For Reeve

[emovampboy]

When it came to use of his phone, Vincent was very much like Cloud. He left it on, received messages and listened to or read them, but quite rarely responded. The few times he did respond tended to be if he deemed an actual answer to be required, or when from time to time Marlene got hold of Cloud or Tifa's phone and contacted him. Since it was so rare for her to do so, he always took it as a good thing to answer.

Which meant he had answered when she called him a few days after a message from Tifa asking him to come to a party for the girl, which he had ignored; his first mistake. Once answered, the girl had spent several minutes speaking to him, until suddenly springing the question of if he were coming to her party and making it quite impossible for him to really say no without seeming like a total heel, and so he agreed to go; his second mistake. And then he had made his third mistake - actually going.

At first, it really wouldn't have seemed to have been a bad idea. He knew everyone who was invited, how they acted around one another, and that Tifa would keep the whole group from going completely crazy over the course of the night, but he had not expected having to assist in breaking up one of Cloud and Barrett's squabbles when the woman had to leave for a short time to fetch something, and honestly he was glad that Reeve was invited and could help diffuse the situation with; especially when Yuffie and a very unhelpful Cid decided it would be a great idea to bet on who would win if they actually took to fistacuffs over whatever stupid thing it was this time which set them off.

All of this had left him rather done with company, and as soon as Tifa was back to be the adult in the situation, he'd snuck outside for some relative peace and quiet.

Comments

[plate_builder]

“Love does things that make no sense,” Reeve admits. In a way he envies her that. Having someone to care for so deeply, to anchor her.

Reeve almost asks what Vincent saw considering that statement, but he knows better. It’s invasive. And might make him self-conscious. So instead he returns his gaze to the window.

“I would also say she has been good for him. After Aeris died I found myself wondering how he even kept going. If he would. Who we would turn to if he couldn’t handle it anymore. I respect Barret and all of that, but it wasn’t him. And I don’t know that Cid would have been a long term solution.”

[emovampboy]

He saw what everyone else did. That Cloud was too trapped inside his own mind to always realize what was going on around him. To realize the person who held the key to himself was standing there the whole time, and it wasn't Aeris.

"He loved Aeris, but it wasn't real love, was it?" Vincent looks up to Reeve, paused on whatever image he's just been examining. "She quieted something in him he wasn't ready to face, but she was never someone he could be with."

[plate_builder]

“Zack. She quieted the Zack in him. She knew it, I think,” Reeve says softly. “He was a good person, Mister Fair.”

With a sigh he returns his attention to Vincent. “I have some ones of her too. Perhaps I should redo one and have it framed for the Church. Or her mother.”

[emovampboy]

"There's no way she didn't know." Vincent nods, but he really had never met the man. Too busy asleep when the whole mess had gone down, and everything he knew of Zack, of Sephiroth and Nibelheim and Cloud was what he'd been told. What he did know was that woman, Aeris... "Didn't you ever notice she knew far more about everything than she should have?

"And her mother... The church is too close to Cloud."

[plate_builder]

“Her mother, then,” Reeve resolves. He reaches across Vincent to flip a few pages to his last drawing of her, from before she left the group.

“I think... she might have forgiven me for what I did. For the reactors. I hope.”

[emovampboy]

Vincent looks down at the image, gentle lines mixed with slightly harder ones where details were being filled out on the image. "I don't think she blames anyone, not really... I could be wrong, but I really don't."

[plate_builder]

“I know,” Reeve sighs. “But I still wish to find forgiveness for what I have done.”

Aeris. He stares at the picture and shakes his head. He almost can’t handle looking at her.

[emovampboy]

"I understand." And he does. Yet there's no reason to seek it from Aeris. The girl was somehow part of the world in ways none of them could understand, and she understood more than any of them.

[plate_builder]

Yet only she could offer it from the world at large. He hurt more than people.

“I expected you might.”

Hope dinner was good!

[emovampboy]

Vincent nods, and stops on an image, before turning it to Reeve. It's one of the few with any sort of color to it, and he's curious about what was chosen. "No red eyes for me, despite keeping the rest of my red?"

Wonderful. They cook well.

[plate_builder]

“Your eyes are beautiful. Deep and pensive, full of consideration for the world. They needed to leap off the page. The rest being in red, black and white made it impossible. Thus the gold.”

Not just yellow. A gold inked pen, clearly filled with some speckles of some pigment to make them glint. How he saw Vincent.

always good :)

[emovampboy]

"Interesting..." Vincent studies it a moment longer, before turning the page and finding the last one has Nanaki helping what seems to be a very airsick Yuffie off the bridge and chuckling. "Oh, if Yuffie saw this you'd never see the end of it. Great for the ending of this book, though."

Re: always good :)

[plate_builder]

“I haven’t had time to draw much since then. Mostly designs for projects,” Reeve shrugs. Diagrams for robotics. Designs for buildings. So much going on.

The world didn’t seem the place for pictures anymore.

[emovampboy]

"You should make some time. Probably would relax you." Vincent hands the book back.

[plate_builder]

“I can barely manage to make time for sleep,” Reeve counters. He takes poor care of himself. No shock there. But he will accept the book back if Vincent is done.

[emovampboy]

"I suppose we will have to work on that if we are dating." Vincent gives him the smallest of smiles. "No good if you're always exhausted."

[plate_builder]

“See, now I can tell myself that I have to behave, or my boyfriend will quietly judge me,” Reeve smiles. But then he leans in and kisses Vincent again, light and sweet. He wouldn’t dare anything more than that. And when he is done he pulls away, not far, but far enough to speak.

“You just might make me a better man.”

[emovampboy]

"Not judge," he corrects, accepting the loss and returning it gently, the smile remaining on his face. "Just I might have to get you drunk when I come if you don't rest. It worked well last night."

[plate_builder]

“Do that again and you might get attention your aren’t ready for,” Reeve counters. Could easily end up with him being far more forward than he should be.

[emovampboy]

"I'm aware of the risks." Vincent keeps his eyes locked on Reeve. "However, I think I could overpower you if it became necessary."

[plate_builder]

“Yes, I don’t doubt that,” Reeve admits. “I just wouldn’t want that to affect... I don’t want to mess this up, Vincent.”

There has been more than enough instances of him doing that in his life. He can’t do that now.

[emovampboy]

"Why would it affect something, if I already know what you want?" Vincent looks honestly confused. "I also know what you say when drunk, and what you've told me you are like. However, I know you wouldn't do anything I disliked."

[plate_builder]

“There is a propriety to pursuing a man as more than a means to fill a bed,” Reeve counters. “And as you are one of few people who fall into the very small overlap of to my taste and safe to pursue... well, I would prefer that any potential failure come from actual actions that I would choose, rather than base desires.”

Control, clearly Reeve desires to retain it in himself, to no small degree. If all else fails, control over himself would still matter to him.

[emovampboy]

Ah. He doesn't entirely understand, but he understands enough. Reeve is considerate, and like Vincent before, worried to step a bit too far, even if in different ways. But it's different. Not like he and Lucrecia...

Vincent resches forward, gently grabbing Reeve's chin and making sure the man looks at him as he speaks. "I can't hold against you something that isn't meant to mean anything cruel. I would know very well that you weren't just after bedding me. If you were, I'm sure our game of cards would not have featured screws as payment."

[plate_builder]

“Perhaps it would have, just aiming at a different kind,” Reeve laughs. But oh what eyes Vincent forces him to meet.

“If you are... willing to deal with the foolishness of me when tipsy and less worried of scaring you off, then I might entertain acquiring something resembling alcohol here.”