FFVII-Reunions

5:11 PM 12/19/2007

You know I don't know why I bother.

Ten fricken years of saving the world and we get one night of solitude. ONE night! Something's always happening. if it isn't Sephiroth, its the three deadly moronateers or neon lined menace from some deep underground cesspool everyone's forgotten about. We never get a break.

And the worse of us I feel is the woman standing beside me behind the bar. I watch her calmly cleaning the beer glasses, her raven hair falling halfway to conceal her face, the pretty little smile reminiscent of better days. Days when we didn't need a damned excuse to be happy. I wanted to reach out and grab her by her shoulders and shake her awake. How many more geostigma episodes was she going to allow before over stepping her carefully constructed boundaries. There was no right time. He would never recover. She had to get over her righteousness long enough to realize that he was just waiting for her to look at him. It was so damned palpable I could sit on the invisible vibes!

Hmph! And she's just one case in point! Very like this sad group of broken individuals out to repair the world when the truth is there's no one to save us. None of us are complete. Hell I'm the princess of all things bright and cheerful! I am the thieving runaway princess of wu-fucking-tai! Even I can't stop running!

Barret is always trying to remember he's not all human when his daughter's always reasoning that he is. Cloud's looking at Tifa clean up behind the bar like he sees home and its sickening that he's strong enough to defeat a poopie heat like Sephiroth but he won't lift a damn finger to save himself. Everyone's a stupid emotionally challeneged self hater!

Even Furry goes all gloom and doom when he realizes that despite disappointing his father, he's standing on that cliff edge alone. It's revolting to see him sitting there with his red furry muzzle resting on his paws like he's the Lion King of runaways. Hello! I'm the master of running away! No one can beat me! Nyuk. Nyuk.

Even Cid with his colorful tongue and bad-ass attitude is just scared. As scared as the rest of us that tomorrow there might be a day when he might not make it back to his lovely Shera and she yells and clings to him dreading the same. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.

And then there's him.

HE is quite possibly the poster-child for repressed childhood trauma. I doubt there is anyone who knows just what kind of trauma. The entire bleeding world probably knows that he pines away his days in memory of a woman that nearly brought the end of the world. The simple idiot that houses crazy monsters most of us only see in our nightmares.

If anyone needed to be slapped around and brought back to reality. It would be Vincent Brooding Valentine.

Take now for example. Barret has two kids dangling from each arm, screaming at the top of his lungs while Cloud ignores his pleas for help. Cid has Shera sitting in his lap, laughing his ass of at the big man's antics while Red swishes his tail amusedly. Even Tifa's smiling pathetically at Cloud while I watch all of this around me. I am so perceptive. I swear I should be given a medal for being the only empathic one in this rag tag group of losers. Saving the world does not a hero make.

But HE! HE sits there across the bar from where I'm standing with my hands on my waist attempting to drown himself in his glass of scotch. If only he was fortunate enough to retain the buzz of alcohol, but his mako-enhanced blood, I know for a fact, does not give him the liberty. So why the hell does he bother anyway? Just like why the hell does he bother coming to a Reunion when he's not going to interact at all with the rest of us losers. As if he's above us all. Hmph!

Grrr. They all make me so mad! Mad enough to drop this here stack of clean plates without so much as a thought!

CRASH!!!

The bar fell silent. All pairs of eyes riveted to the crazy girl standing there between the pile of fallen china that Tifa will probably make me pay for later, but I have a feeling right now they're more concerned with the steam rising from my head.

"Lamers!"

They blinked at me.

Finally it is Spikey who sighed. "Dammit Yuffie, not again."

"Shut it Strife! You angsting spikey haired emotional retard!" I stomped my foot. "If you had half a brain you'd get over your hero-complex and let Tifa shag you till you have no brains left!"

"Yuffie!" The girl in question sputtered, nearly dropping the beer mug in panic.

Oh boy. Was I on a roll.

"And YOU!" I pointed a witch-like finger at the man balancing his wife, and the chair he sat in, on its legs. "You with your dirty filthy mouth, you don't fool me. No siree bob. If you listened to your wife long enough when you occasionally take your head out of your ass, you'd realize she wants a baby! A baby! Bun in the oven! Pregers!"

"Damn girl..."

I rounded on the slack jawed Barret who looked honestly cowed by my pointy finger as if a curse was being hurled at him. I could almost imagine him turning into a cyber-toad! "Don't you girl me Barret! Everything that makes you a man is very much still attached to! So get off your self-pitying horse and get used to the fact that you're about as sadly human as the rest of us."

There was an embarrassed clearing of a throat and my flashing eyes turned to the stoic gunman squirming in his seat. "Don't even get me started on your ass Valentine, you big brooding poopie head!" An eyebrow twitched under the black bangs which only managed to enrage me further until I was sputtering on my breath. "You..ugh...uff...ARGH!" There was so much I wanted to say to him. So much I wanted to remind him of. So much I wanted to kill him and hug him for. But the words were jumbled and the helpless tears in my eyes were blurring my vision. Let it not be said that Yuffie Kiseragi is every rendered helpless. How dare he sit there and look at me with amusement. It was insulting. Like he thought I was a child!

No one is amused on account of the great ninja Yuffi Kiseragi. No one.

Yanking the apron I threw it down into the broken dishes, my eyes narrowing into scathing slits before I sprang into action.

He barely had time to place the glass on the bar top as I dove up onto the Tifa-clean surface. There was a brief widening of those crimson eyes before I dragged down the high collar of his cloak down while my other hand tangled in his hair and my mouth swallowed him whole.

Furious and hating him for being so close and so far away, I kissed him hard and deeply, my tongue sliding into his mouth with a possessiveness I didn't even know I was capable of. And it didn't matter that the people were staring at my insanity or laughing at my stupidity, I proceeded to smooch the annoyingly perfect brooder into oblivion. And I'd like to say, shocked as Vincent probably was at my attack, he didn't miss one beat. The golden gauntlet wrapped around my waist like a vice, his gloved hand snaking into my hair. His mouth slanted on mine like a man being offered his last breath and I went flying off into heaven.

The kiss, if you could call it that, was wild like Red, passionate like Barret, furious like Cid, and yet there was Cloud's determination, Tifa's simplicity and determination. But the shudder that ran through us both was all Vincent's intensity and my endless energy. I slipped of the counter and into his lap, my legs wrapping around his waist shamelessly, my tongue tangling with his in way that demanded more fire.

And then it simmered and settled into the most wonderful warmth in my belly. My heart gentling his frantic pace until it matched him and his fingers gently massaged my scalp down to the nape of my neck and the fury and unjustness of it all melted out of me with one last shiver.

The breath I'd been hold slowly diffused out through my nose and our lips clung. Caressed, pressed once last time before parting. My eyes opened almost sleepily to meet the blood-red pools. There was madness there. And something that felt like...

Holy Leviathan!

A throat was cleared pointedly and I was infinitely thankful because if it hadn't I would have continued to gaze up into his fathomless eyes that spoke volumes of an emotion I imagined myself too young to understand.

Mustering what was left of my pride, I extricated myself from his embrace, lamenting the fact that he didn't resist before straightening my clothes. Damn him. My righteous indignation had seeped out of me while he'd gentled my attack. Damn him to hell.

"So there."

I blinked startled at him, taking in his gorgeously disheveled state, the lips that had been mine not a few seconds ago, that were now curled into a surprisingly cocky smirk. "Wha..." Nyuk. Nyuk. I am so eloquent sometimes.

"Finishing your rant."

UFFFF! Of all the infuriating! This is me! Exiting. Stage right. "Hmph." Lifting my nose high, my fists pressed against my side, I shot everyone's amused smiled an imperious glare and stalked out to Seventh Heaven...er...I mean out of Seventh Heaven.

You know, I don't know why I bother!

Tifa watched Vincent lean back towards the bar and pick up his glass without so much as batting an eye. Cloud was the first to wince. "For the life of me I can't understand why she pretends no one is getting any in this room." Tifa's hand smacked him upside the head. "Awo! Geez Teef..."

Glaring down at her man, Tifa Lockhart spoke to the silent man calmly nursing his drink. "Vincent."

The crimson eyes turned to her wearily. When she didn't relent he sighed heavily. "Fine. But if she plays fourteen again I'm shooting her." The lanky man stretched from his stool, picked up his death penalty and disappeared from the bar with the swish of his red cloak.

"Ya know there are other ways she can relive the glory days!" Barret snorted.

Cid grinned lasciviously. "I bet the sex is fan-fucking-tastic right about now."

"Shut up Cid!"

Red yawned and went back to sleep.

THE END