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“Should be nice tonight. Clear skies, not too cold. Good weather for February,” Cid announced to no one in particular. He clasped his hands behind his head to stretch his back and shoulders in the late afternoon sun, relishing the little pop somewhere in his spine when he flexed something just so. “When’s the last time you looked up, Val?” He caught up his polearm from the ground and took off again after his caped companion. Stomping along through the scraggly grass of the prairie, swishing his spear point back and forth like a scythe, the pilot was the picture of impatient boredom, but they had at least another hour of this trek before they reached the place the taller man had indicated on the map earlier.
Vincent’s eyes flickered towards the other man as he walked, his boots clanking a soft rhythm against the dirt. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
They fell into silence for a little while, accompanied only by the quiet clank-clank-clank and the frustrated whooshes of their respective equipment, until Cid realized Vincent hadn’t answered the question. He tried again. “Have you ever really looked up, though, since…” He thought for a moment about how to finish that sentence - how did one attempt to delicately convey ‘since we found you moldering away in a locked room in a basement’ in polite conversation? It wasn’t something that had come up in either his engineering degree or flight school, and the territory seemed… fraught. “Since you, uh, joined us?”
“Not really.”
“Ah.” Really, he ought to have known not to expect more in the way of conversation from the pale man. Sometimes, it seemed like he could count on both hands the number of sentences Vincent had uttered over the last few months. And he paid close attention - not hard, when he was so easy on the eyes, all wild broody hair and cheekbones and literally smoldering Mako-enhanced eyes. The man’s marksmanship would’ve left even the toughest old boot of a sergeant in flight school sputtering in disbelief, but he had no small talk skills. None. Sometimes, Cid felt like he’d have better conversation talking to his reflection in the lenses of his goggles, or at least an equivalent one. Ask a handsome man a question, get no reply without filling in the empty space on your own. Still, even if he wasn’t much to banter with, usually, it was nice to look across the campfire from time to time and just see another person there.
The quiet walk continued, and eventually the rocky outcrop marked on the map appeared on the horizon amidst the lengthening shadows of the sunset. Without a word, both men gravitated towards it, their long legs making easy work of the remaining distance. Cid slowed as they approached the rocks, letting his companion go on ahead. He watched as Vincent effortlessly scaled the ridge to stand silhouetted against the sky atop it, his hair and cape billowing a little in the slight breeze, scanning the horizon with his sharp eyes. It was a ritual he performed at every campsite, and if he didn’t take it so seriously, it might have been comical. Cid had learned not to interrupt, regardless of his own perception of a place’s safety. The one time they’d all been tromping around in the snow - one time, goddammit - and hadn’t let Vincent check the place out had, of course, been the time they all got ambushed by monsters in the middle of the night. He supposed that, after what Vincent had been through, a thorough check like this was more than reasonable. After a few moments, Vincent and his cape seemed to flow back down the side of the formation. His loose posture indicated the answer, but Cid asked anyway, just in case conversation might be more possible now that twilight was curling its purple fingers overhead.
“We all set?” the pilot asked with a hopeful smile, walking over to lean his polearm against the rocks. “Not much daylight left for putting up the tent.”
“Yes. It’s a good site.” Vincent replied. “I’ll get everything out.” He slung his bag off his shoulder and they got to work making camp.
The sun had set by the time they finished rigging the tent along the east side of the outcrop. It was a chilly evening already; Cid shrugged deeper into his jacket and lamented the dry grassland. No snow or rain nearby meant they couldn’t risk a fire. At least his jacket was warm. He glanced to the top of the rock formation. Vincent had climbed back up once the tent was set, removed his cape, and spread it out like a blanket over the bare surface. He sat quietly watching the horizon, curled forward to rest his elbows on his bent knees. His red eyes glowed softly in the gathering darkness, but his expression was as inscrutable as ever. If he felt the chill, he was doing an excellent job of not showing it.
Cid got to his feet, more than a little bored. He still wasn’t entirely sure why Vincent had insisted on visiting this place. Initially, he’d thought maybe it was something to do with materia? And then it had seemed like maybe just an excuse to get away from the relentless kinetic energy of too many people on the buggy and the plane. But there wasn’t anything happening near the tent, and they hadn’t passed anything even remotely like a landmark or materia cave or even just a hill to break the endless expanse of grass, except for the one where they had now stopped. Sitting alone in the dark was weird if you weren’t actually by yourself, Cid decided. Grabbing his thermos, the pilot called up to his companion. “I’m coming up, so if you hear anything behind you, don’t shoot, okay? It’s just me.” With considerably more effort than Vincent had seemed to need - the rocks were almost sheer, even if they weren’t particularly tall; how had he done it so easily? - Cid eventually hauled himself up next to Vincent.
It was colder without the rocks’ bulk to stop some of the breeze. The prospect of sitting up here on bare stone was suddenly not particularly appealing. “Angels above, it’s dark out here. Any room on that thing for another person?” Cid asked, gesturing at the cape.
“It’s not large,” Vincent began, not looking over, but as Cid started to nod and look for a flat place to sit, Vincent… kept talking. “I can make room.” He shifted slightly sideways, and sure enough, the resulting real estate was just enough for Cid to sit, if he didn’t mind practically brushing shoulders with the other man. He took a step forward just as Vincent, still watching the distance, continued with an additional thought. “Try not to get it muddy.”
Cid paused in the middle of bringing his dusty boot down onto the fabric and awkwardly put his foot back down on stone instead. He glanced towards Vincent’s feet, and sure enough, his feet and the pointy-toed boots he wore were arranged off the fabric. Cid leveled a flat stare at the side of Vincent’s unconcerned face. “You mean to tell me this damn thing lived in a box with you for thirty years, getting all moldy and gross, and now I might put a little dirt on it and that’s too goddam much?” But Vincent was silent again. The evening breeze ruffled gently through his hair. It seemed for all the world like he’d forgotten Cid was there.
With exaggerated care, just in case his lanky friend happened to look over, Cid turned his back to Vincent and sat carefully on the heavy red fabric, somehow managing it without stepping on it or upending the thermos. That in itself felt almost like a miracle. He grinned in triumph as he swung around to face the same way as his companion, taking care to stretch his legs out so that his heels rested past the ragged, moth-eaten hem. If muddy footprints were a bridge too far for Vincent Valentine’s sensibilities, fine, Cid could deal with that. Heaven knew he had idiosyncrasies about his own stuff, though his mostly involved engine grease and motor oil. Occupational hazard.
Leaning back on one hand, thermos resting next to his hip, Cid glanced at the other man, who continued to take no notice of him. He turned and peered into the darkness, too, squinting at the featureless plain of grass. “Anything worth looking at?” he teased, looking back to the other man with a grin. “Wait, better question: can you actually see anything in all this darkness?”
Vincent sighed softly, and blinked, looking for all the world like Cid had interrupted a daydream. “Yes, I can see. No, there’s nothing interesting out there. A few field mice, and maybe a rabbit warren a hundred yards or so from the ridge, but that’s it. It’s quiet here.”
“You… hang on. Wait a goddam minute.” Cid leaned forward, squinted into the distance, then turned his eyes on Vincent. “Mice? You can see mice a hundred yards away? In this fuckin’ dark?”
“No,” Vincent replied, and he turned to meet Cid’s incredulous blue stare. “I can’t see the mice. But I can hear them. They’re much closer than the rabbits. The rabbits, I can see. The glow on the horizon is Junon.” It was perfectly matter of fact. Yes, Cid, I can see in the dark. Yes, I can hear mice over there, Cid. The nonchalance was maddening, but the quiet glow of his eyes watching him as he spoke was something else entirely, for reasons Cid didn’t understand. It was almost the most he’d heard Vincent say in one stretch ever. The pilot scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“That’s some spooky shit, Vince,” the pilot said after a moment. The glowing eyes narrowed in a scowl. “Shit. Sorry. Spooky shit, Vincent.” The scowl remained, but Cid could have sworn that the corners of the other man’s lips quirked upwards ever so slightly, ever so briefly, and he was suddenly grateful that the darkness likely hid the way he blushed in embarrassment. …or did it, given that the man apparently could see rabbits halfway to Midgar? The heat in his face intensified as he thought about how close together the cape’s limited real estate obliged them to sit. Certainly it was the first occasion he could remember being so close to Vincent for any amount of time other than passing him in a corridor. “I do try to remember,” he muttered, looking down toward the thermos. “Sorry again.” He took a deep breath and tried again to get a goddam grip, Highwind, you’re a grown-ass man, not some kid at a school dance. Thankfully, the cold night air quickly chased his blush away. His eyes came to rest on the thermos. Thermos. Tea. No bewitching eyes to trap him when he was looking at a thermos, no matter his torrid, lifelong love affair with its contents. He cleared his throat. “Brought some tea along. Want any?” He held the little container up. “It was fresh when we left the Bronco around lunch. Should still be hot.”
But Vincent was silent again, and had returned to watching… rabbits? With a shrug, Cid unscrewed the flask’s lid, and smiled when all his anxieties melted away as the fragrant steam reached his senses. He inhaled deeply. Tea, his greatest love. Happiness in liquid form. Comforting, always there for you, even when you fucked it up. Tea could fix anything. The first sip was a balm. The second was warm, flooding across his chest and down to his fingers, fighting off the cold. Rockets and airplanes were great, but if he ever met whoever was responsible for insulated travel mugs, Cid would buy them a whole night’s worth of drinks. Cid huddled around the little cup, wanting to cross his legs to curl his feet up, too, but Vincent’s earlier admonishment about his boots gave him pause.
The plains in front of them were as inscrutable as ever. Bored with the featureless grass, he glanced upwards over the edge of the cup as he took his next sip, wondering what the moon was up to tonight and if it might be out soon so he, too, could maybe see some of these alleged goddam rabbits. He nearly dropped the cup in astonishment, tea and all.
The sky was absolutely full of stars. Had he thought it was dark, a moment ago? He’d always been a goddam fool. Bright constellations sparkled high overhead in a sky that was a cold, deep blue-black, the same color he remembered from the glossy folder he’d received when he got the contract to build the rocket. The stars faded into a featureless, brighter blue expanse near the glow of Junon, too far over the horizon to see directly. He stared in wide-eyed wonder, trying to see everything at once and failing. A particularly dense river of light gleamed off to his right, and what seemed to be a pair of planets danced low in the sky to the left. For once in his life, Cid Highwind was speechless. He sat on his companion’s red cape on the rock, motionless, for what might have been moments or minutes or an hour, marveling at the sight above his head.
Something jostled his hand and broke him out of his trance. He looked down, blinking, and saw that Vincent had gently taken the cup and the thermos and was looking at him, a small smile playing across his face, softening his features. If he hadn’t just torn his eyes away from the incredible expanse of the stars and galaxies overhead, Vincent’s hesitant expression would have been at the top of the list of the most beautiful things Cid had ever seen. He carefully closed his mouth. The other man held the half-empty cup of tea out, tilting his head in a silent question, and Cid took it gratefully, draining it in a gulp. He couldn’t tell if it had helped steady his nerves.
“Did your eyes finally adjust?” Vincent asked. Taking the now empty cup back, his hands made quick work of closing the thermos again and setting it off to the side. Cid watched with rapt attention. It was funny - but then, maybe it made sense, he thought wildly - that such a skilled marksman had such elegant fingers. Vincent leaned forward a little to meet Cid’s eyes; when they did, there was a cautious concern in their crimson depths. “...Cid. Are you okay?”
Cid shivered. The motion seemed to shake him out of his amazement. “I’m… yeah. I’m good.” He looked away again, back towards the sky. “I’m great.” He shivered again, this time from the cold, and shrugged deeper into his jacket. The stars watched them as, for a while, the only sound was the wind rustling through the endless grasses. When he eventually looked over at Vincent, he was surprised to see the other man also looking up, taking in the starlight. He grinned.
“Guess you can check ‘look up at the sky’ off your list, eh?” Vincent nodded, absorbed in his thoughts and his survey of the heavens. Cid knew that look. He’d seen some version of it cross the face of countless interns arriving for a summer of learning about rockets. Sooner or later, everyone’s eyes and thoughts looked up. He leaned close to his companion’s shoulder, close enough to notice the way he smelled faintly of gunpowder and incense, so he could follow his gaze and try to figure out which specific constellation had caught his attention so completely. “Ever spend much time thinking about them before? Seasons, navigation - shit, even just mythology?”
“No.” Vincent’s reply was almost a whisper. His voice sent another shiver down Cid’s back, a shiver he tried to ignore.
“Can’t believe a man your age doesn’t know about the stars. Interested in learning?” It was only because he was sitting so close that he heard the distracted, quiet hum of approval over the breeze. “Okay. I can do that. One crash course in space, comin’ right up.”
Where should he start, though? Celestial navigation and rocket telemetry was probably out. Vincent didn’t sleep much, or so Cid had inferred, but that kind of stuff would put anyone but the most dedicated science geeks to sleep right away. Oughta weaponize it somehow. Analemma and equinoxes probably also weren’t great. Galaxies were interesting, but how to talk about them without getting into the astronomical weeds? Nah. Stars and stories were the place to begin. The stories, the dreams and the potential, were what got everyone hooked on this stuff, himself included; if it went over well, maybe other stuff could happen another time.
So he started with the easy ones, the bright ones that anyone could see just about anywhere on the Planet. The two neighboring planets low in the sky, almost lost now in the ambient light along the horizon as they continued on their way across the firmament. The Lunar Whale, though he couldn’t say how that one had gotten its name. The Candles. The Wolf and the Huntress, locked in their eternal chase as they wheeled above the ground. He pointed out the way the Huntress’s arm and her arrow formed a line which pointed to… it was hard to pick out, amidst so many twinkling lights that he usually couldn’t see, but eventually he found the north star.
He realized he’d been talking for a while, and glanced at Vincent, wondering if he’d resumed his vigil over the prairies. But no - he was gazing up, looking at nothing in particular, simply taking it all in. He seemed to realize that Cid’s voice had stopped, and Cid saw him glance sideways suddenly, briefly, before returning his attention to the spectacle above.
“So, whatcha think?” Cid asked after a minute. “Better than being underground, or cooped up in a city somewhere, right?”
Vincent was silent for a moment, but eventually managed a thoughtful murmur. “Do you have a favorite?”
“Mmm? A favorite?” Cid blinked, thought about it. “I dunno. They’re all so different. Some are important for navigation and calculations. Others have badass stories. Some of them we don’t know anything about. I used to want to be the one to explore those, to be the one to find the stories and bring them back.” He looked down at his lap. “No way that’ll happen now, though. Not with the… well, everything.”
“No favorites, then?”
“No, I…” Why the hell was he moping? No one needed to listen to someone else moping out loud, and Vincent sure as shit did enough moping for everyone else in the group combined. Plus, the night was just too damn pretty - why spend it getting lost in his head when he could soar instead? He sat up straight and found his bearings, looked a little to the left. “That one.” He pointed halfway up the sky, towards the southeast. The area he indicated was full of twinkling possibility.
Vincent looked, too, but glanced over his shoulder uncertainly a moment later, raising an eyebrow in the pilot’s direction. Cid chuckled. He shifted so that he could rest his hands on Vincent’s shoulders - they were bony under the thin shirt he wore; how was he not freezing to death? - and felt the other man’s posture stiffen briefly at the unexpected touch. But Cid was in his element, teaching someone about the sky, sharing something he loved, and any earlier butterflies he might have felt had been eclipsed by the promises overhead, and Vincent was just like any other student… wasn’t he? “Follow my arm,” Cid said softly, his head near Vincent’s ear, “sight along it. Same as a rifle, if that helps.” Probably he only imagined the small chuckle that rippled across the other man’s shoulders; certainly he didn’t hear it. With his right hand steadying Vincent’s shoulders to point him in the correct general direction, Cid reached behind the man’s slender back and pointed again. “Just there. That one. Near the bright one, but not the bright one itself. It’s called the Serpent.” Maybe not just any student after all. He’d done a few of these literal hands-on demonstrations before, but this was the only one he could remember where his heart had pounded like this.
So when Vincent leaned his head and its beautiful fall of black hair softly against Cid’s arm a moment later, the pilot had a flash of panic. What the hell was he thinking? What was he doing? But he froze, remembering that he’d mentioned sighting along a rifle, and wasn’t that motion sort of intrinsic to both riflery and stargazing? He told himself that must have been what was happening, as Vincent relaxed a little further against him, leaning back into his chest. That gunpowder and incense scent was stronger now that they were so close. Cautiously, Cid leaned his cheek on Vincent’s shoulder.
They sat for a few minutes in the tense, comfortable silence of new contact, each content to remain exactly where he was. After a few minutes, though, Cid picked up his head. “...Vincent?” There was no reply. He tried again. “Vincent, I gotta put my arm down, it’s getting tired.” When there was still no response that Cid noticed, he wondered if his friend had fallen asleep somehow. He slowly lowered his arm, watching to make sure Vincent’s head didn’t suddenly fall. It didn’t; instead, he picked it up without being prompted and tilted it in the other direction, resting his ear along Cid’s cheek. With considerable effort, Cid shook his hand out a little to get the blood going through it again before he planted it on the cape where they sat, trying his best not to disturb his companion. More time passed. When he thought it was probably safe to do so, Cid shifted his right hand from its place on Vincent’s shoulder to rest more comfortably along the other man’s lithe, scarred arm. He hadn’t noticed the scars before, but he filed that new discovery away for later. Little electric sparks crackled up from his calloused fingers as they traced the pale skin, until his square, bluff hand found Vincent’s cool, slender one resting in his lap. Delicately, cautiously, hesitantly, with the same focus and concentration and high stakes as he repaired a tiny electrical panel, he took that hand in his. He hardly dared to breathe.
“You’re so cold,” he didn’t realize he said out loud.
“I never realized how many there were.” Vincent’s voice was quiet, and not an answer.
“What?”
“Stars.” His hair rubbed against Cid’s stubbled cheek as Vincent tilted his head backwards again to look up. “I’ve looked at them before, of course, but not… Never like this.”
Cid looked up, too. “Me, either.” He flicked his eyes sideways. “...Vincent?” He felt a little reply of not-quite-sound rumble through his shirt and took a deep breath. “Is… is this okay? Are you okay? I am very okay, don’t get the wrong idea, but if it’s… if you weren’t… shit, I just - I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop? We can just get some sleep, if you want.” Cid snapped his mouth shut to keep from babbling. He didn’t want to think about attempting to navigate that rock scramble in the other direction, in the dark. He definitely did not want to think about how fuckin’ weird things would be for the next few weeks as everyone noticed something was different but pretended everything was fine and normal and couldn’t understand that for Cid Highwind, things had been completely perfect for a few hours that no one else knew about until he fucked it all up again. Story of his life.
Again, there wasn’t a reply in words; this time, not even in inaudible sound vibrations. Vincent just shifted his hips a little to rest more comfortably and completely against Cid before placing his heavy, gauntleted hand atop Cid’s arm resting in his lap.
Oh.
Okay. That was… not expected. Had any of this been expected, though? His thoughts wandered slowly from the stars to the until now very aloof man curled in his arms. Cid enjoyed puzzles, sure, but this one would take some considerable time to work through. Thankfully, time was on his side for now. The night stretched into perfect contentment.
Eventually, the deep blue of the sky seemed to become softer, to lose some of its richness behind a mantle of gray. More slowly than Cid could follow, the stars slowly faded, too, until only the ones that burned brightest remained - the Huntress’s eye, the little cluster of the Wolf’s Teeth. He picked his head up and looked past Vincent’s unkempt hair - the Serpent was too close to the horizon now. He’d missed its departure.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “...you awake?”
Even if Vincent didn’t talk much, he had very good hearing. He stirred and sat up a little, though he didn’t immediately shrug away out of reach. Cid realized with a grimace that he couldn’t really feel the wrist he’d been leaning on for hours. Shit.
Vincent did move his hands after a moment, gently disentangling himself from Cid’s arm. He reached next to his other hip and produced the thermos. His voice was as smooth as ever as he unscrewed the lid, as though nothing had happened. “This will help. Your hand must be tired.”
“...you’re gonna have to tell me how you knew about that,” Cid muttered. In the pre-dawn twilight, the tea was still warm. Materia and magic were well and good, but as he sipped, Cid thought again about the science behind the miracle of keeping hot drinks hot overnight. Vincent sat up entirely then and did… something incomprehensible and languid with his shoulders and hair and arms, rolling his head side to side in a stretch. Cid, watching, very explicitly did not choke on his tea.
“Can you see them now?” Vincent asked, glancing over his shoulder. His glowing eyes were as unsettling as ever, but Cid thought he could see some warmth there now, stirring in the depths. Maybe it was the little smile on the edges of his mouth.
“See what?”
“The rabbits.” Cid looked out across the grass again. It all looked the same to him, just indistinct waves of gray, dark, rustling vegetation.
“You weren’t just making those up this whole damn time?”
“No. They’re closer now, and the light’s better. You should be able to see them, too.”
Cid put the cup of tea down carefully and leaned forward to fold the other man into an embrace again. He laced their fingers together - sturdy, warm, calloused and slender, elegant, cool - and rested his chin on top of Vincent’s shoulder. “Maybe you can point them out for me.”
So he did.
—
The sun was well above the horizon by the time they made it back to the main party, camped on the beach near the Bronco.
Yuffie, from her vantage point atop the plane’s wing, was the first to see them; she waved wildly, jumping up and down. “Did you find any materia?” she yelled. Angels above, he wished she wouldn’t stand up there.
“None at all!” he hollered back. “Get the hell off the damn wing, Yuffie!”
Aeris walked over to them and beckoned for him to lean over so she could share a secret. When he did, though, instead of whispering in his ear, she draped a little crown of tiny purple and white flowers around his head. “Oh, it fits! Wonderful!” He raised an eyebrow. “They’re crocus,” she explained. “They grow here - and since it’s your birthday and all…” He staggered. Shit. Was it really…? Frowning, he did some quick mental math, and realized she was right. In front of him, Aeris’s green eyes filled with concern. “I’m sorry, Cid, is it too much? I just thought…” He grinned at her and planted a messy, affectionate kiss on her cheek with a laugh.
“It’s perfect, kiddo. Thank you.” She grinned back and escorted him into camp like he was some kind of conquering hero, a role he was only too happy to play. Amidst the gift-giving and banter - Cloud handed him a slightly wrinkly pack of cigarettes without a note or ribbon or anything, earning the consternation of just about everyone else - Vincent had slipped away. Looking past the cheerful group of friends crowded around the remains of last night’s fire, Cid didn’t see him anywhere. Eventually, he noticed the familiar silhouette, cape billowing, sitting on the end of the plane’s wing. One pointy-booted foot dangled above the waves hissing across the sand. Cid felt a jolt as their eyes met. Vincent nodded in acknowledgment, and Cid nodded back with a lazy smile.
The flower crown was lovely, and the bourbon Tifa had managed to both find and keep secret for weeks was almost its own tiny miracle, but little things like that happened every year. Only one person had ever given him the sky.