and awe and sudden, raw want nearly took her legs from beneath her, but to surrender to the pull of gravity would have broken their tentative connection. She was almost afraid to move at all. Moving might bring one or both of them back to reality, with all its boundaries and fragile lines.

The edge of the barrel rounded the curve of her left breast, sending a surge of frustrated tingles through both stiffened peaks. She smothered a whimper in the back of her throat, but he heard it. The incredulous fascination lurking in his eyes died with the abrupt, fiery combustion of lust.

When the muzzle finally grazed her nipple she found herself twisting, pressing, writhing in search of blessed friction. It was good, but it wasn’t enough. Shamelessly she traced her hands along her sides until her fingers crept beneath the elastic of her sports bra, and she pulled the band up to expose herself beneath the wispy cotton of her tank top.

He pushed into her, pinned her right side with his left so that there was just enough room between them for his hands to maneuver, and he growled so deep and low at her ear that it resonated through her body in a spine-quaking shiver. Blunt teeth tugged at the top of her ear while his left hand—sharp, metal, deadly—quested along the sensitive underside of her neglected breast.

Tifa gave her consent in the form of a long, wavering moan. The wicked curves of his claws cupped and kneaded gently as the barrel opening caught and teased at her sensitized flesh. Soft, firm lips plucked at the skin of her neck until he set his teeth against the tension of her muscles just hard enough to leave marks.

She squirmed against him—gods did he feel happy to see her—earning a hiss against her jaw line. The gun’s descent from her chest conjured a momentary whine of dissatisfaction until she felt it drift across the quivering muscles of her belly, pause to briefly rim her navel, and slide along her hip.

“Please...”

Vincent’s gauntleted hand dropped to squeeze the back of her right thigh before drawing it up, her knee against his hip. He didn’t close the scant distance between them as she’d been expecting, however. The slide was cool against the heat of her inner thigh as he drew it up and down the span of faultless, toned white, each pass just a fraction of an inch closer to the center of her need until she was groaning her frustration and clenching her fingers in his hair.

His breath came in sporadic puffs against her lips. He was laughing at her. She silenced him by catching his bottom lip between her teeth, which guided his mouth to a new preoccupation against hers.

The weapon rose to the apex of her thighs without warning. Instinct tilted her hips into the pressure, timidly at first, but the singing of her nerves in response made her do it again, over and over, her body a thing of mindless motion and wanton ache. She tried to relieve it against the hard length of metal but each grinding undulation brought her just short of breaking.

But of course, Vincent had perfect aim. He pulled the pistol back until she thought he might take it away, but when just the tip remained he tilted the barrel up. The protrusion of the front sight hit just the right spot through the dampness of her panties and pushed against her with just the right pressure.

Tifa cried out, long and ragged and high against Vincent’s probing tongue, toes curling in her boots and nails pressing into the base of his neck.

When it was over they simply breathed together. Aftershocks occasionally rocked her otherwise slack form, which he supported with a tense embrace. He was still hard against her hip.

She opened her mouth to ask him what she could do for him, but lost the words as he relinquished her suspended leg and lifted the gun to face level, aimed at the ceiling. He pulled the trigger.

Tifa jumped, only to release a silent, breathless chuckle as it responded with a hollow click. “Safety first?”

“Hm,” he rumbled in agreement. Then he asked, lips at her ear, “Would you like to learn how to use it?” He smiled against her temple when she could only gape in response. “In the manner for which it was originally intended, of course.”

“Yes, please.”

For a moment longer she leaned into him, enamored with his warmth and his scent and the intimate quiet of his voice, and he nuzzled her hair and laid a kiss at her forehead. When it finally came, the parting was mutual.

She blushingly began to readjust her bra, but paused momentarily to stare as his tongue flicked across the traces of her moisture left on the metal.

The gun was returned to its resting place on the desk. “They’ll be wondering where you are.”

“R-right.”

Though the cabin was small, it seemed such a great distance to cross with her legs wobbling and weak like overstretched rubber. She wanted to say something before she left, but had no idea what was appropriate to say after what they’d just done.

“Tifa?” The rough purr of his voice caught her just as her fingers had curled around the knob of the door. “Come back tomorrow evening and we’ll begin your lessons.”

A single nod. Questions were beginning to take shape now that her mind was working again, foremost among them a fear-tinged inquiry into where the two of them might go from here. Was he going to ignore what they’d done? Was this the sort of thing that happened once and was never spoken of again?

She had one foot outside his door and her back was turned to him when he spoke again, but though she couldn’t see it, she heard the predatory smile in his voice.

“Wait until the others are asleep. We wouldn’t want to risk being disturbed.”