To Death
Part One: Before Death
By Dreaming of Everything

Author's Notes: I'm beginning to think that I have a slight fixation on death…

Anyways. I love this pairing and wanted to write it. It was inspired by a poem that should feature in the next chapter.

This is planned out for four chapters, and features CHARACTER DEATH. This is an ANGST STORY, lacking happy endings of they type that I usually like and write.

The ending may still feature a note of hope, of happiness, maybe. It's still to be decided. Bear with me here, heavy-duty angst fans.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or anything relating to it. The poem "Sixtieth Birthday Dinner" was written by Michael Ryan and may or may not belong to him. The idea and writing is mine.

oOoOoOo

My life with you has been beyond beyond
and there's nothing beyond it I'm seeking.

I just don't want to leave it, and I am
with every silken bite of tiramisu.
I wouldn't mind being dead
if I could still be with you.

--From"Sixtieth Birthday Dinner" by Michael Ryan

oOoOoOo

Cid was getting older. That was natural; that was normal. It shouldn't be a problem, wouldn't be a problem, if the situation had been normal. Cid was as down-to-earth as they came—Hell yeah he'd die, it's what happened, and if anyone made a fuss out of it he'd come back out of the Lifestream and swear at them until they stopped. He would die, and that was that.

But Vincent wasn't getting older. Vincent wasn't going to die. And he knew enough to know that Vincent was far too fucked up in the head to deal with his death—not on top of everything else, not considering what he'd been through, what he was—even if he did swear him out from beyond the grave.

He was fine with dying, but not with how Vincent would react to him dying.

Vincent needed him. Yeah, he needed Vin, but not like the other depended on him. Needed him.

Vincent wasn't a case of 'once burned, twice shy;' it was more 'once burned, try to spend the rest of his life attempting to not-live, in complete isolation because he can't manage to kill himself.' Cid knew better than to imagine Vincent moving on after he had died—it was like expecting Cloud to stop pinning the world's woes on himself. It was like Yuffie giving away free materia.

He didn't want to leave Vincent, both because of what it would do to him, but also because of himself. He would miss him—maybe not miss everything, like how he would withdraw into himself every so often, disappearing momentarily, and worrying the shit out of everyone else, but yes, even that; he'd miss everything, because it was who Vincent was, just as much a part of him as everything else.

Hell. Cid didn't know what to do.

He was dying and there was nothing that was going to change that, and Vin wasn't dying, and there certainly wasn't anything to change that, and he didn't think anything was going to change Vincent himself, and that was the problem.

…And, as far as he knew, only Sephiroth had managed to scrape himself back out of the Lifestream, and then in the form of three fuck-all-psychotic silver-haired teenagers, and it involved all that Jenova shit. He really couldn't rely on being able to return every six months or so to convince Vincent to eat and wash and breath and move and talk to people.

They didn't know how long Vincent would live, and so they didn't know how long Vincent would spent curled in on himself, hiding and hurt and despairing because he had lost someone he loved, again, and it always happened like this, didn't it? And then there would be the guilt, because they were old friends, guilt and Vin, the kind that can never avoid each other and never really want to, subconsciously, though they do, on the surface, of course they do. Destructive, but familiar, the way things were.

Vincent Valentine. He had shut himself away because it was easier to forget, easier to just sleep and hurt and atone and apologize, for everything, but he had roused himself to save the world from what might have been his mistake. And while he was saving the world he had fallen into unexpected love—or stumbled, maybe, or been captured by—and had finally let the barriers he had maintained for the last fifty, sixty years drop, bewildered by Cid Highwind.

Cid hadn't liked Vincent to start out with, too introverted and self-aware and guilty, and not understanding that living is atonement, that learning, that moving on, is how you best heal the mistakes you've made in the past, not refusing to learn from them like some sulky three-year-old who got in a fight and refuses to talk to, to look at, anyone else the rest of the afternoon.

But Vincent had been through a hell of a lot, and it was hard to blame him for what he had done. Hell, Cid would have been tempted to do the same, if he had gone through it. Vin had had an incredibly, fucking cruel life, even among their group's standards, the people who had defeated Sephiroth and saved the world—and they had all gone through the world's blender once or twice, coming out the worse for wear each time.

He had grown to respect him. Understand him, somewhat, though he resisted that as much as he could manage. He had grown to love him, with every fiber of his old, grumpy, obscenity-laden, nicotine-addicted, unredeemable self. Vincent had seen something in him, as well, and maybe it was just because they had gone up against Sephiroth and Meteor and the end of the world, because they certainly weren't the only couple to get together because of it. But still, they had found each other, or stumbled onto each other while struggling around blindly—and, in Cid's case, drunk—in the darkness of confusion that always seems to cloud over life.

Cid was going to miss him. Would miss spending time with him, would miss the sex—yes, he'd definitely miss that—might even miss snapping him out of his twice-yearly sulkfest. (Not that he called it that…)

He didn't mind dying, but he didn't want to die. He wasn't ready, even though he was, because Vincent wasn't ready, and might never be. He had never felt this helpless.

And there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Most of all, he didn't want to leave him to himself.

--end part one--