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The Last Kiss

A VinTi moment stolen at the end of times.

They scurried from the crater, insects purged from within by the rising amorphous swell of Lifestream, greedily consuming all in its wake without prejudice. Yet the relief at reaching the safety of the Highwind was short-lived.

The ship protested as loudly as it could with all of the voices that it had at its disposal; engines groaned, propellers whirred and whined, consoles beeped and blipped, while sirens wailed in synchrony with a display of glaring and flashing amber lights. They are pitched from side to side as if on the deck of a boat upon a tumultuous sea. It is all she can do to cling weakly to a handrail and wait for smoother waters to come.

Yet, they hurtle towards Midgar to watch their final adversary do it’s worse. Tifa found it ironic that Avalanche had once sought to destroy the city, and all it came to represent. She would give anything to see it safe and delivered from the wrath of Meteor.

She surveys their number; Cait and Red, animated and watchful in turn; Yuffie, Barret and Cid too, presence all the more obvious through his litany of curses, uttered through the ever-present haze of tobacco smoke; finally, equally obstinate in silence and reverie, were Cloud and Vincent.

To the latter, she gives a double take. The most conspicuous elements of his garb were either damaged or missing entirely. She recalled having struggled alongside him in their hastened retreat from the crater – a helping hand here, a careful shot over the shoulder to ward off would-be pursuant monsters there. She hadn’t noted his current state of dishabille, or anything that could account for it.

He was bleeding from the temple – stark and bright crimson glaring against the pale flesh. His bandana nowhere to be seen. It occurred to her she had never been graced with the sight of his forehead before this moment.

She runs a hand up her arm without conscious thought guiding her. At the touch of alien fabric and the reemergence of a forgotten ache, she remembers.

There hadn’t been time (or, she suspected, the energy between them) for a heal spell. Someone – evidently Vincent – had taken a moment to stay the bleeding with a substitute bandage-turned-tourniquet before they ploughed onward, toward the unknown.

She feels the release in tension in her face as her furrowed brow softens.

He didn’t know she studied him so closely now; he was in conference with Cid at the panels, uttering enquires and nodding seriously as Cid gave his expletive-peppered reply.

Somewhere between their descent and their emergence, the clasps of his cloak at his throat had broken. The normally obscuring fabric now rested lose at his shoulders. Uninhibited, all angles of his face and bone structure were thrown into stark relief in the angry red glare. She has so many questions all of a sudden.

Then came the light, piercing and consuming all; brightness beyond measure, giving little consideration for eyelids, bursting through, uninvited. She throws up her arms to shield her face - It is all she can think to do – though the ship violently tilts and sways still. Desperately, she seeks the safety of an anchoring handrail, only to lose her balance. Precious footing is lost. She knows not if she is oriented toward ground or sky.

Then a firm grip takes root at her elbow, steadying her. A body draws closer, anchoring them both to the handrail, trapping her between them and it.

She gasps with relief. The ground underfoot ceases its churning, but still she is drowning in white light. She shifts even closer to her anchor, finding leather arm braces and a solid shoulder encased in flowing fabric.

Vincent.

"Is it safe to look?” She whispers, ducking her forehead to his chest.

“Hm.”

Either the brightness has abated or her eyes had adjusted. Midgar was being torn apart slowly by the searing heat and gravitational pull of meteor. Yet something – a blanket of the most beautiful holy light – was trying to cushion Midgar.

“Holy?” She whispers, leaning closer still. She closes her eyes again, Midgar’s fiery outline seared onto her retina. He does not answer, but she feels movement and hears air escaping him in a stilted way that suggested he was hesitating in his answer. Perhaps for fear of what it meant, or in hope; as if somehow, giving voice to the possibility of redemption would be blasphemous.

She feels his arm tighten its hold around her, perhaps seeking proximity, solidity; so afraid of the end that was come to bother with shyness now. She leans back into the warm press of his forearm along her back, the firmness of his chest braced against her shoulder, tearing her eyes away from and turning her back toward Armageddon come and into his warmth.

Her knuckles tighten as she takes a fistful of fabric, still-weeping wounds bleeding anew, splitting open. She stares into the exposed face of Vincent Valentine, both a stranger and friend, and right now the only man who saw her.

The map of her face told of a journey littered with loss and disappointment; of unkept promises and lost causes. She smiles softly, and not for the first time, Vincent finds himself marvelling at how beautiful she is; Bloody, bruised, patched together with the fabric of his bandana.

She’d rather be in his arms, not yours, his sarcastic inner voice sneers.

Yet... the tremble of her mouth and the tilt of her chin... She was a woman with nothing left to lose and a list of curiosities unsated. A thirst for life that was never quenched.

Well. Beggars can’t be choosers. And if their rapidly approaching doom was not inducing Cloud to see sense, then... So many questions, and no time in which to answer them.

She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and tugs him downward, hungry mouth finding his partly open in surprise. The clamour around them goes on uninterrupted. He tastes like iron; or maybe that is her? She doesn’t know. Hands, one flesh the other encased in metal encircle her waist, pulling her closer still. Her breath is stolen from her, feet almost leaving the ground as he enfolds her completely.

The heat from Meteor is swelling as each moment passes. She feels sweat glide between her shoulder blades, sticking her shirt to her skin beneath Vincent’s palm.

She isn’t willing to err on the side of caution now.

She parts her lips, standing on tip toe to press more firmly against him. Darting out her tongue to taste him, it seems like the only encouragement he needs. The bar of the handrail digs into her lower back as he leans into her, finger tips of his flesh hand trailing a path to the nape of her neck and deliciously exploring her scalp. He gently bites her lower lip.

She groans longingly against his mouth.

They withdraw, unflinching as a console nearby begins to smoke and beep loudly before emitting sparks, sensors sent haywire by the strange electromagnetic and gravitational anomalies occurring before them.

He traces her jawline with his thumb, expression unfathomable. She studies his face intently, exploring set lines and angles so recently revealed, skin molten in the fierce inferno beyond the bridge; shadows and dips and scars mapping the face of a man with whom she had her last kiss with. The last kiss that had also been their first.

And what a kiss it had been.

A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, sending a small scar at his jawline twitching upward. The shadow of the man he had become since his Turk days almost vanishes completely. He may as well be wearing a finely tailored suit, and a haircut as sharp as that jawline.

“If there is such a thing as an afterlife.... promise me you won’t keep kisses like that to yourself, Valentine.”

The ghost of that smirk lingers for a few moments longer.

The heat swells, but the light... it is too bright. She cannot look, cannot keep her eyes open. She burrows her face into his shirt and waits for the end to come.

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