Doufuku.
Vincent lay alone in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.
Cloud and Aeris had gone out on a little date, and he was by himself in
the room at the inn. It was too
early to sleep, but there was nothing better to do than lie there and think, and
slowly fall back into the black memories.
“Lucrecia,”
he sighed. “I thought that I could come to you…how foolish.
He wouldn’t let me off so easily, would he?
By his hand I must stay here until…until when?
When will Jenova stop supporting my body?
It’s very hard for me to die!… And I don’t want to do it
myself…not yet. Not until I find Sephiroth, at least… And the dreamer, the dreamer who tiptoed through my sleep.
“That
dreamer…I wonder if seeing my nightmares drove her mad.
I’m curious…”
He
sighed again and rolled onto his side, pulling trailing locks of his black hair
out of his face. “Isn’t it
enough that I have to suffer my torments again in my sleep?
Do I have to inflict them on others?” he muttered.
There was a ripple of screaming laughter in his mind, but he absently
pushed Jenova back into her corner, ignoring her as a matter of habit. He had no time to be distracted by her siren songs and
banshee wails. He didn’t even
understand what she wanted anymore, only that she loved to see him hurt.
“Damned monstrous bitch…”
He
clenched his clawed hand, making a terrible sound like rusty scissors closing.
“This, at least, I accept as payment…payment for Joshu.
Odd, how I can think of it that way now. It took thirty years of sleep to make me realize that this is
a kind of atonement… Since I
couldn’t stop you, Lucrecia, I had to be around to stop your son.
Isn’t that how it has worked out?
Perhaps Hojo did his work too well…or perhaps he didn’t, and I’m
just delusional. I can never decide
if I’ve gone mad yet…”
His
monologue trailed off into silence. He
listened to the cicadas for a long moment, remembering summer nights in the
past. “How can thirty years have
passed?” he demanded of the air. “I
remember everything so clearly… But
whenever I look around, nothing’s the same…
If I wasn’t already half-mad, I think all of these changes would have
put me there.” He looked at the PHS sitting on the nightstand, its LCD face
glowing faintly green. “Strange
little machines…so many new gadgets, but the spirit of the people has stayed
the same… The good are still
good, the bad are still bad. Shinra
is still corrupt. Hojo’s still
mad. I suppose it’s true, some
things never change…”
“Do
you really believe that?” a baritone voice came from the darkness on the other
side of the room.
Vincent
sat bolt-upright and reached for his gun under his pillow.
“Who’s there?!”
There
was a low laugh, and the speaker stepped a little closer, into the edge of the
moonlight from the window. He was
attired in black leather, his silver hair glinting in an almost metallic way and
his blue eyes startlingly bright. Vincent’s
hand wavered as he pointed the gun at the intruder.
“Sephiroth,”
he breathed, staring at the child of Lucrecia, grown into a strong, dangerous
man.
“Correct,”
the other said with a smirk. “Why
do you stare so?”
Caught
off-guard by the question, Vincent floundered for an answer.
“You…you look like your mother…and your father.”
It was true; he could see the shadows of both of them in Sephiroth’s
face and graceful build, his angel and his devil, his love and his hate.
He
had been staring blankly into space, considering the irony of it; Sephiroth had
used his distraction to move closer. “Put
away your toy, Vincent, and speak with me.” He
pushed Vincent’s gun down and crouched by the bedside.
“Do you think I look like Mother?
She is laughing.”
Vincent
looked sharply at Sephiroth, a child born so long ago that he looked the same
age as Vincent himself, a child he had seen delivered.
For the first time since waking up to Cloud’s startled face, he
felt…afraid. “She…is laughing? Your
mother…?” His fingers slowly
uncurled and let the gun fall to the bed with a soft bounce.
“Indeed.”
Sephiroth smiled, but his eyes were narrowed.
“She told me to stay away from you, because you were too dangerous, but
I know…” he chuckled softly, “I know you wouldn’t harm me out of
turn.”
“I
– I’m not – “ Vincent felt
dismayed. She thought him
dangerous? She was laughing at him?
Cruel, cruel…
“Oh,
I know.” His grin was little more
than a baring of teeth; Vincent stifled a shiver.
“Mother says she talks to you too, but you won’t listen to her.”
“What?!”
The thought of her trying to speak to him, and unable to make herself
heard to him, made him suddenly want to weep.
He closed his eyes against the wave of anguish.
“Don’t
you know?” Sephiroth said in an amused tone.
“She wants to love you…as she loves me.”
His voice sounded too close.
Vincent’s
eyes flew open and met the brilliant blue gaze; Sephiroth was only inches away
from him, standing and leaning over him slightly.
“She
says you could have been my father, but you didn’t love her enough.”
Silver hair cascaded on either side of Vincent’s view, but he
couldn’t move back, couldn’t push the other man away.
He was more beautiful than any man should have been, yet underneath it
all was a coldness, the coldness of someone who had never really loved anything.
He really was the child of Lucrecia and Hojo: lovely to a fault, but as
cold as hard science. It was…entrancing.
But
he had heard Sephiroth’s words. “I
didn’t…love her? But I didn’t
want to make… You…are…
You can’t be happy, can you?” he said haltingly, trying to find his
voice while looking into those eyes. “I
didn’t want to bring a child into that kind of…misery.”
Such cruelty! How could she think that he didn’t love her?
“Ah,
but I know my purpose now, and everything I’ve endured so far has fallen away.
I will return the planet to glory…!
But won’t you help me, Vincent? Mother
would be so pleased…”
Vincent
was taken aback by the question; hadn’t he joined Cloud’s little band to stop
Sephiroth? But…
“Would she…would she speak to me then?” he asked in a whisper.
”Of course,” Sephiroth purred. “I’ll
show you how to hear her.” There
was a subtle note of triumph in his voice as he leaned down.
Vincent
was too startled to even close his eyes as the other man kissed him.
Untouched for so long, he felt a sudden heat flush his face, and a
corresponding burning shame. Only
Lucrecia could arouse such feelings, and only Hojo could make him feel so dirty,
and so helpless, for having them. Could
their son do both? He tasted blood,
and suddenly the voice of Jenova flooded into his brain, laughing mockingly and
seemingly singing a paean of unexpected victory.
With a violent shudder, he shoved Sephiroth away.
“You
poor fool,” he moaned, feeling the self-loathing rising again.
“Sephiroth, Jenova is not your mother!”
Sephiroth
was licking his lower lip where he had bitten himself.
He smiled nastily at Vincent. “You
are the fool, ‘Father’. She
loves me…”
“She
speaks nothing but self-serving lies!”
“Ah…”
The blue eyes blazed in sudden anger.
“Ah, but you are the liar, Vincent!”
He seized a handful of Vincent’s hair in his hand and pulled his head
back sharply. “Mother
says…Mother says…” A sudden
smile crossed his face and he bit the middle finger of his glove, pulling it off
with his teeth. “Mother says you
love to feel pain…”
He
had rather long nails for a man, long enough to dig into the skin, but Vincent
had true claws. He held
Sephiroth’s hand away from him with his hateful left hand, trying to keep his
metal talons out of play. He
was strangely reluctant to hurt the man, even though he had broken out of the
spell cast by those eyes. “She
lies again,” he hissed. “I hate
the pain, and I hate her, and I hate your father, and I hate myself!”
“But
you do not hate me?” Sephiroth asked, sounding truly curious.
He did not push back against Vincent’s clawed grip, but Vincent got the
impression that the SOLDIER could overpower his wiry strength easily.
“I
can’t hate you…I don’t even know you,” Vincent murmured.
“And you’ve played no part in my torture…”
He closed his eyes. “Until
now.” He smiled bitterly. “You
carry on the work of your father. He
stole your mother from me, and you mock her memory.”
“Jenova
is my mother, you fool,” Sephiroth snarled.
“You know nothing.” He
easily overpowered Vincent’s grip and grasped the man’s throat, his nails
digging in slightly but not drawing blood.
“I could tear out your throat. Mother
is right; you are too dangerous. But…”
Vincent
wondered why Sephiroth had paused, but then his mind was assaulted by such an
attack as he had never experienced before.
He realized that Sephiroth was trying to batter down the walls of his
mind, to get inside and insinuate himself into his psyche.
But he could not force his will on Vincent; Hojo’s tinkering had
ensured that. He smiled against the
agony; the irony was delicious.
“She
was right,” Sephiroth muttered, sounding disappointed.
“Ah, well. It might have
been nice, to have a father…or a brother.”
He laughed mockingly and began to dig his nails into Vincent’s neck.
There
was a sound of a key turning in the lock of the door; with a curse, Sephiroth
released Vincent from his grasp. “Our
business is not finished, ‘Father’,” he said darkly, fading away like a
specter.
Vincent
pulled his hair forward to hide the five half-moon cuts on his neck as the door
swung open. “Vincent?
Are you still awake?” Cloud
and Aeris stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light in the hall.
---
Well...that was fun. ^.^ I rather wish it was a longer story, but I
can't really make things longer than the first time I write them without
sounding like I'm stretching. As it is, it conveys the story I want it to
convey. What do you think?
If you've seen the manga, you may recognize some
of the imagery, at least, from "Satan Impact". The story's a bit
different, though. ^.^; What can I say -- the image of Seph kissing Vin-sama
kind of...er...hit a chord?
Doufuku is translated as "born of the same mother" or
"kindred spirits". I was looking for a bit of a pun. ^^;
This takes place in the same "universe", so to speak, as "Zokumei no Fuhon'i", so if you're curious about what Hojo did to Vincent, you can read the Henkei there. ^.^