Cloud, despite his favoritism for Tifa, still held feelings for Aeris. It was not hard for those in close proximity of the couple to see there was something between Vincent and Aeris.
In his well-meaning, yet still selfish attempt to bring Aeris closer to him and help the resident pilot’s feelings of frustration, Cloud often left with Aeris and abandoned the others, including Vincent and Cid, together at the plane.
Aeris would not have taken well to being left out anyway. Ever since they found the temple of what she believed to be ‘her people’ she had practically proclaimed herself unofficial leader over cloud.
Then, one day, she took off. She said she would defeat Sephiroth by herself.
And she was gone. In a truer sense than anyone knew at the time.
Cloud, in both his pride and compassion, could not let her face Sephiroth by herself. He got there only in time to witness a placidly poetic scene and to fight a disgustingly hideous monster that killed all tranquility of mourning.
Vincent knew none of this. Not until Cloud told him and after Aeris’s death, Cloud felt like talking to no one. So, after spending days trying to avoid being in the same room alone with a man whom Vincent felt could not keep his hands to himself, Cloud came back, the party one person short. As much as Vincent was afraid of people, he needed someone there for him. He needed someone to prove he would not be locked in a closet or a coffin again.
Vincent was lost. Aeris was not there. Cloud would not tell him what had happened to her. There was only one direction to turn to and he was not sure if the thought of sleeping alone, his mind telling him he’d sleep for another thirty years if he did, or sleeping with the only person he could feel close enough to be close to scared him more.
He turned scared eyes to Cid, who saw only the strange gleam, not the fear, and just smiled. He had kept doing—trying at least—little things he never paid any attention to. He attributed Vincent’s sudden and intense fear of him as being spontaneous.
He had no idea such tiny actions—his tiny actions—were the cause. What harm could there ever have been in brushing away a fallen eyelash from someone who confided their soul in you? How could touching their arm, not even the hand, be wrong? He never thought anyone would be afraid, annoyed maybe, of Cid brushing stray bangs out of Vincent’s red eyes just to see if they were even in color or held streaks of different shades of crimson.
Vincent had opted for not sleeping at all, a plan that failed around one in the morning. True, he had gained back most of his previous fat and muscle, but that did not mean emotional exhaustion would not keep him from the stamina he once had.
Until the, Cid had thought everything harmless. True Vincent would run away, but he always came back. He never talked about anything, and just stared at Cid with the same glare in his eyes that Cid never knew how to read. But Vincent was really staying away this time. Cid had really done something wrong.
Cid knew Vincent was staying in the cafeteria, hiding from Cid, from everyone else, from sleep, from himself.
He failed in all of them. Cid retrieved Vincent after he dozed off in a corner. Cid tentatively touched Vincent’s cheek to check how deeply asleep he was. Asleep, that much was true, but certainly not comfortable. Vincent may not have awoken, but he shifted he face away from Cid’s touch immediately, a strangled noise of fear accompanying the action.
Cid had retrieved Nanaki for the expedition of bringing Vincent to bed. He left the canine with Vincent after pulling the covers over the sleeping man, and went to use Aeris’s bed for himself, very sure that no matter what fate she had suffered, she would not mind letting him borrow it.
Later, since the whole incident had kept all three up past midnight, the same day, Cid was about to apologize to Vincent. He had no idea what he really did that called for apologies, but he wasn’t so careless with other’s emotions that he was going to wait for one.
He would have to wait, however. Cloud had mentally beaten himself up for being so cruel to Vincent by keeping him away from Aeris. Cloud would have been angry himself if kept from his lover’s death, kept from the closure and the loss of them made greater with the anonymity of leaving the world without seeing it.
He told everyone what happened, and tried to cover and drown his grief in his mission. He thought it was his alone now, his fault entirely for the flaws, the losses, the slow pace, the lack of supplies and specific items alike.
Meanwhile, Vincent was wondering exactly how to feel. He felt he was abandoning the mission and people who rescued him. He wondered if he had any right to mourn her, for Cloud had mourned her as a lover, what right did he have to steal her away in life, let alone in death? Perhaps it was his fault. Perhaps somehow if he hadn’t been so selfish as to sleep with another person’s loved one, even if she had reciprocated, actions could have been played out differently.
He forgot his fear about people. He wanted answers above security. He wanted to know he hadn’t killed Aeris. He wanted to now Cloud didn’t hate him. He wanted to be needed and needed to know it was safe for someone to need him.
Of course Cid was there, but Vincent didn’t register it. He was barely aware of hands around his waist, over his clothes, not under or without; soft words were whispered, they were only about him and no one else, soothing and calming, nothing else.
There was no ‘I want you.’ There was never ‘What excites you?’ There was no trace of ‘You poor, pathetic fool,’ or even ‘you’re mine.’
There was nothing but one voice, not his own, telling him everything was safe, that nothing was his fault, that he did nothing wrong.
It wasn’t just the words, not just the soothing way they were said, not just the feeling of being held without hands on his skin or trying to touch it, but a mixture of all along with the distinct smell and feel of being with Cid, someone he’d fallen in love with a long time ago and hit his head on the way down.