"Ergo"

Title: Ergo
Author: Jadedsilk
Series: Final Fantasy VII (Post D.O.C.)
[[Title: Ergo

Author: jadesilver

Series: Final Fantasy VII (Post D.O.C.)

Timeline: Based off Information from: http://www.answers.com/topic/final-fantasy-vii-timeline

Pairing: ReevexVincent in many forms. I hope.

Warnings: There will be spoilers. Don’t get spoiled now! There will, knowing me, be angst, fluff, drama, action and such. I try to anticipate upcoming things for marking for content. If something changes, I'll add more warnings. This has plot. Lots of plot. We will be getting to the sex eventually.

Criticism: If you see any spelling errors or stupid goofs, go for it. Otherwise this is here for you to enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, walk away and don’t say anything. If you do enjoy it, let me know. Encouragement motivates me, attention whore that I am ^_~.
This will be a Yaoi fanfiction. There will be the ReevexVincent pairing. I like my timeline, and my interpretation of it. I don't care what yours is. If you whine about any of these things, I personally wonder what you are doing here at this site. XD

Thanks: To everyone on AIM for letting me bounce plot off them, and to murasakiiro, my beta.

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CHAPTER THREE:

Vincent woke at dawn as Cloud stood in the doorway of the lobby, offering a cup of coffee. Vincent accepted it graciously, and he took a drink. “Cid says the analysis you started is done,” Cloud said.

“I’ll go see it then,” Vincent said, standing slowly as he wasn’t quite awake yet. “How are they?”

Cloud shook his head.

“Tifa’s worse, they took Denzel off the respirator…but Marlene…she hasn’t woken yet.”

Vincent rested a hand on Cloud’s shoulder.

“Perhaps you can take turns watching over her while the others repair Seventh Heaven?”

“Yeah,” Cloud said quietly, running his fingers through his hair.

“For now, you should rest.”

Cloud shook his head.

“Cloud, you do them no good if you kill yourself. Mako only does so much.”

Cloud sighed, and then turned to look at Vincent. “You’re right,” He said. “I’ll…try and sleep.

“There is a comfortable looking couch in the research room, it is actually dim and quiet there. Have you showered? Eaten?”

Cloud made a negative sound.

“Go, tend yourself so you can tend them. I have further research to go over, thank you for the coffee.”

Cloud nodded, and Vincent clasped that shoulder reassuringly before he stepped by the blond.

He had almost sat down when a flicker of flame going by out of the corner of his eye made him blink.

“Greetings Vincent.”

“Nanaki.” Vincent said, turning to rest a hand on that warm and furry back.

“They look…”

“Terrible?” Vincent suggested.

Nanaki whined and then sat beside the computer Vincent was at.

“May I read a copy of the reports Reeve gave you?”

Vincent handed the papers down, and then printed off the data from the secondary report, his eyes scanning it deftly. He found a tablet on the desk, and with flesh hand began to write as clawed hand tabbed the down arrow on the report.

Chemically, the beasts were composed of Mako, but physically, as most fast growing and reproducing organisms that were bio-engineered, it was extremely sensitive to fire. Or at least that is what the data suggested.

When the printout came back to him with suggest anatomic reconstruction, Vincent winced. Vaguely humanoid, but crawling on all fours. Its skin was required to be damp, like an amphibian’s, which would explain the need to be active after dark and avoid sunlight. The skin was a simple transparent covering over muscles, which gave the animal optimal flexibility. It had no bones in its cranium, which meant both hemispheres of the brain showed through that thin skin as well as muscles and bones. A long lean jaw bone was the only thing that wasn’t cartilage in the things head, and that possessed wicked backward-pointing fangs. It had a long, flexible and barbed tongue, and claws that were retractable.

It was designed to attack prey from distance and at stealth, and even at its size it was entirely possible that it could slip through a space the size of a one and a half inches if it flattened itself out.

So they traveled in packs by night, were capable of squeezing through one inch spaces, were genetically engineered to be nearly indestructible, and they could reproduce rapidly. Vincent realized that the only specimens they had were engineered and had not been created by natural means, so he couldn’t accurately deduce what a threat they were in speed of reproduction and spread but...

“This doesn’t look good,” he admitted softly to himself, before setting the papers down near Nanaki so the beast could read them as well.

He finished his coffee, and just as he was getting out of his chair, Reeve strode into the room. He looked wide eyed and disheveled.

“I lost two…this morning. I just raised security levels here,” he admitted.

Vincent offered his chair as Reeve came to sit.

“Two bodyguards.”

“Did you go back to the presidential suite?”

“Well yes but I…”

“You need to stay mobile,” Vincent said.

“That’s not the point Vincent! I knew them!” Reeve said, his hands shaking.

Vincent pushed the president lightly into the chair.

“You knew them, but you won’t do their sacrifice honor if you get yourself killed because you are upset and not thinking clearly.”

~*~

“You taste of blood brother.”

“I was not as close this time.”

“It was foolish of you to miss the first chance you had.”

“I am aware, but her shot threw me off.”

“You should have been more silent.”

“It is not so easy as a shadow.”

“Nothing is ever easy, dear brother.”

“No, it never is.”

There was a meeting of warm wet lips, and then a low moan.

“You would not deny me, would you?”

“Have I ever?”

~*~

Tifa was back in surgery, a repair made to her badly damaged heart had not been sufficient, and her worsening condition was result of blood leaking into her pericardium.
Cloud was awake again, after very little sleep, and was irritable and sulky (more so than usual anyway.) with stress. Finally Vincent had sent Cid to acquire some sort of tasty takeout that they could all be forced into eating.

No one really had an appetite. Especially since Denzel cried quietly most of the time now, when he wasn’t sleeping off the sedative the nurses gave him. Marlene had stopped even responding to pain, sleeping through needles jammed into the bottom of her feet or the tips of her delicate fingers. He wished so badly he could fix what was wrong, but most of it was beyond a cure materia and a scientific mind.

Vincent stroked Denzel’s good shoulder, as that seemed to be the only part of him that wasn’t covered in stitches, staples or surgical tape. Reeve had taken Cloud for a walk, or more aptly a cigarette and a drink. Barret, unable to help Marlene had left in a fit of anger to go start reconstruction of Seventh Heaven and dragged Shelke with him.

“Tifa is going to have to go into one of those recovery tubes for a while, just so you know,” Vincent offered. “She isn’t dead or gone, just getting treated.” Vincent said, trying to comfort Denzel’s sobs.

Denzel’s blue eyes met Vincent’s and they were broken and betrayed and Vincent couldn’t help but stare back into them, trying to fathom how to comfort a being so small and fragile. In the end, he simply picked the boy up carefully, and as he had with Marlene, held him close, mindful of sutures.

“It’s my fault,” Denzel whispered, as if it were the ugliest secret in the world.

“No, it was not,” Vincent said, cupping the back of the boy’s head supportively.

“I found them down in the cellar…the lizards…”

“The little lizards that Tifa was killing for getting into the bar were nothing like what came out of the cellar. Though admittedly where you find the little ones, you might find the big ones. The small lizards live in the same place.”

“They were horrible,” Denzel whispered.

The boy who had not flinched from Bahamut.

“I know,” Vincent said.

“I don’t like it here. Why won’t Marlene wake up?”

“She was so afraid…she went away in her own mind, trying to feel safe.”

It was the best explanation Vincent could come up with.

“Is it my fault? That I couldn’t make her feel safe…that Cloud…cries…”

“No. Not your fault Denzel. Be there for him, he needs to see you awake and smiling. Can you do that? It is an awfully hard and grown up thing to have to do?” Vincent asked.

“I don’t want him to go away again…like he did before. Marlene told me it was her fault he went away to Gongaga. She said she asked him some questions, and he just left.”

“No child,” Vincent’s voice was deep. “It wasn’t her fault, or yours.”

“Then why is he gone now?”

“Because he’s tired and worried for you and Tifa, and that makes him feel anger.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Vincent comforted. “Are you hungry?”

“Maybe a little?”

When Cid returned, so did Cloud and Reeve, and Cloud was delighted with Denzel sitting up and talking, delighted enough to feed half his takeout to the boy before Denzel fell completely asleep and Cid laid him back down.

“Here, finish mine…I do not feel terribly well,” Reeve said, handing his carton to Cloud.

Cloud looked at him curiously, and Reeve shook his head.

He stank like fear to Vincent.

“I will share mine then with you,” Vincent said, collecting a carton and heading out into the hallway. Reeve blinking at him. “ I need to go over reports with you regardless.” Vincent said, finding himself back in the conference room. He handed a pair of chopsticks and the carton over to Reeve. “Eat your fill.”

“Vincent, I can’t do that, you need to eat as well…”

“I will at some point,” Vincent said. “But I am unused to eating more than every other day.”

“But I can’t!” Reeve said, setting the box down on the table and looking ill.

“Will you let them kill you by starvation?”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Reeve was confused.

“You are afraid to eat, or sleep, or bathe for fear of being attacked again, but if you let the fear overtake you, then they will take your life without having to even touch you.”

Reeve shook his head.

“Let us get to the findings in your report then,” Reeve said.

“You don’t want to know,” Vincent said, not fooled by change in topic. “For now, let us send a search team to work from the center of the disturbance outward and have them comb for any signs of anything out of the usual. We can go from there. Also, be sure to arm them with Fire materia and summons, as this seems to tip the scales in our favor. All activity in these beasts will be nocturnal, or so it would seem.” Vincent said, showing the report to Reeve.

“So what are we looking for?”

“Signs of Mako extraction, subterranean or otherwise, signs of biological contamination or waste dumping. This sort of manufacturing is messy and takes a great deal of time and space and energy.”

“I want to know what they are eating that we aren’t noticing…with high metabolisms like they seem to possess…” Reeve said, looking over various graphs and charts.

“It is unsettling, isn’t it?” Vincent admitted. “We need a live animal to perform experiments on to be sure of diet. Just because it is built like a carnivore, does not mean it is.”

“After all, they have attacked humans, but they haven’t EATEN any.”

~*~

When the others were sleeping, and Cid was holding Marlene and half awake in a chair, Reeve was still awake. He looked frantic but controlled. He was pretending to read the pile of paperwork in front of him while his eyes were wide open and staring at something far on the other side of the room.

Vincent had not slept, because Reeve would not sleep. And so he had now warmed up leftovers. He took the stack of papers away, and replaced them with the carton and chopsticks. Reeve was as bad as Lucrecia!

“If I am going to be your bodyguard, then I will start by guarding your body,” Vincent smiled just slightly. “Eat.”

“You can’t be my bodyguard!” Reeve objected.

“Why can’t I?” Vincent asked.

“I don’t need to lose another friend! That’s why!

“Another?”

“Aeris was bad enough…the last two days it’s been close with Tifa,” Reeve glowered at the tabletop.

“Eat,” Vincent encouraged.

“I’ll just be sick from stress.”

“Not if you eat and get some sleep.”

“Dammit Vincent!” Reeve exploded.

Vincent just shook his head and smirked. Odd how alike in temperament they were.

Reeve did however, snap his chopsticks and begin to eat.

Nanaki opened an eye from the couch, glancing at Reeve.

“If no one killed you today when you and Cloud went to the bar, then no one will likely try to kill you in Vincent’s company.” Nanaki yawned and lots of teeth showed. Reeve flinched.

“Has anyone seen to your wounds recently?” Vincent asked.

Reeve just shook his head, too overwhelmed to move.

“Where is the rest of your entourage?” Vincent asked.

“They’re…outside, why?”

“Good,” Vincent said. “Finish that and we will be off then.”

“Off where?!”

“To get you to sleep and to do so where no one knows who you are.”

“Are you taking me to a hotel room then?” Reeve asked, looking aghast.

“Worse,” Vincent said.

Reeve wolfed his food, but he didn’t look happy with Vincent.

“You cannot be serious.”

Vincent quirked an eyebrow. Very seldom was he not.

Reeve was still protesting when Vincent checked them into a tiny motel far on the outskirts of Junon.

“You can’t be serious Vincent!”

“You are here, are you not?”

~*~

A/N: I managed to get them into a motel room together. I clearly win. Now, on to the next chapter. XD

TBC