Chapter Text
The man had backflipped out of a fucking coffin, brandishing a gun straight at your face. He’d turned into a monster right before your eyes with a savage cracking of bone and melting of flesh. You’d intended to just file all of that crazy far away in the back recesses of your mind, never to think about it ever again. Except now that same man is sitting next to you, lounging back on the steel bench at the back of the Tiny Bronco, glowing eyes and all, like none of it had ever happened.
Barret sits opposite you as usual, with Cait Sith by his side, and Nanaki on the floor between the benches, leaving no other place for the new, mysterious stranger to sit aside from next to you. You hadn’t paid that much attention to him before, letting the others fight his monstrous transformation while you simply focused on trying to stay alive in Hojo’s fucked up maze of horrors. But now, as the red fabric of his cloak taps occasionally against your arm, you’re struggling to ignore him.
Vincent Valentine had left plenty of room between the two of you when he’d sat down. You’d watched him walk down the narrow aisle of the plane, all clinking, glinting gold and shining red. He’s skinny, almost excessively so, but his billowing red cloak makes him take up much more space than you would expect. You shift closer to the edge of the bench, trying to give his cloak more room. He inclines his head towards you as you shift, almost all of his face hidden by black hair and crimson fabric. It’s dark at the very back of the plane and his piercing, glowing red eyes continue to haunt the edges of your vision even as you turn away from him.
Cid is doing his last minute checks and a deep dread settles into your stomach. Yeah, technically he might be a great pilot, but he’s also a fucking shit driver. You’ve already been thrown every-which-way around the entire cabin in the fairly small number of take-offs and landings that you’ve had to endure, and this time he seems a little bit unsure about carrying the weight of an extra person. He’d assured all of you that it would be fine, but you have some doubts. Sure, Vincent looks light enough, but you’d watched him transform into a hulking beast. Maybe he weighs that much normally, even if he doesn’t look like it. Magic is weird and you don’t know how any of it works. You’re not a researcher or anything special. You’re just a normal person that attended a few planetary documentary screenings, and somehow turned into a full blown wanted eco-terrorist.
The take-off was a little bit rough, but honestly it was one of the smoothest Cid has put you through so far. The acrid tingle of your nerves immediately disappears once you’re in the air and the plane starts to level out. You relax against the wall at your back, trying your best to ignore the man in red sitting beside you, except now you can’t help but notice how fucking thin his thigh is. You don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone built like him before.
Barret starts talking, so you turn to focus on the conversation, ignoring the glowing eyes in your periphery. There are no windows at the back of the plane, so once everyone settles down, you twist in your seat to try and peer out the front windshield. Cliffs and ocean stretch out to the horizon in front of you. The view is breathtaking, and something you never imagined you’d ever see, growing up underneath Midgar’s steel sky. You relax your grip on the bench, finally getting comfortable and intending to just enjoy the ride, until a loud bang jolts you in your seat.
Your head smacks against the back wall and you fall heavily against Vincent’s arm. A dull pain radiates through your shoulder as you scrape against the golden metal of his gauntlet. You turn to apologise to him quickly, but the plane jolts again, sending you flying in the other direction.
“Just sit tight,” Cid yells as the plane starts swerving violently in the air. He’s swearing under his breath and you can see a trail of dark smoke through one of the windows. One of the wings is on fire.
You start panicking a little bit, rubbing at your sore shoulder, looking around to see if you can find any parachutes, not that you even really know how to use one. You can see Barret doing the same thing opposite you, while Nanaki has dug his claws heavily into the grated floor. There’s another harsh jolt, which you’re better braced for this time, as the other engine explodes with a bang.
“Alright,” Cid yells again, sounding far calmer than you think he should. “Brace for emergency landing.”
Shit. The plane is going down. You turn to brace as much as you can against the back of the seat in front of you, the handle on the back of the seat right by your face. Your back is twisted and you don’t feel very safe. You feel a brush of fabric against your arm and then a rustle of leather against your leg. Fuck, in all the commotion, you’d forgotten Vincent was behind you.
Everyone is screaming, holding on for dear life. You watch as the water through the front windscreen grows closer and closer. The plane dips sharply vertical and you grip the bench tightly. You’re going way too fucking fast. The water approaches and you brace for impact, hoping that your twisted spine survives the crash.
You’re close enough to the ocean to make out the rocks lurking underneath the water, just about to screw your eyes tightly shut and pray, when you’re suddenly pulled back in your seat. Vincent leans over you, bracing his golden covered arm against the back of the seat in front of you. His other arm slides around your waist, pulling you back against him. All of the hair on your body stands immediately on end. There’s a sudden energy, a pull of something electrical and foreign that steals your breath away. His hot breath rushes against the back of your neck and you can’t fight the desperate urge to shiver.
He’s warm, almost unbearably so and his hair falls against your face, far softer than you expected. His scent curls around you, a mix of gunpowder, leather and smoke, petrichor and atrophy. He’s stronger than you expected as he leans over you, a spark of warning thrumming heavily at the base of your neck, as the plane hits the water.
You jolt violently again, smacking your head against Vincent’s shoulder rather than the side of the plane. You bounce on the bench as the plane skids across the water, but Vincent holds you steady. He barely moves at all as the plane jumps wildly, eventually slowing to a stop above the waves.
He releases you quickly, straightening up and sliding back on the bench. The thrumming energy around you immediately disappears and you take in a desperate breath. Your heart is pounding, limbs shaking, but you’re safe. Barret is groaning, sprawled in a heap on the floor in front of you. Without Vincent you definitely would have ended up crushed underneath him, or cracked your head open on his gun arm.
You turn to look up at Vincent, who’s straightening out his outfit. The force of the landing has left his bandana askew and pushed his hair from his eyes. His left eye catches the light differently, glowing stronger than the other. You stare at him, preparing to thank him but losing your train of thought.
“I apologise for touching you without warning,” he says, voice low and barely audible in the general commotion.
You’re startled. You didn’t expect him to say something like that, or to hear something that sounds like genuine remorse in his voice. “It’s fine,” you reply, “thanks. You saved me from a rough landing.”
He hums and nods, nose disappearing underneath the red of his cloak as he shifts away from you.
You turn as Yuffie yells from the front of the plane. She’s having a go at Cid, sprawled out completely on the floor and struggling to pull herself up. Barret is rubbing the back of his neck, rolling on the grating trying to gather the momentum to stand up while Nanaki pushes him forward.
“Any landing you can swim away from,” Cid calls out, standing up and walking around his seat, pausing for a moment to help pull Yuffie up. His eyes flicker across the plane, assessing the damage. You can hear a hint of sheepishness in his voice, and see it in his eyes. You stare blankly at him, your sentiments echoing everyone else’s as your breathing finally starts to slow.