Vincent Valentine (
bloodypast) wrote in
melodiesoflife2016-09-25 12:35 am
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Taking responsibility [Semi-Open]
Characters: Vincent, Sephiroth, others [Mostly Open; Refer to the top-level Prompts]
Where: Hospital, Aquares Ixen
When: 9th-14th September
Summary: Some aftermath of the fallout from Sephiroth grieving over Terra being in Crystal Stasis. Vincent helped disable Seph, and is now keeping an eye on him. Some people might want to have words with him about how he did so. In between guarding a Weapon for a few shifts...
Warning: Language maybe? Potential angst?
Sept 11th-13th at various times.
Vincent is one of those who is guarding the Ultima WEAPON'S wreckage. These are the only times he won't be found at the Hospital, keeping a guard over Sephiroth. If you want to interact with him, see here.
Sept. 9th-12th
Vincent will stay out of the way of the healers, but otherwise stay in the hospital and keep an eye on Sephiroth as he sleeps off both the post-Job exhaustion and the sleep status. Making sure the silver-haired SOLDIER is healing well, and not being bothered unduly. Occasionally Vincent will head to the Crystal Stasis wing, visiting those among his friends who are there. Ophelia can also be found bringing him a bag with a change of clothes, and a book or two.
He's unlikely to talk in the same room Sephiroth is resting in, but feel free to come check on the SOLDIER, or yell at Vincent, or check on Vincent.
Sept 13th--Closed to Sephiroth
Vincent has spent the past few days keeping watch over and not quite playing guard for Sephiroth, mostly so that when the other does wake--he can apologize. Also to keep others from overwhelming the silver-haired soldier right away. Sadly, Vincent understands heartbreak; he also knows Seph well enough to have some idea of how, hopefully, to help the other start healing.
September 13th, OPEN
Since part of Vincent's assumed role has been gatekeeper for a very private and recovering SOLDIER, he'll be keeping an eye out to ensure the other doesn't get tired, when others DO come to visit him. This is the prompt to use for visiting Sephiroth--and if you want to do so privately, Vincent can wait outside the door.
Where: Hospital, Aquares Ixen
When: 9th-14th September
Summary: Some aftermath of the fallout from Sephiroth grieving over Terra being in Crystal Stasis. Vincent helped disable Seph, and is now keeping an eye on him. Some people might want to have words with him about how he did so. In between guarding a Weapon for a few shifts...
Warning: Language maybe? Potential angst?
Sept 11th-13th at various times.
Vincent is one of those who is guarding the Ultima WEAPON'S wreckage. These are the only times he won't be found at the Hospital, keeping a guard over Sephiroth. If you want to interact with him, see here.
Sept. 9th-12th
Vincent will stay out of the way of the healers, but otherwise stay in the hospital and keep an eye on Sephiroth as he sleeps off both the post-Job exhaustion and the sleep status. Making sure the silver-haired SOLDIER is healing well, and not being bothered unduly. Occasionally Vincent will head to the Crystal Stasis wing, visiting those among his friends who are there. Ophelia can also be found bringing him a bag with a change of clothes, and a book or two.
He's unlikely to talk in the same room Sephiroth is resting in, but feel free to come check on the SOLDIER, or yell at Vincent, or check on Vincent.
Sept 13th--Closed to Sephiroth
Vincent has spent the past few days keeping watch over and not quite playing guard for Sephiroth, mostly so that when the other does wake--he can apologize. Also to keep others from overwhelming the silver-haired soldier right away. Sadly, Vincent understands heartbreak; he also knows Seph well enough to have some idea of how, hopefully, to help the other start healing.
September 13th, OPEN
Since part of Vincent's assumed role has been gatekeeper for a very private and recovering SOLDIER, he'll be keeping an eye out to ensure the other doesn't get tired, when others DO come to visit him. This is the prompt to use for visiting Sephiroth--and if you want to do so privately, Vincent can wait outside the door.
September 13th [Closed: Vincent]
It didn't take more than a few more seconds for not only green eyes to drop and fall away from Vincent's form to the floor, but Sephiroth also turned his head so that it would be easier not to look at the gunman in the room. Shame. That skin-creeping feeling that he'd felt before, except he didn't have the whiskey to blame anymore. Neither could he easily fight-or-flight, currently.
Nor did he have someone who would always be there, to hold to his side and assure him that it would all be alright.
"I know." He muttered, biting back the urge to spit poison back at the other man. He could have ended all of this misery, just by being off with his aim. If Mary hadn't moved just so, if Sheena had pulled a different way against him...
"For whatever good that's going to do, now."
Re: September 13th [Closed: Vincent]
Sephiroth could not be allowed to run from this.
"Would you rather I had simply shot to kill?" A curious question, as most people would likely prefer to not be shot at all. "You don't want to hear it, and you won't believe it, but I do actually understand some of what you're going through."
September 13th [Closed: Vincent]
He made himself swallow, made a point of looking to the table side where a jug of water with plastic cups was laid out, considered trying to make himself sit up to get a drink before Vincent's following question froze him, not so unlike a scared animal in headlights.
The concept of death, in particular his own death, had never strayed far from his thoughts ever since that detail of the Sage's alternate-future had been presented to him. He'd wanted to hold onto Terra so tightly, somehow guarantee with all of his soul that he'd never put himself into danger like that, if only for all the pain she'd then be plunged into. He'd never promised though, as what were promises really worth here?
Though it wasn't her fault at all, the promise of the future they could have was now tattered. He'd been so naive to think that finally fate had started to swing in his direction.
"Maybe...I should be dead already." He didn't have a response to the empathy Vincent tried to show, so best only to respond to that which he did have an answer.
Re: September 13th [Closed: Vincent]
"So many things we've learned, complicated and frustrating, on Crystallis. Not least of which the existence of other time-lines, other versions of ourselves. Beings who should be us." The gauntlet removed, and Vincent flexed scarred fingers and hand carefully before rolling up his sleeve to the elbow.
Baring flesh that held a latticework of scars that was lacelike over skin that had started degenerating decades ago. Left weaker and tougher, less flexible or feeling than his right. "That means that somewhere, there is a Vincent Valentine who did succeed--and you were never born. A Dr. Crescent who disagreed with all that Hojo wanted her to do. Perhaps even a planet that Jenova never came to. A ShinRa that never discovered the parasite..."
Crimson-eyes studied Sephiroth thoughtfully.
"If you're going to dwell on things that should or should not be, you'll drive yourself mad."
September 13th [Closed: Vincent]
But somewhere between Vincent's movements, and the words he spoke, part-curiosity but moreso that part of him that drove his sharp sense of spatial awareness -given as Vincent had moved closer- inevitably drew the troubled expression in the direction of the other mans' mangled arm as he bared it in front of him for the first time. It felt personal, yet Sephiroth also knew Vincent were using it to get his point further across.
"Then I daresay I'm already more than half way there..." The whispered growl spoken between them was intensely private, yet a bitter admission that Sephiroth did indeed know his own faults well. His was a mind that hardly truly rested, and the sore fact that the one person who had helped him to turn down the volume of his own churning pondering was no longer around...
Quickly he lowered his eyes and turned his face away again. His eyes stung as if there were no more tears left to come. He felt vulnerable, like someone had reached in to a large part of his body and ripped a giant hole. A hole that everyone could see and not matter how he had tried he hadn't been able to conceal it for long enough to start healing. Sephiroth hated how he was left to feel, how he had no control over it, and worse that he'd allowed himself to become so weakened...again.
Not my quote--yay Nietzsche
Maybe Sephiroth did feel he was vulnerable, but that was the other reason Vincent was here. To play guard against more than just curious onlookers. To be companion, whether wanted or not--he was needed.
"There is always some madness in love, but there is always some reason in madness." Letting that sink in, be thought over, before he continued. "Certainly there is reason you felt for Terra so strongly, or you wouldn't grieve now. Grief is its own madness too."
A hint of sad laughter. "I know that madness--love and grief both."
no subject
Like some bona fide spear of truth, that first line spoken lanced sharply through walls that really hadn't yet had a chance to re-find their foundation just yet and Sephiroth hissed in a breath. Grimaced and turned his head away in an attempt to forestall the quivering it brought to his jaw, anything to delay the sinking pit of a feeling that a moment later would threaten to rise up and still bring tears even though he was already sore of them. He couldn't cry in this company; whatever was left of his pride wasn't sure it could take it.
He wanted Vincent to just...stop. To stop talking to him in this way, that aged voice of experience behind it, adding a sense of self-naivety and depreciation to the jumble of a negative mess Sephiroth had already taken to thinking himself in terms of. It was made worse by the fact that he used to know himself so well, forever wore his confidence where others could see it and now...
Well, they all needed a real hero. Not one that had been built up on the equivalent of smoke and mirrors.
Once more an attempt to swallow all of that back and Sephiroth leaned his body more onto his good side and managed to get himself -with a different hiss of a noise, that time- into a seated position. Slowly blowing out that breath as his damaged shoulder argued loudly at the change. The pain was almost welcome, something familiar and practiced in how to deal with, unlike those things which Vincent spoke of.
"-she doesn't deserve this."
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"No. She didn't." He finally answered after a pause. "No one deserves to go into that state, or to be here in the first place. We're all cleaning up messes left long ago by those who had no thought or care to just what they did. They made a problem, and felt themselves so capable of solving it, that when it spiralled out of control they were blindsided."
Letting that sink in for a moment, as his voice had been a slightly louder volume than he normally used. Emphatic and firm. When he spoke again, his normal tones and volume had returned. "None of us 'deserve' to be here, and yet here we are. So, who can blame any of us for finding connections where we can with those whom we find comfort with?"
Another pause, and then decisive. "You won't be allowed to run from this, Sephiroth. You've closed yourself off, kept others at a distance, and avoided dealing with things for too long already." Perhaps there was also a hint of challenge in his tone.
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Still, he could immerse himself into that just as much as he had previously so outwardly it seemed he still had exactly the same conviction. Sephiroth's firmly set jaw twitched a little in response to Vincent's first question, as if he might retort with something but his minder gave him no chance to form the words before running immediately at him with the more direct statement. Then he did make eye contact, anger quickly drying out the sorrow that had been there and -perhaps as expected- going immediately on the defensive in reaction to that tiny hint of a challenge presented.
"That's rich coming from you." Sephiroth's sharp tones were also louder, but not as loud as they could have been had he not been asleep for the best part of three days. But it also betrayed the real fact that he knew Vincent too had been guilty of all of those things and yet more, it was personal when it came to the circumstances that he already knew...of exactly what events had brought him into existence at all.
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If anything, Vincent was keeping a very tight rein on any hints of temper. Not that he didn't expect Sephiroth to attempt lashing out while in pain. It was a common and human reaction.
"Is this to be the catalyst, in this time and place, to deciding you will burn your bridges?" A deliberate question--alluding to, but not directly mentioning what had happened on Gaia. But asking Sephiroth his decision--giving him the choice to follow that path, or not. No judgement yet, either, in Vincent's tone. Only curiosity.
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He sat up straighter, felt a strong desire to stubbornly fling himself from the opposite side of the bed and stride from the room, yet keenly aware of how physical limitations made that scenario pretty limited in it's execution. He didn't need to sit there and take such a suggestion from Vincent, of all people...how could he ever understand...
"Burn my bridges?" He emphasized that middle word fiercely, as if to somehow get Vincent to think about those for a moment. To Sephiroth, although there were others around him that seemed always to be on hand to look out for him, there had been only one bridge, passed all of those defenses he put up, that he'd allowed to be built. If anything had burned it, it had been Crystallis itself by taking her from him...but not so far off the end of that feeling of hatred towards this Planet which was starting to grow, was the vague awareness that it was an inevitability.
It's an oddly familiar hatred, after all.
"-I don't know what you expect me to say to that."
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"I don't expect you to say anything, but I hope that you'll listen." Vincent replied evenly, keeping his own temper under control. "You're not stupid." Both of his parents were blind, and touched to obsession, but neither of them had been stupid. "I say 'burn your bridges' because there are ties and bonds you possess beyond Terra alone. Whether you want them or not, they exist and did you give them any thought when you gave rein to your tantrum?"
Sephiroth's military career, Sephiroth's reputation among the Heroes and citizens of Aquares Ixen... Even those who considered Sephiroth his 'friend' even if he never acknowledged that word or state, (like Jade and Sheena).
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"Tantrum..." The way that Vincent demeaned all of Sephiroth's outburst into being so childish like that didn't sit well at all. Though he knows it had been his emotions riding him, at a level which he hadn't been able to reign in like he had before, to call it a tantrum...that's just insulting. He turns his head away again, reaching across himself with his good arm; slowing down the speed of the twist he'd made as the injury made it difficult, to take the half-full plastic cup of water from the side.
"You're right." He spoke again only after a sip of that water which was needed to clear his throat. "Those other things...my responsibilities, my duties...I've tried but-"
He'd left it for so long. Tried to move on. To carry on. There are larger things at stake. Sephiroth's eyebrows meet and drop in the middle again, but the expression is closer to that sadness than the anger that it's feeding. Touching at something deeper; the sense of no direction that Terra had been helping to guide.
"-it's just not worth it, anymore."
no subject
Working towards that larger purpose was why Vincent still stood, and why instead of crossing his arms as the darker man usually preferred, he moved them behind his back. Purposefully slipping into--if not a militarily precise--obviously recognizable 'at ease' stance. A lecture it may've been, but Vincent wanted Sephiroth to listen as well. And to talk, if he so felt like it.
"I'm not talking about your duties or responsibilities. Nor your reputation." A one shouldered-shrug, and Vincent still kept a tight rein on his own emotions. "Certainly, you didn't think about how your actions might reflect on those--but the bridges I mean are personal connections."
A heartbeat, two, and then Vincent spoke more gently and quietly. "You've never been the type to simply give up. I doubt you really would've preferred I'd gone for a kill instead as well."
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The fact that there wasn't really a clear end-goal didn't make any difference. The SOLDIER had always had a bar to aim for, before. The end of a mission. The pushing of the bar of his own personal-standard of fitness and swordsmanship. There had always been results for him to then take and achieve better-than, the next time around. It had been a point of his personal pride that he'd always excelled in whatever he set his mind to. Sometime, not so far into his future back home, he'd be referred to as 'perhaps too brilliant'.
"Why not? Do everyone a favor. Prevent that world from going through all of what you saw it go through. Cut short any chance of it spilling over into this one..." Sephiroth hadn't so much ignored what Vincent had said previously rather than biting at the comment that he instantly knew how to answer where he didn't have a come back for the former. Impulsive, quick to react; hardly the calm and calculating man that by all accounts he appeared to be publicly.
"...I've not any better ideas."
Personal connections though. His thoughts backtracked to that one and he looked away from Vincent and down towards his feet. He was going to have to make the effort to try and get up soon, it had already gone past the point at which laying down could still be comfortable.
"It's important to remember, those connections are just as doomed as this world. Even without the apocalypse sitting on the doorstep, people only stretch so far-"
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"So, even if they're doomed, you'll just give them up now?" Even if the other man wouldn't listen yet, hopefully Vincent was giving him things to think about for later. Reminding him there was more than just the moment to worry about. More than just this immediate loss.
"No one blames you for grieving over your loss." Quiet again, and the first time he'd addressed Terra's loss as a 'serious' issue, not as a tantrum. "Grief is painful, and its own kind of madness. But you can't let it consume you."
Bowing his head, finally letting Sephiroth have a break from Vincent's study. "It's a hard lesson, and I know it well. I've made the mistake of doing nothing before, and of giving up. Ultimately, it does nothing to help one's pain and only breeds more."
no subject
He'd made a very sharp point in not meeting with Vincent's eye contact, at all though. Something inside his chest still quivered under the potential pressure that others' judgment might make him feel again. Sephiroth had felt, for a long time, that he was a shadow of the man that he'd come in as and how he was left feeling -utterly destroyed- in the wake of his loss was only further proving it to himself. He'd let himself become weak, and he was starting to hate it.
"I shouldn't have allowed myself to get into this position, in the first place." He eventually made a comment, lowly, but the sincerity -the absolute honesty- with which he spoke that statement might seem haunting; and more than a little inhuman. Indeed, Sephiroth was already in the process of trying to deaden those nerves. To mute that emotion that was more raw still than even the fresh scarring he would have to now nurse.
"I don't understand it...how I managed to set myself up for this fall."
finally tag, wasn't sure what else to write.
"Despite what others wanted you to be, you're more than simply a weapon, a soldier. For better or worse, you're human." More human here on Crystallis than he ever had been on Gaia. Much like Vincent was now; no longer a failed experiment, but human.
it's fine, perfect even >.<
Sephiroth closed his eyes and kept them closed for a long moment as Vincent's words struck home. It couldn't easily be seen between the light of the room and the way he'd kept his head inclined but that statement meant more than simple words could have delivered, eyelids shook a little in resistance to the tears that would come after that swell of emotion; he wanted to be done with it already, his eyes already stung.
So there it was, the reason for all of this weakness? The fact that he wasn't all that monster that Genesis had declared him to be, not at all that villain that haunts in the back of his mind ever since he became enlightened to what his future held...furthermore, the proof of that...had been in Terra?
"So it's in the nature of being human, to open oneself up for this? To make connections that only turn around and stab you as deeply as you valued it? I have been betrayed before, Vincent...but it wasn't like this."
Not my quote re: love, admittedly.
"It's in the nature of humanity to feel and experience emotions, to seek connections with other humans to help us make sense and survive life. Life itself and the nature of existence is entropy, harsh and cold--and so we seek out warmth, connection, others to share things with as balm against the hardship." Softly, trying to offer hope--it wasn't always bleak, even if it often seemed so. Vincent himself had often been far more pessimistic and cynical in his life; yet never quite extinguished a tiny spark of romantic and optimistic hope.
"I've been betrayed too, Sephiroth." Stated with genuine sympathy and no pity. A fact. "This one hurts though, and feels different, as romantic grief is different than others in its intensity." He made no move to replace his gauntlet, instead examining the scarred and weakened hand. "To love someone is madness. To be loved by someone is a gift. Loving someone you love is a duty, but being loved by someone you love is life."
<3
But off the back of Vincent's words, it just wasn't sticking anymore. The long silver braid which had been set against his healthy shoulder dropped back behind him as he shifted on the bed a bit more. The conversation was threatening to touch at the not-quite settled pool of emotions within him again and as a result the often too-stern SOLDIER seemed almost scared as he listened.
"Is that really what you think life is-" He still kept the detachment in his tone, clinging to it as he didn't trust how else he might sound. How his reddened eyes already had started to moisten again, unnoticed by himself, uncontrolled. It made it a little easier, as Vincent drew all attention to the near-enough grotesque mess of flesh that was his ungloved hand. Sephiroth was curious, but a larger part of him felt awkward in that he already knew how Vincent was relating this circumstance.
"I've not ever needed such companionship. Whether it be honest friendship, with others, or if it was romance that I felt with Terra." He couldn't help but narrow his eyes again as he still chewed internally over the concept. Romance wasn't a strong enough word, he thought.
"Yet I've always managed to come through hardships...to carry on regardless. It's a strength that I seem to have misplaced."
Re: <3
Letting that hang in the air for a bit between them, hopefully a more comfortable silence than they'd had previously. "It's a hard lesson to learn. I'm stumbling through it myself still." Vincent let out a sigh with the weight of all his years behind it belied by his young looks. "...others can be there with you though, without crowding or having one lose oneself. It makes burdens lighter and more bearable."
no subject
In the silence that followed a single tear broke the bottom barrier of one of his eyelids, but invisibly ran down the edge of his face, being hidden by one of his bangs. It was a lesson, indeed, one that Sephiroth wasn't sure he wanted to pay attention to still. He wanted his pain to end up dulled and shoved away somewhere inside of him to be forgotten, not constantly behind the eyes of those that would call themselves friends.
"For a time, perhaps." Again, with the eye-closing in an attempt not to let his emotions boil over. He didn't used to be anywhere near this sensitive and somehow he needed to find his way back to that.
"I'm not sure if I can take the turn around again."
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"One of the advantages, to having friends... Even if one is usually more of a loner, having a few friends still helps. It allows one to be stronger, to weather hardships. If one only faces things alone--they keep piling on, until one breaks." Letting crimson-eyes slide over, studying the soldier's profile. "I would rather you didn't break. Not because of fear of what you'd become, because you--yourself, as you are--are worth knowing and being a companion to."
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"I don't know if I'm even-" He chewed on the corner of his mouth discreetly, the gesture almost making him seem to pout a little as he thought about that particular word - breaking. Vincent didn't have to spell it out, given the future he already knew about, but it did bring about the consideration as to the underlying causes that might have contributed...might still contribute, in the future as it's yet to have happened here.
"-everyone is alone, in the end."
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