InsaneJournal

FFVII - Touching Immortality dead fic 3

Shera Highwind had made a mistake, a horrible terrible mistake.
She had married Cid Highwind.

Not that there was anything wrong with Cid, he was the perfect husband. Sure he couldn’t cook, and he was a bit of a slob, but that was because Shera had been looking after him and picking up after him for so long. She saw nothing wrong with that, she had always done it and Cid had always shouted at her, a bond forged though anger and guilt that had become a friendship that could only be expressed in the same way, shouting and awkward silences and the passion that burned within each.
And then, after reaching for the stars, and the stopping of meteor and the saving of the world, when the Cid the hero had returned home, forever changed by his time away, the friendship moved to something beyond that. Both of them had mistaken it for love and they had married, they had married too quickly too soon they had rushed in without thinking, Cid was a smart man and Shera was far from stupid why hadn’t they thought about it?!

And now she had to watch while Cid played at being the perfect Husband fooling himself into thinking that he was happy, that he was in love, when he wasn’t.

And the hero’s passion was fading away.

“Reeve I haven’t even been married for a year yet, let me live with my wife some before you go sending me up to the northern continent for months at a time. “ Cid was complaining on the phone. “I don’t mind doing runs for this W.R.O. thing of yours but I think it’s time the planet learned to look after itself now...”

Shera ran up stairs sat down on the bed and started crying.
**
Some weeks earlier

It was Christmas eve and Shera had asked Cid to go to Midnight Mass with her. Cid had put up a token argument, nothing like the row she had expected, but when they had arrived there was a crowd outside the building, and they didn’t look happy.

“Hey what are we waiting out here for it’s bloody freezing!”

“There’s a demon in there.” One woman whispered.

“It’s just a monster.” A man argued.

“I think it’s the Grinch.” Said a little girl.

“It’s not the Grinch honey.”

“But mom what if his heart shrunk again and he’s here to steal our Christmas?”

Cid rolled his eyes and entered the church while the crowd murmured and muttered in fear behind him. He closed the large door on them just in case this wasn’t a bout of mass hysteria and there really was something inside.

It wasn’t all that hard to find out that it was the latter that was true. The side door to the church had been smashed open and there was something curled up before the altar. Cid saw purple, white and red lit by candle light before the shivering beast rose to his hind feet snarling.

“Easy there.” Cid said. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”
The beast dropped back down to all fours. It made a kind of noise that was between a whine and a growl as it lowered its head defensively, the candle light catching on its large horns.

“Fuck.” Cid muttered, crouching down. “Come on boy, you seemed to have changed a bit, but you still recognise old Cid right?”

The beast padded forward a few steps, Cid held his hand out as the white haired purple skinned creature came closer, it sniffed the hand, whining again; suddenly the beast moved forward burying its head into Cid’s midsection.

“Oof, easy boy.” Cid said smoothing his hand though strange white fur. “You’ll knock the wind out of me.”

“Monster! Demon!” Someone shouted entering in though the smashed doorway. “Desecrate our church! Out! Out by the power of the lord! Out of his holy house! Out!”

The beast panicked, knocking over Cid in his effort to escape he ran and jumped though one of the stained glass windows.

“Cid, are you okay?” The priest asked as he helped pull the pilot to his feet.

“Peachy.”

The priest smiled. “The holiness of this place protected you from the demon.”

Cid snorted, looked from the broken door to the broken window. “Yeah, this place is very holy.”

The pilot picked up his weapon and started storming out of the rocket town church.

“Cid, my regards to your wife!” The priest said trying to be friendly.

Cid waved with his empty hand, not even turning around to dignify the priest with a reply. He promised Shera he wouldn’t swear in the church , but if he stayed here one second longer...
He pushed open the large main doors to see the only his wife was waiting for him.

“Everyone else ran for it when it jumped through the window, Cid, what was that thing?”

“I think it was my old friend Vincent.”

“You mean the man in the red...? Shera covered her mouth with her hand. “So that’s what was around its waist. What happened to him?”

“Dun know, he seems fine, but he’s bigger than he used to be...and I’m fucking sure that his hair was never white.”

“You don’t sound surprised by the purple skin, claws, horns, and-”
Cid laughed. “Damn woman didn’t I ever tell you about Vincent and his...friends?”

Shera shook her head.

“Well I guess there’s nothing for it but to wait until morning.”

“You’re not going to look for him now?”

“I’ll never find him, ether I’ll find him in the morning or he’ll be back to normal, and who knows he might come to visit.”

“And that’s a good thing?”
A year ago, less than a year ago, Cid would have shouted at her that of course there it was a fucking good thing if one of his friends was visiting, and ask why it wouldn’t be.
Shera closed her eyes and sighed and Cid smiled.

“Sure it’s a good thing, haven’t heard from him in far too long.”

**

The weather had gotten worse. Shera turned the kettle on gazing out at the storm but when the lightning flashed, she screamed at what she saw.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s out there…under the bronco.”

Cid wasted no time grabbing his spear and stalking out into the backyard, even if the wind tried to blow him off his feet before he got even halfway to the plane.

Shera watched as Cid dropped the spear and cautiously approached the huddled form that was under the wing of his beloved plane.
Cid Highwind spend a long time crouched in the mud coaxing the beast out from under the wing. Eventually it crawled up to him and Cid petted it on the head before taking hold of one of its horns and using his grip on it to guide the beast inside.

Shera didn't like this idea, that thing out there didn't look or act human in anyway, it looked powerful and vicious.
Never the less Shera ran upstairs to get some towels.
When she came back down the beast growled at her and she nearly dropped the towels in fright.

“Easy Galian.” Cid said giving a tug on the horn he was still holding. “She ain’t gonna hurt you.”

The beast pressed himself closer to Cid’s side, the growling ceased but its head was still lowered and it looked like it could snap at her any second.

“Gimme your hand Shera.”

Shera shook her head, she wasn’t getting any closer to that thing than she needed to.

“Give me your damn hand!”

Shera blinked dumbly, that was the first time she’d heard Cid raise his voice for, a very long time.

She hadn’t even realized she had offered her hand to her husband until he took it in his calloused hand and held it before the beast’s muzzle.
Shera squeaked.

“He’s not going to hurt you Shera. I just want him to recognise you, he hadn’t seen you in a long time.”

The beast sniffed the hand.

“Do you remember Shera? She’s a friend right, makes a great cup of tea and smart to boot.”

The beast muzzle closed in on the trembling hand and took a deep breath in. It tilted his head to one side, and then taking a step away from Cid he ducked his head under Cid’s and Shera’s joined hands and butted them.

“Try giving him a scratch behind the year.” Cid grinned pulling his hand free, his other hand was still holding on to one of the beasts horns, but he wasn’t restricting his movement.

“I, I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Hey this is the most affectionate the spook gets to take advantage.” Cid said as he picked up one of the towels and started to dry himself before grabbing another and starting to towel the beast as well.

“If this is Vincent how come he doesn’t act like him?”

“Dun know.” Cid admitted. “He’s always acted like this, guess his fucking brain changes as well as his body, the change is caused by a combination of genetic experimentation and magic, so I’m damned if I know how it works.”

Suddenly the crouched Shera threw herself back with another squeak.
The Galian Beast was yawning and curling up on the carpet. He snorted at her in what could have been confusion of amusement.

“Oh no you don’t.” Cid grouched. “I’m not putting up with a cranky Vince in the morning because I left him to get a bad back sleeping on the floor.”

Cid grabbed the beast by one of his horns again and tugged. With a sleepy growl the beast got to his feet and allowed himself to be led. Cid opened the door to the ’study’ which was basically a room full of junk and a sofa.

The beast sniffed around before jumping up on the sofa and almost instantly falling asleep.

“He seems…well trained…” Shera couldn’t think of any other way to put it.

Cid who had been lighting up suddenly choked on his smoke.

“Damn Shera.” Cid coughed a bit more. “I guess you could say that. I ended up sharing a hotel room with him most of the time. Beast and Gigas are alright. Masker is a bastard, and Chaos never hung around long enough to be a problem but he would have been a right bitch to keep under control if he had.”

"This, happened often?"

“Often enough.” Cid admitted. “I never saw Chaos until after he got the fancy gun of his girl though.”

Cid looked thoughtful, but he shook his head. “Let’s go to bed, It’s Christmas tomorrow! And you just know those damn kids next door are going to start making enough noise to wake the dead the second they wake up.”

Shera shook her head, the captain was just as much of a kid as the children next door were, he just didn’t want to admit he wanted to get up early for once.”

**

Shera woke up the next morning. Cid snoring away next to her. She smiled at him and crept down stairs.
She was surprised that the second the reached the bottom of the stairs the door to the room their guest had been in opened.

Shera had almost expected the monster that Cid had brought in last night to still be there. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the man who instantly locked is blood red eyes onto her.

“G, good morning Mr Valentine, Merry Christmas.” Shera smiled.

“Good Morning, I believe it’s Mrs Highwind now correct?” Vincent waited for Shera to nod before continuing. “So I did make it to Rocket town then.”

“Yes…Do you want to talk to Cid? I can go to get him.”
Vincent was already shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt his sleep…although I am interested as to why I woke up on your couch with stained glass in my hair.”

“A priest chased you out of our local church, and you didn’t use the door.”

Vincent’s face darkened. “I see.”

“And then I saw you taking shelter under the wing of the Tiny Bronco and Cid brought you in.”

“I’m sorry.”

Shera blinked. “Why? You haven’t done anything wrong other than break a window and Cid said that was more the priest’s fault than yours.”
The awkward conversation became even more awkward as Shera fought for something to say and Vincent hid whatever he may have thought of the situation in he silence.

Eventually Vincent headed for the front door.

“Your leaving?” Shera asked.

“Are my Chocobo’s here?”

“No.”

“I was heading here with by chocobo’s when I was attacked, hence my…condition, when I arrived.” Vincent explained. “I have to find them, I would not wish to impose on Cid’s Christmas by asking him to help me look.”

“I’ll keep the kettle warm for you.” Shera said. “And try to come back before Cid wakes up, he was looking forward to talking to you.”

**

Vincent returned to Rocket town on the back of his young black chocobo, Revenant, an hour later, his older scared, one eyed mountain chocobo, Eko, in tow.

Cid was standing at the door of his house, a cup of tea in his hand, watching Vincent the whole time he walked up to the house.

“You can stable them with Tornado if you want. As long as Eko doesn’t try to kill her.”

Vincent nodded and housed the his two birds in the extension that served as the stable for Cid’s gold, Tornado.

Reverant surprised Vincent by warking happily at Tornado. It seemed that the clutch-mates recognised each other even though they hadn’t seen each other since they were chicks.

Pleased that his birds were now safe and happy Vincent took the saddle bags off Eko and returned to face Cid’ ire.

“You and your damn birds.” Cid muttered, he grabbed Vincent by the shoulder and pushed him in the house ahead of him. “Get in there and have some damn breakfast.”

“I do not appreciate being manhandled.” Vincent said as he half stumbled into the house.

“Yeah well I don’t like being fucking walked out on s-”
Cid was cut off by a crash by the sink.

“Shera?”

“Sorry.” Shera said with a smile plastered on her face. “Butterfingers.”

************************************************************************************************************************************************

Shera was more than a little surprised when flushed Vincent staggered in with Cid hanging off his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“The captain decided not to believe me when I told him I couldn’t get drunk anymore.”

Cid apparently only just noticing that they had entered the house started complaining loudly.

“Oi Vin! I thought I said we weren’t leaving until you couldn’t walk straight no more!” He slurred.

Vincent caught Shera’s eye before rolling his own.

“I’ll take him up to your bedroom shall I?”

“You know where it is.” Shera smiled. “Would you like some supper while he sleeps it off?”

Vincent nodded. “Please.”

Vincent made his way to the stairs as Shera entered the kitchen, a few seconds there was a loud thump on the stairs.

“Ow FUCK!”

There was a quieter murmur.

“You tripped! You never trip!” Cid started laughing. “See you can to get drunk!”

Whatever words that were exchanged were lost as the pair continued up the stairs.

A few moments later a less flushed Vincent sat down at the table.

“So you can to get drunk?” Shera asked with an eyebrow lifted.

“It seems I still have the ability yes.” Vincent admitted. “but I think it would take two and a half cases of vodka to achieve Cid‘s current condition.”

“I know what to get you for Christmas then.”

Vincent almost smiled. “I prefer wine.”

“How’s Cid?”

“Dead to the world before his head it the pillow, how do you manage to sleep though that noise?”

Shera smiled. “I just keep poking him until he rolls over and stops.”
Vincent’s lips quirked.

**


When Cid walked into the bedroom he found Shera sitting on the edge of tears. He acted the perfect husband and rushed to her side, asked what was wrong, tried to comfort her. Not knowing that she wanted him to shouting at him, that his compassion was hurting her more.
“I’m sorry.”
“What the hell for? Shera you haven’t done anything.”
“I made a mistake, I never, I never should have married you.”
“What! Shera what the h-”
Shera kissed him, the last kiss she could have, bittersweet tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I want a divorce.”
Epilogue

Reeve was waiting for him as he landed the Tiny Bronco. He looked concerned as Cid jumped down from the plane and walked over to the leader of the W.R.O or whatever the cat boy had decided to name his money trap.
“I must admit after talking to you on the phone I’m surprised to see you here.” Reeve said in a concerned tone.
“Yeah well you wanted someone who knew about airships and no one knows more than me.” Cid muttered uninterested in the friendly ear Reeve was offering. “Besides who else is going to help you save the damned world?”
Reeve shook his head.
“I’ll show you to the site, if anyone can get this ancient flying machine back in the air, its you.”