Requested by Mako Headrush, who wanted some VinSmut in the middle of me toiling away on a multichapter piece elsewhere. So I pulled this out, dusted it off, and lemoned it up.

Damned Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, I'd be able to afford my own computer.

Company

I've been sleeping for some hours
Just woke up and you were there
Like the morning, like the flowers
Sunlight whispering in my ears
Red tail hawk shooting down the canyon
Put me on that wind he rides
I will be your true companion
When we reach the other side-John Hiatt, Before I Go

He was getting pretty good at sensing the presence behind him. Of course, chip bags tended to rattle a bit. Not stealth items, exactly.

"Get out of that, Vin."

"'m hungry," he mumbled around a mouthful of bacon cheese scoops.

"You're always hungry, get out of my chips, and I'll be done in a minute." It was more like thirty minutes, his chips were likely gone anyway, and he was never sure how a man who hadn't been a Turk in three decades gained access to this floor on a regular basis.

He heard the bag crumple and hit the wastebasket on the first try. He fought a smile, not really wanting to encourage the man but at the same time, not really minding it either. He was still lost in the momentary reflection when he felt the back of his chair shift from Vincent hanging off it. "So, what are you doing?"

"Spreadsheet for tomorrow's meeting in Kalm. Be done in a minute," he repeated. He was definitely smiling now. Vincent was licking crumbs off his fingers and it was becoming a distraction.

"Mmmmm…"

"Don't even think about it."

"Oh come on. It's not like we've never…"

"Not during business hours, we haven't. Window?" Rude pointed at the large window that looked out on the main office. "Now sit still and behave." Like that was going to happen. He typed in a few more columns and hit save, looking over his shoulder. Vincent, apparently finding nothing else to eat in his office, was sitting in the other chair with his feet pulled under him, the apparent picture of innocence.

Rude knew better. He glared without any real heat.

"Don't look at me like that. You act like I'm some stalker nymphomaniac who just shows up to eat all your food."

Rude's eyebrow was more expressive than some novels Vincent had read.

"I'll take you out for wine?"

"In a beer mood, and you owe me chips." Vincent's philosophy seemed to be, when in doubt, buy your way out of, or into, trouble. And it hadn't taken Rude long to learn to negotiate.

"You win on the beer, and how about a cheeseburger?"

"Good. You packed for tomorrow?"

A soft almost-smile, and Rude nearly relented on the office sex before Reno knocked on the door to ask some question he didn't really hear. It was as good a time as any to cut out early, with the next day's planning meeting as an excuse.

Rude always ended up driving at least one person, every time. He suspected it was because he was the only person in their extended network of friends who owned a car that actually had air conditioning, seats, and a working transmission, which ruled out anything Reno would drive. The curse of reliability, he decided. He was going to do something about that, someday. Buy a microscopic two-seater and drive like a bat out of hell, like everyone else. Though he supposed a convertible the size of Elena's was out, considering his height. Not that he minded his cargo for this trip too much.

The planning meeting would be the first time in over a year Vincent would have seen some of his old friends from AVALANCHE. The presence of the Turks could be a tense one, but they and the WRO security would be working together to ensure Reeve Tuesti's safety at an upcoming public event, not to mention the presence of Rufus as a guest. It was important that everyone be there, and work together.

Vincent was looking forward to his security duties with all the enthusiasm of a man facing the firing squad. Rude spared another glance across to the passenger seat. Vincent had put on some weight, finally. It looked good on him. The shadows under his eyes had faded, too. Rude wasn't arrogant enough to think it had that much to do with his recent presence in the gunman's life.

No, general life outside the coffin, as Vincent called it with his typical irreverence, was good for him. He had friends now, a home, people who needed him. A steady diet of afternoon naps and really good cheeseburgers and nice red wine probably didn't hurt. Not that sex was a bad thing. Though, occupied beds were a lot harder to get out of in the morning, from Rude's point of view. Especially if Vincent was feeling frisky. As if roused by his thoughts, the figure next to him began to stir. "Morning, sunshine."

"How long have we been on the road?" He stretched.

"Couple hours. We should hit Kalm by lunch."

"Mmm. Good, I'm starving."

"There's a surprise."

"Hey, I'm skinny. I need the calories." He looked critically down at himself. True, Vincent was still slender but not unattractively so. His tight jeans clung to his hips and legs in a way that would make Rude wreck the car if he looked at it too long, and the dark gold raw silk shirt set off his eyes and hair to perfection. When he had crawled into the car, half asleep and still carrying a pillow that morning, he had been warm and damp and smelling of soap from his shower, and had a little crease on his cheek from the bedsheets. It was all Rude could do to not throw him over the seat for a quickie. "Thanks for the ride, by the way."

Rude wondered if he should even reply to that. One thing he loved about being with Vincent was that there was no need for extraneous conversation—he was one of the few people not to take silence as an offense. On the contrary, their mutual quiet made them very compatible. But still…did the man seriously think they were going to get out of the same bed to drive separately to the same destination? With Vincent, one never knew. In the end, all he said was the truth. "You're good company."

"All I've done is sit here and snore and drool on the upholstery."

Rude's only response was to reach over and tangle his hand in Vincent's hair, and go back to driving.

Reeve greeted his friend warmly. "You are looking well, Vince." For the life of him, Vincent couldn't figure out why no one, no one at all who was significant in his life could pronounce his full name. To Cloud and Rude, he was Vin. To Yuffie, he was Vinnie, said as though the ninja had been huffing helium for the last several hours. To Cid he would forever be Val or possibly Vinnie if the pilot had been drinking with Yuffie. Tifa and Reeve called him Vince. Stars were constant in their courses; his friends were even more stubborn.

The only person who had ever called him Vincent was Lucrecia.

Here there be monsters.

Best not follow that train of thought any further.

He sighed and returned Reeve's embrace. "The last time you saw me, I was at least fifty pounds thinner and in a hospital gown. I do hope I have improved somewhat in appearance."

"The new dosages working out for you?"

"Yes, sleeping well. A little too well, sometimes. That blue pill wasn't kidding when the label said take at bedtime. It's bedtime when I take it, no matter what I planned on doing." It had stifled the spontaneous sex, to say the least. Until Vincent had simply learned to not take the damn thing until after Rude was asleep for the night. But it beat insomnia and nightmares, he supposed. He felt Rude's eyebrows rise behind him. He'd be explaining all that pill talk on the way home. Perhaps he should have been a bit more honest about his medical history before getting naked.

The meeting was an informal affair. The event wasn't for another six months and it was more a brainstorming session and division of duties than anything else. Reeve sat on the edge of the table rather than taking a place behind the podium. "All right, everyone. Thank you for coming. I realize it's a bit of a drive from Edge but it's an excuse to take a long weekend off. Yuffie, Cid, and Barret couldn't make it but they'll be getting the notes later. Elena ran into some traffic and will be here in a few minutes." Reno and Cloud were already there, likely because of Cloud's driving. Vincent had ridden behind him a few times on Fenrir but being a mildly insane driver himself, he didn't see what everyone bitched about.

If you didn't want to go fast, after all, you could walk. Wheels were for speed.

Tseng had spent the night, apparently, and helped Reeve pass out meeting agendas as Elena made a quiet and hasty entrance, giving Vincent a full face smack of a kiss on the way in. He felt himself blush. Damn women. Oh well, she let him raid the candy jar on her desk, and usually kept the good stuff too. Reno ate cheap shit.

"What about Cid and Barret? I don't quite see them in formal attire. Not without a sizable bribe involved." Tseng looked skeptical. He also looked more relaxed than Vincent had ever seen him; his hair down, and longer than he had noticed. Like everyone else he was dressed casually and one leg was tucked up under the other. Overall, he looked ten years younger.

"Vince? This is your ball of wax. I'll let you field that one."

"Typically at formal WRO events, Cid and Barret work the outside parking lots or entrances. It's what they prefer, they are good at it, and it saves us the social and political awkwardness of their interaction with certain factions which may not appreciate their more direct approach to communication, or explaining to Cid the concept of No Smoking Area."

"Gods, Vince. I have got to learn how you do that, off the cuff like that. Maybe you should be the one in politics, not me." Reeve looked completely impressed.

"Gods forbid. Oh, and Reeve?"

"Yes, Vince?"

"No repeat of last time, all right?"

"I merely stepped out for some air."

"With three credible assassination threats at the time? There is plenty of air inside. If the outdoor air is so different that you feel compelled to sample it, take one of us with you. I've already planned to assign Tseng to keep an eye on you personally. Which would not be possible without the cooperation of the Turks, so thank you again." Tseng nodded in response. Elena smiled. Reno made spitballs. Gods only knew what Rude was thinking as Reeve adjourned the meeting and everyone filed out of the room.

Vincent perched on the table for a moment and looked through his own notes and Reeve's chickenscratch, which he read quite well after years in the man's presence, making little reminders to himself in the margins. He barely heard Rude come up behind him and put his hands on his shoulders, pulling him back into a soft embrace.

"Someone might walk in, Rude."

"So? Cloud and Reno are probably off humping in a supply closet somewhere, and I'd put money on Reeve and the boss…"

"Seriously?"

A soft huff of air was his only response. He grinned.

Good for Reeve, he thought. And no wonder Tseng came up early, and looked so relaxed…He opened his mouth to say something to that effect but found it covered by Rude's lips, hard on his mouth as the man's hands turned him on the table to face him. He broke away long enough to say "We have a room…inn…shit, Rude!" He leaned back and laughed, his long black hair pooling on the conference room table, and let his lover pull him up, and out into the fall sun, toward the inn.

Rude was usually gentle. He had said before that he thought Vincent had been treated too roughly in the past and he didn't want to add to it.

It both annoyed and aroused Vincent, depending on his mood, but slammed up against the inside of the inn door, he figured Rude must have gotten over it, at least for the time being. He was lifted clean off his feet and used the situation to his advantage, toeing off his shoes while Rude worked on his neck.

Gods, it was ecstasy, he thought as the second shoe hit the floor. He reached his hand between them to unbutton his shirt—it was a favorite and he didn't trust Rude's current enthusiasm—before rolling his hips down onto Rude's quite sizeable, very hard, very pleasant cock.

Oh yeah, something had put Rude in a happy mood and he'd have to find out what it was, and soon. He threw back his head and cracked it on the door. "Ow. Damn it. Bed?"

"Mpf." Rude half dragged, half carried him over to the bed and stripped back the covers, giving Vincent a chance to strip off his jeans—he liked those too, and hadn't brought a second pair—before setting to work on Rude's clothing, a blissfully simple slacks and t shirt. They met again, naked on the cool sheets in a hard, open mouthed kiss. Rude's groan turned to one of frustration as one of them, it was hard to tell which, knocked the overnight bag to the floor in their writhing. Vincent grabbed it and Rude fished out the lube without looking, dumping the rest of the contents to the side.

They'd clean it up later. For now, their entire world was each other, defined by sighs, moans, touches, and tastes. Vincent spread his thighs under Rude, not wanting to seem needy but feeling, well, pretty damned needy and hoping Rude in his current state would take the hint. He did and he didn't have bother to bite back the groan of relief as he felt first one, then more cool slick fingers press up into him. Thank the gods Rude wasn't in a mood to tease either. He wanted more. The curling fingers inside him, the licking on his neck, was driving him to the edge and he was far past the ability to speak coherently. So, he reached down and wrapped his hand around Rude's erection.

Apparently, it was a sentence that translated in the Rude to English dictionary quite well. He entered Vincent at a pace that was just short of painful, neither being able to wait. All Vincent could do was settle back into the bed in a combination of relief and renewed desire. The pleasure was just building to a peak when Rude pulled out of him and turned him to his side.

"I know you like it like this," he said roughly.

He wondered where Rude had picked up on that tidbit, and dimly remembered one night after the wine bar when he'd practically shoved his ass in Rude's face like a cheap lower plate hooker. Yeah, that would do it. He'd no sooner latched onto the memory than Rude pushed his thigh forward and slipped back into him. His face dropped down to the sweaty dampness of the pillow, and he moaned helplessly.

Yeah. He liked it like that, all right.

That moan continued as Rude dragged across his prostate with each thrust, his hand coming over his side to stroke his erection until he came in hot spurts through Rude's fingers. When it was done, he was utterly boneless and sure he had drooled in his own hair. He was happy when Rude got up to get him a towel, because there was no way he could have walked if his life had depended on it and he had no complaints whatsoever.

Rude looked down at the bed. Or rather, what that bed contained.

Specifically, a nude, sweaty, thoroughly debauched Vincent, sound asleep. It was what he'd wanted since he had gotten in the car this morning.

He felt much better now. A little tired from the effort of fucking the man senseless, he crawled in next to him.

"Mmmmm…"

"Didn't mean to wake you."

"'S okay." He curled into Rude, smiling a little in his half asleep state. In this position, Rude's hand Vincent's ass perfectly, and he thought he might die of happiness. He blinked, waking up, and rose on one elbow. "That was…inspired."

"You looked so good today. It nearly killed me."

"Sorry. The cloak fell apart. I'll have a new one made, if it would better defend your virtuous sensibilities." His voice sounded husky from sleep and all that ecstatic moaning. "What time do we meet the others for dinner?"

"Six. You're beautiful." He thought he was wasting his breath on the last part, but he was rewarded with a brilliant but shy smile. So rare, and so worth it. "Now that you're awake, I want to hear about you being fifty pounds underweight and all these pills I seem to have missed."

Vincent sighed. "A while back, I stopped sleeping. I mean, I would go to sleep but not all the way, like normal people, and gods, the nightmares…"

"You still have them." Waking Vincent up without completely waking himself had become second nature.

"Not like this. My brain just wouldn't shut off. I went straight from being awake, to being awake in a nightmare. Total sleep deprivation. I lost so much weight, because I just wasn't hungry anymore. I was living up here, then. Reeve had a fit and put me in the hospital. That went over well."

"I can imagine." It said something about the state of Vincent's health, that he had even agreed to it, Rude thought.

"Finally someone figured out by process of elimination that I had a sleep disorder. Basically I hadn't slept in almost a year; ironic, for someone who had slept nearly thirty before. So they gave me some pill to even out my brain chemistry—out of whack courtesy of Hojo's monkeying around with it, once again. No one knows why it took this long to pop up, or what else might in the future. Anyway, I slept fifteen hours and woke up starving. All Reeve would let me eat was jello for days because I hadn't eaten in so long. He was afraid I'd puke."

"Gods. You never told me this, why?"

"It's not exactly pillow talk, Rude."

"You can tell me anything." He reached down and gently touched his face, drawing him in for a soft kiss. "How are you now?"

"Other than having a lifelong phobia of jello, I'm well. I take no more pills than Cloud. Not that I would use that as a healthy measuring standard, in the best of circumstances. I'm…well, I don't know if I'd say I'm okay or not. Some days I'm better than others, with what happened to me. I will always be angry. I'll never have a normal life."

"Reno says there is no normal life."

"That is because Reno is not normal."

"And he lives with Cloud."

"There is that, yes." They were quiet for a while. "Rude, I'm serious. I'm a bit…damaged."

"I'll take you. You were on sale cheap." The kiss he gave him left no doubt as to the real reason he wanted to stay.

Dinner was a jovial affair. It looked like everyone had indulged in a bit of afternoon fraternization, including Tseng and Reeve who pretended badly that they hadn't, and Elena who obviously had a regular thing going with the bar manager.

"Damn, I shoulda fucked a bartender at some point in my life," Reno muttered while Elena was away, making arrangements on their tab. "Would have saved a fortune."

"You should have fucked a mechanic, Reno," Cloud snapped back. He timed the comment unfortunately for Tseng, who was in the middle of swallowing his sake. Reeve patted him helpfully on the back, as Reno looked confused.

"Got us another round on the house, guys!" Elena chirped, not quite slurring but not sober either. She placed a bottle of house red blend in front of Vincent and sauvignon blanc for Rude, while Eric or whatever his name was brought pitchers of beer and sake for the rest of the table. Vincent realized a little late that he was leaning back into Rude. And possibly nuzzling.

Oh well. It wasn't like anyone else was being discreet.

"To a successful collaboration," Tseng toasted. Glasses clinked around the table as plates were cleared away.

He felt Rude lean over. "I suppose you can drink on…"

"Yes, Rude. It doesn't work as well if I get, to borrow a Reno term, shithammered, but it's safe." He felt Rude lean back, satisfied with the answer. He didn't look forward to the mother-hen phase until his lover adjusted to certain realities. Maybe he needed a t shirt that said "Yes, I took my pills today."

Then again, it might be nice to be looked after. He'd shortly find out.

He ran into Reeve outside as they were gathering to leave and his friend gave him a knowing look.

"Rude?"

Vincent answered only with a raised eyebrow. Rude, obviously, was rubbing off on him.

"A surprising choice, is all."

"Why?" And why do I keep having to explain this to my friends like I've been caught in bed with some outer space alien? "He doesn't talk my head off, he doesn't invade my personal space when I don't want it, he's old school Turk which gives us something in common, and he's generally good company. He's sarcastic as hell. He makes me laugh. I like him." And you wouldn't believe what he can do with his fingers and tongue, he thought, but wisely kept to himself. Reeve opened his mouth to reply, but Tseng came out of the restaurant and he shut it, his expression thoughtful.

"I'm a bit protective of you."

Vincent smiled. "I noticed. It's all right. I'm happy." Reeve nodded, satisfied.

Reno and Cloud emerged arm in arm, staggering in the direction of the inn. Tseng and Reeve walked a respectable distance apart and pretended to talk shop. Elena stayed at the bar to chat up her boyfriend. For a moment, Vincent stood alone in the night air. Something settled in him, a nice sort of comfort that had a little to do with the company of friends, possibly something to do with a bottle and a half of malbec/franc blend, and a lot to do with the man walking out the door right that moment.

"Ready to head back, babe?"

He nodded, liking the warm way Rude's hand settled on the small of his back as they walked. It's not something they would have done back home, but for tonight it was just fine.