Chapter Twenty-Four: ...And Resurrection
by thelittletree
Fingers stroked slowly through her curls, and the gentle pull against her scalp was comforting. "Elira," Leo whispered as if he was afraid anything louder might break her. "What's wrong? What are you doing here?"
She wasn't crying now, but the pressure of tears at the back of her throat felt like it might suffocate her. Lifting her head seemed like it would take a monumental effort when all she wanted to do was stand in a pair of arms and try to pretend the last quarter hour hadn't happened. But she did it. Leo's curious, concerned gaze shuddered her already shaky control and she felt her expression start to crumble.
She couldn't tell him. Vincent's cold, crimson eyes, the feel of his hand around her wrist, and then the pain... She moaned a little as the tears began again.
"Elira." His voice now had an edge of worry to it. "Elira, what's wrong?"
She shook her head a little and gripped his shirt with her fingers. "Please, don't ask me anything. Just hold me."
He gave a small nod and moved his arms to pull her closer. "Okay, Elira. Okay."
Grateful, she leaned her head back against his shoulder and could hear the beat of his heart. This heart could belong to her, she thought, if she wanted it. Leo was good and kind, and he would never be anything but gentle.
Vincent had never claimed to be gentle, her mind argued immediately. Always looking somewhat disheveled, with a past full of horrors and a demon in his body, he was nothing if not a little rough around the edges. He knew his own nature and had tried to warn her away time and time again.
She'd never asked him to be gentle. Despite the danger, she'd accepted him the way he was -- even after he'd nearly choked the life out of that teenager; even after she'd discovered that it had been he who had attacked Terry. She'd accepted his blend of unpolished humanity and barely concealed corners. She'd taken the risk and pushed at him anyway until he'd given in.
No, Vincent certainly wasn't Eagan. He wasn't the youthful idealist, with plans for the future big enough to crush him if they fell through. And he wasn't unthinkingly charming or companionable like Leo. But he had been protective and as open with her as he could be. She'd started to believe he would've safeguarded her against any threat, be it a boy on a train, her own closest friend...
...or herself.
It was hard to accept, but she made herself plough into it. She didn't want to forgive him for what he had done. But, somehow, she knew he could justify hurting her if he thought it would keep her from was putting herself into danger. Though, she imagined it would hurt him to do it, the way it hurts a parent to have to discipline their child...for what they believed was their own good.
No, he wasn't Eagan. And he wasn't Leo. He was Vincent; unrefined, abrasive Vincent, protecting her the only way he knew how.
And, lifestream help her if she didn't love him for it. Despite her anger, despite the fear he'd made her feel, despite how she wanted to hate him...
'I love him. Damn him, I love him so much.'
With a sigh, she lifted her head from Leo's chest and resolutely wiped at her cheeks before looking up into his eyes. "Leo..."
He gave her a small, tender smile. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. And then she shook her head. And nodded again. "I don't know. I think I just need a minute."
His eyebrows twitched with a slight frown. "Did something happen?"
She nodded once more. "Vincent came back, and he told me he wants to go alone to the Northern Continent. So, I...I came here..." She smiled in pained apology. "But I know now that I can't let him. Whatever it takes, I can't. I..." She gave a small, helpless laugh that was almost another sob. "I love him."
Leo's expression softened into one of knowing resignation and he sighed. "I've wondered about that from the beginning, what with the way you throw your heart into things."
She couldn't help her rueful smile. "You know me better than I know myself, it seems."
He glanced away for a moment before pursing his lips and returning her wan smile. "So, I guess this is good-bye again, isn't it?"
She cringed, wondering what she might have done if she'd simply let her anger go unimpeded. And what she might have regretted in the morning. "Leo, I'm so sorry..."
"Don't be. I'm glad I could help you figure out your own mind, even if I just provided the arms to lean on."
She stared at him a moment before catching him in a fierce hug. "God, you've been so good to me, and I've never deserved you."
"Elira, you deserve all of the happiness in the world." He embraced her for a few seconds and then let her go. "I hope Vincent gives it to you."
She wondered how likely that would be and steeled herself for what she was going to have to do.
Leo opened the door for her and smiled once more as she stepped out and disappered down the hallway.
And she never heard the long sigh, the way the planet must sigh as a sunbeam fades, before the door finally closed behind her.
Vincent was doing everything he could to keep himself busy.
A brisk shower, a hasty yanking on of his pants even though he was now alone in the villa, and rapid steps to the bedroom where he'd left all of his things. Besides wanting to hurry so that he could be ready when Chaos came back into his consciousness, he was trying to keep himself from thinking about what he'd done. A trick he'd learned in the Turks from a supervisor, for those nights when one woke up in a cold sweat from vivid nightmares, was to start counting backwards from five hundred. It worked as long as he could concentrate.
And his concentration could be near absolute without Chaos or Elira around.
He struggled briefly with the knots in his hair. Tenacious and consolidated, however, they were impossible to work through and he resolved himself to having to cut them out. Three weeks of living in a cave had certainly done his appearance no favours; though, he interrupted his numbers to acknowledge grimly, it wouldn't matter for long. It wasn't as if a corpse had any use for vanity.
Moving efficiently, he stepped over to his pack and, pulling out a shirt, he shrugged it over his shoulders. Another moment saw him taking a couple of darts out to leave on the floor where he could see them. Though he hoped not to have to use them here. It would only be a few more minutes before he was ready to return to his hiding place in town to wait for the dawn.
He brought up flesh and metal fingers to start fastening his buttons when the sound of the villa door opening startled them out of his grip. This was then followed by the unmistakable sound of Elira's approaching footsteps. His numbers spun out and away like smoke. He cursed under his breath. Hopefully she had only forgotten something. Because, he knew he wouldn't really be able to incapacitate her. Even the quick twist of her arm had made him feel as if he'd opened a mortal wound in himself.
Mere seconds brought her to the bedroom door, and then she stood in the doorway, glancing in. The rising moon through a window behind her glinted in her hair and made her skin pale, her white dress nearly translucent. He caught his breath and stared at her, unwillingly captivated. She would never know, he thought, how exquisitely, painfully beautiful she could be.
She approached when she noticed him and there was something wise and resolved in her eyes. It frightened him; she'd caught him at a loss, and he'd dangerously underestimated her will. It surprised him that she would be so determined to continue with him when it meant leaving Leo behind. He couldn't help but admire her, and damn her, for the importance she seemed to place on her promises.
"Vincent." There was an unsettling calm about her now, and it was the calm of someone who had accepted something and its consequences. He'd seen the look before, on the faces of people who knew they were about to die and had chosen to die with courage. "I'm not going to let you leave without me," she said quietly, as if nothing he said or did could change it. It was simply a fact. "If the journey is going to get harder, you're going to need someone that much more. If you get on that barge in the morning, I'm getting on with you. This is as much my journey as it is yours and I'm going to see it through to the end." Then, she lifted her chin ever so slightly. "If you want to stop me, you'll have to incapacitate me, but even then I won't stop trying."
Beautiful and inflexible, now outlined only softly by the moonlight in the bedroom, she had become more than her slender frame, and the fact that she stood a head shorter than himself no longer mattered. She was like a goddess he would have to contend with. He steeled himself, though he wondered if he'd already lost. "Elira, I told you..."
"Yes, I know what you told me," she interrupted him with a disconcertingly simple confidence. "So, either incapacitate me or let me go with you."
He bristled a little. She was fencing him in, leaving him with only one option if he wanted to make sure she stayed. Glaring at her, he stepped forward until there was little more than a foot between them and tried to ignore the way her familiar scent was endeavoring to reach out and snap his coils of control. It would be for the best, he told himself. He was certain he would hate himself, but he already hated himself for so many other things. And to hurt her for the good of her safety was far better than risking her life and the grief of her bereaved lover...
As if to counter his move, she raised her left arm up at the elbow until her hand was only inches from her cheek. Her fingers were trembling. The gesture was lost on him for a moment until he realized that she was offering him her arm again, knowing he could break it if he tried. Surprised, he glanced into her eyes and saw her fear, tempered heavily with her iron-will. She was watching, waiting, putting herself completely at his mercy, trusting something in him that he didn't even trust...something he'd already proven that she couldn't trust...
And the realization of the faith she had in his humanity made him suddenly aware of what a monster was, and how close he'd come to crossing the line. A deluge of self-disgust washed over him and he started to tremble.
Elira gazed at him for another moment before lowering her arm. "You were bluffing," she said bluntly.
He lowered his head. "That was a risk with high stakes, Elira."
"I'm willing to take the risks, remember? Did you think *I* was bluffing about that?"
He was shamed. Peripherally, he saw Elira shift her weight to one foot and place a hand on her hip. "What is this about, Vincent? What made you decide that I couldn't come?"
He raised his hand to push it under his bandana and remembered belatedely that both glove and bandana were on the floor. "It's only going to get progressively dangerous for you to be around me as time passes." He felt so weary all of a sudden, and the thought of all of the empty miles between Costa Del Sol and the Forgotten City made the task seem insurmountable. "It now takes two darts to put me out for any longer than a half hour, and Chaos is no longer so weakened by the sedative. There's also..." He sighed a little and even his lungs felt burdened. "...the possibility that my body has become too damaged over time to survive the exorcism."
"Damaged over time?" He could almost hear her frown. "What do you mean? How long has it been?"
The weight of the years pressed in on him. "I am sixty-seven, Elira. What happened with Lucrecia and Hojo happened forty years ago. They were the first scientist to study Jenova."
He sensed her shock. "Sixty-seven? How...how is that possible?"
"Chaos also keeps me from aging." A curse within a curse. "You may have to make the return trip alone."
She was silent for a moment and the idea that he might have just talked her out of coming with him made him feel heavy with dejection, though it had been what he'd been trying to do all along. Then she took a breath to speak. "I don't care. I'm still going with you."
He glanced up and her expression was resolute. His heart ached and he realized how much he wanted to be able to justify taking her with him. But he couldn't; she had a responsibility for her heart and it was time to play his last trump card. "What does Leo think of you going with me?"
She blinked. "What should he think? He's known about this from the beginning."
"He must not be happy."
"Well, maybe not, but I can't do much about that."
"You could stay with him. You should."
"Stay with him?" She puffed out a puzzled breath. "Why?"
He was slow to recognize his mistake, though it was beginning to come clear to him how far he'd gone wrong in assuming. "Aren't you in love with him?"
She raised her eyebrows in a convincing display of surprise. "In love with him? What makes you think that?"
There was a sudden pounding in his ears. "He kissed you, Elira. I saw him, the day I came for the tranquilizers."
Her lips parted and her expression tightened with a small, astonished frown. And then she gave another quiet scoff. "That was just a kiss good-night. We haven't been anything but friends since I arrived. Is that...is that what this has all been about?" She looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh at him or chide him, and she dropped her shoulders with a kind of annoyed but affectionate tolerance.
As she stood with her arms relaxed, a strap of the dress slipped down and managed to reveal the gentle curve of one breast. Vincent's eyes were automatically drawn to it and, engulfed in a sudden warmth, he swallowed convulsively. 'Look away!' his mind shouted. 'Look away, damn you!'
But Elira noticed his gaze and, in a moment, she seemed to come to a decision. Slowly, she reached for his hand. And, caught between a growing desire and the need for control, he couldn't resist. She glanced up into his eyes as if searching for warning signs before placing his fingers on her exposed skin. He could feel the strengthening rhythm of her heart and every beat seemed to come with more and more force against his restraints. Then she stepped toward him and the intoxicating scent of her, no longer willing to be ignored, nearly undid him. "Elira," he breathed, and he was surprised how like a moan it sounded.
"Don't be afraid, Vincent."
He hadn't had the chance to button his shirt, and the first touch of her hands on his skin almost made his knees buckle. Then, gently, so gently, she began to use her fingertips to caress his sides, chest, and abdomen. His skin began to tingle and prickle deliciously in the wake of her touch and, overcome, he shivered and closed his eyes. He'd been expecting something else -- a kiss, an embrace -- but this...this preyed on his body's simple hunger for human contact, and it was unraveling him with an uncompromising simplicity. "Elira, please..." His throat had tightened his voice into a soft rasp and he swallowed again with difficulty.
She drew her fingers out and played teasingly near the edges of his shirt. "Say stop and I'll stop," she whispered.
'Stop...' But the word got caught on its way to his mouth. It was so good: the warmth of her fingers; the way she was raising goosebumps on his skin, as if she was brushing away the weeks he'd spent alone with Chaos -- and a part of him didn't want it to ever end. If only...
The stroke of her fingers over a particular place on his ribs made him shudder a little and he was startled by his own shaky exhalation. He opened his eyes to see Elira looking at him from under half-closed eyelids, her lips curled upward invitingly.
"You're ticklish," she observed, and there was a pleased amusement in her tone.
"Apparently." A second pass of her fingers was enough to convince him to grab her hand and she gave a small husky laugh. Her lips were trembling delicately, her face open and flushed with unashamed desire. The shining warmth in her gaze was making something in him ache pleasantly, and for one brief but pivotal moment he wondered if it was possible...that she had fallen in love with *him*.
On the heels of this question came the almost painful realization of how much he wanted it to be true. He certainly didn't deserve her. He'd hurt her so many times already, now emotionally and physically.
Still, he longed to know that she loved him.
'Gods preserve us, I love her...'
She slipped a hand up and over the nape of his neck, sliding her fingers through the roots of his hair. Her lips were parted, her expression slightly imploring.
He trembled, wanting to succumb like that night in the park. To lean into her and taste her lips. But it wasn't right. Chaos was gone for now, but for how long? And it wasn't right to fan the flame when he was going to be leaving her alone again in the cold darkness, especially with his death as a possibility. "Elira..."
"Shh. I know. Just for tonight." Her mouth was shivering and warm against his own. The last of his barriers cracked and crumbled.
His kiss was tentative at first, but it deepened quickly and, as before, she was suddenly swept away in heady sensation. Her heart thundered in her chest, her pulse leapt under her skin, pounding out his name with every beat.
Maybe this was the wrong thing to be doing. Maybe he would regret it in the morning. But she would hold him while she could, love him while she could. Though she didn't want to believe that she was fated to love men who were fated to die...
They might have made it to the bed, except that Vincent's knees ultimately gave out beneath him. And once Elira was able to stop her startled, excited laughter, they continued on the floor.
Something in Vincent's mind intermittently tried to remind him to be on guard against something, but the warning was easily drowned out in sensation. Elira... Her lips, her hands, her skin under his fingers -- and after so long spent refusing his desire, he couldn't have stopped himself under his own power if he'd wanted to.
'Ahh yesss...sssuch a fassscinating feeling...sssuch a fine line between pleasssure and pain, don't you think?'
Vincent stiffened suddenly as the voice of Chaos slithered through his mind. Not now! Dear gods, how could he have forgotten?
At the change in his body, Elira looked into his face and read his expression. He watched ruefully as the question in her eyes shifted with knowing dismay, and then she locked her arms around him as if to keep him there. But he couldn't. He couldn't! In one desperate move, he pushed away from her and stumbled to his feet. The darts were there on the floor and he grabbed them, putting the needle of the first against the skin of his neck. "Chaos," he rasped, and he wasn't sure if he was saying it in explanation or to address the demon.
But Chaos gave no response and he nearly growled in frustration. Did it think this was a game?
"Vincent?"
He hesitated before turning to her. "Elira. I..."
"I know." She didn't look happy about it, but she knew. "Maybe I should leave the room."
"No, stay here. Get some sleep." He swallowed. "I'm sorry." He paused, trying to find some words to say that could explain. "I can't..."
She stood quickly and, as he lowered the darts, she maneuvered her way into his arms to give him a quick, tight hug. "I know, Vincent," she repeated. "It's all right. I know." He saw the tears in her eyes a moment before she lowered her gaze. "We'll beat Chaos in the end."
But would he be alive to see the end? And he realized then how much a part of him didn't want to die. He wanted to live. He wanted a second chance.
He wanted Elira...to be there with him...
In the dining room he dropped himself heavily into a chair and swore. Damn the demon!
'Sssee how easssy it would have been for me?' Chaos suddenly hissed, as if Vincent's thoughts had summoned it. 'You ssshould leave her behind, asss you planned!'
Elira's words from weeks ago came back to him unexpectedly. Demons always lie. And he began to wonder for the first time why Chaos was so hell-bent on pushing Elira out of the picture. Did it know something about this that he didn't? Was Elira so significant a piece? "Why should I?" he asked suspiciously.
'Do you really want her death on your handsss? Becaussse I will kill her.'
Vincent had no doubt that Chaos would, given the chance. Why, then, would it give him an opportunity to save her life? "Why should it bother you if I let her come?"
But, for a change, the demon didn't say another word for the rest of the night.
And it was a very long night.