Bored, Cid Highwind sat at the controls of his ship, chewing on the end of a cigar with his feet up by the window. The big ship was halfway to Costa del Sol, loaded with a cargo of farm machinery for an enclave down there.

Hauling cargo was a bit of a comedown after helping to save the world, but Cid didn't mind all that much. It meant money in his pocket and he'd had enough excitement for a lifetime. At least for now. He switched the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and set the autopilot on. The Highwind could fly herself for a while. Glancing at his watch, he stood and made his way out of the cockpit like he'd been doing every hour for the last four days. Ducking to get through the doorway, he headed towards the living areas, with cramped bunks enough to hold an entire crew, plus his own, somewhat larger quarters.

It was ten feet by ten feet square, a luxury on a cargo ship, with three portholes set in one wall overlooking whatever they flew above. The room even had its own bathroom with a cramped shower he didn't need to share with anybody. Most of the room was taken up by a bed, a rickety dresser in one corner and a table with a lamp bolted to it being the only other furniture.

Cid looked at the bed. Lying in it on his side, his face turned away from the door, was the body of a seemingly young man. His long black hair fell over his face, his hands sprawled on the mattress beside him, one normal and pale, the other replaced by a bronzed, metal claw. A pair of oversized pyjamas hung off his thin frame and a bandage was wrapped around his head.

Cid glared at him, chewing on his cigar. He was angry every time he came into this room to check on the man in the bed, furious beyond belief and scared. But he couldn't not come, drawn by the beauty and mystery of him. And his relief at seeing the man on his side instead of flat on his back like he had been every other time he walked in was enormous.

"Finally rolled over, did ya?" he growled, not making any attempt to keep quiet. The man didn't move, his breathing slow and even. "When the fuck you gonna wake up, eh, Vince?"

Vincent Valentine didn't answer and with a curse, Cid sat on the side of the bed, cigar clenched tight as he undid the bandage and pulled it free. Hair was all he saw, hair coming from the back of Vincent's head that was a half a foot shorter than the rest of it, but better than when he first found him after AVALANCHE disbanded. When he followed a familiar sounding gunshot to find out that his newly former team-mate had blown out the back of his own head.

Cid ran a hand through the thick hair and shook his head. He didn't know for sure why Vincent had tried to kill himself, nor was he positive why he'd failed. Anyone else who put a three inch hole in the back of their skull usually died from it, but Vincent had been breathing when he found him, and he kept breathing while his skull knitted itself back together. Cid figured it had to do with some of what happened to Vince when he got that bizarre arm of his and he wasn't complaining. Finding Vincent had been like getting gut kicked. Burying him would have sucked even worse.

"Hey." Cid shook the sleeping man. "You awake, you asshole? Your brain's back in one piece, you gonna wake up?" Vincent still didn't move and he swore. "Hey! You think I want you hoggin' my bed, you prick?"

Vincent stiffened. "…Cid?"

Cid grinned, then hid it in a scowl as the other man rolled onto his back and looked at him out of confused red eyes. "What… happened?"

"You blew your fuckin' head open is what happened," Cid informed him slowly. "What made you want to do a fucking stupid thing like that?"

Vincent blinked and raised a shaking hand up to his head, running it through his long hair. He looked paler than normal, Cid noted.

"How… did you find me?"

"What's the matter, didn't plan on any rescues?" Cid glared at him and stood, walking over to the nearest porthole. Sitting next to the man just made him angrier. "When you and the others all split in yer separate ways, I did some tune-ups on Highwind. I heard your gun go off in the hills and went to investigate. Silly fuckin' me, I thought you'd run into a monster or something."

Vincent looked down. "I did."

Cid glared at him. "Don't give me any metaphysical shit about you bein' the monster. I listened to enough of that bull when we were huntin' Sephiroth. Why'd you fuckin' shoot youself?"

The younger - older - Cid could never decide which - man wouldn't look at him. "I didn't have anything more to live for. I already did what I had to do."

Cid forced his jaw to relax before he bit through his cigar. Watching Vincent Valentine tear himself to pieces had always pissed him off. It wasn't worth it. So his life turned to dog shit. So the woman he loved married some psychopathic loser and he got to spend thirty years sleeping in a box. It happened, live with it. "Did what you had to do… You are such a fuckin' moron." Cid crossed to him, grabbed the front of his pyjamas and pulled him up until they were at eye level. "You mean killin' that Hojo creep? You think that made you expendable? How dumb are you?"

"Where was I supposed to go?" Vincent snapped, angry now himself. Cid supposed that was better than being depressed like usual. "I had nowhere to go. Nobody wanted me!"

"Says who?" Cid yelled, shaking him. "Cloud wouldn't have minded you taggin' along. Hell, Tifa probably woulda given you a room in her bar. Even Barret would have. And you always got a spot on Highwind, you asshole!"

Belatedly, he realized he was shaking Vincent hard enough to make the other man's teeth rattle and let him go. Vincent sat down hard on the bed, coughing into his hand and Cid chewed on his cigar harder. Finding Vincent the way he had scared him almost to death, worse even than when Aerith was killed, and he found he wanted to beat him into the ship's plates for it. Or tie him up and never let him near a gun again.

"You - ain't - worthless," he grated.

Vincent looked away, his hands clasped in his lap, flesh over metal. "You don't know me."

Cid threw his hands up in disgust. "I sure as hell know enough," he barked - and would like to know more, he didn't add - "I know that you loved a woman an' lost her. Well, guess what, you don't show yer love to a woman by blowin' your brains all over the fuckin' ground! Got it?" He gestured wildly around him. "Hell, you sure don't do that to show your love to a man. You do something for them. Get them a- get them-" he thought madly, trying to think. "A-"

"A what?" Vincent asked wearily.

"-A beer!" he finished lamely.

Vincent stared at him, red eyes wide, then abruptly laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh, but Cid grinned when he heard it. He wanted to hear more. "See?" he commented, punching the slimmer man in the shoulder. "Even you can't be depressed all the time. Bet it felt good, didn't it, and you got no fuckin' reason to feel guilty." Vincent's eyes started to darken and he grabbed his arm, pulling him up. "Come on. Get dressed."

"Why?"

Cid gave him the closest to an innocent look he could manage. "Because my ol' man told me the second best way for a man to get his mind off of his troubles was to get elbow deep in engine grease. He saw dirt as the path to real happiness. C'mon. I'll show you what he meant in th' engine room."

Vincent Valentine didn't make a half bad grease monkey.

After dropping off the cargo at Costa del Sol, Cid flew the Highwind back to Rocket Town for an overhaul. She needed one, but he did it mainly so that Vincent would have repairs to fill his time. And with the Highwind grounded instead of flying on one engine while he worked on the other, he didn't have to worry about the younger man deciding to jump off the side or anything. Or hopping into the working engine. Cid wasn't entirely sure he wasn't suicidal anymore, and didn't want to find out the hard way that he was.

Dressed in a filthy set of coveralls, Cid chewed on his latest cigar and looked down at his friend. Vincent knelt in front of the exposed guts of the Highwind's main engine, dressed in a pair of coveralls just as dirty as Cid's, his long black hair in a braid down his back. Cid had briefly contemplated teasing the other man when he first showed up that morning with his hair done up that way, but decided he didn't want to undermine his self confidence. Besides, there was something rather appealing about Vincent Valentine in a braid. Hell, he looked sexy in the coveralls. Cid rather roughly pushed THAT thought aside and crouched down.

"How's it going?" he yelled.

Vincent looked up at him. The bangs too short to fit in the braid fell over his pale face and gleaming red eyes, and Cid shook himself before any more inappropriate thoughts entered his mind. Vincent was too gorgeous for his own good and he was starting to get the urge to do something about it.

"This engine is filthy!" Vincent yelled back.

Cid glared at him. "Hey, my baby works for a livin'! She doesn't have time to get her fuckin' dainties washed all the time!" He heard Vincent mutter something under his breath. "What was that?"

Vincent looked up. "I said, this ship isn't a woman!"

"Show's what you fuckin' know!"

"More about machines than you, apparently!"

Cid had learned a long time ago that those were fighting words. He didn't take that crap from Shera, he wouldn't take it from Valentine. Quickly, he climbed down to the main floor and strode towards the younger man as he stood to face him. "You saying I don't know how to treat my own fucking ship??" he growled.

In answer, Vincent threw a clod of grease in his face.

"I pulled that out of the engine," he snapped at him. "It's caked in everywhere. You're lucky the whole damn ship didn't blow up with you in it!"

His red eyes snapped anger, his body tense, the too big coveralls half hanging off him. Vincent glared at him, for the first time since Cid pulled him out of the hills focused entirely on something other than the long dead Lucretia.

Cid grinned, wiping the grease off his cheek. "Aw, you worried about me?"

Vincent jerked back, his pale face tinged with just a touch of rose. "I-"

Grinning wider, Cid brought his hand up and shoved the grease he'd taken off his cheek into Vincent's face. The younger man sputtered, trying to back away, but Cid gripped him by the chin.

"I like that," he told him and spit out his cigar, then yanked Vincent forward and kissed him. Vincent's lips were soft against his own, thinner than Shera's without any annoying lipstick to distract from the taste of the skin. Cid tasted engine grease instead but ignored it as he pushed his tongue into the other man's mouth and stroked it along his tongue once before removing it and letting go. "Clean the engine!" he barked and walked off, Vincent's reflection in some metal ahead of him showing the dark haired man looking more stunned than he'd ever seen him, frozen with his real hand up to his mouth.

Cid grinned and headed up to the control room. His pop always said the second best way to take a man's mind off his troubles was to get elbow deep in engine grease. But the best way was to just jump in bed and fuck it all away, and Cid had no problems whatsoever with the thought of helping Vincent do that.

"Cid?"

Cid looked up, startled at the sound of the new voice, though he supposed he shouldn't have been. He was in Rocket Town and the Highwind wasn't exactly small. It was only a matter of time before Shera came to see him. He turned around.

"How did you get on board?"

She looked down demurely. She was always demure, patient. Dull. "Your assistant let me in."

"Vincent," he growled. Not that Vincent had any idea of who Shera was, but he could undoubtedly make a guess, at least at what Shera wished she was.

Shera sighed. "It's nice to see you, Cid. Are you going to be coming home soon?"

He frowned, standing up. "I am home."

Her eyes shimmered. "I meant home with me."

Wouldn't the woman ever give up? She'd been following him around for years, thinking they had something, when all along she wasn't what Cid wanted. He liked quiet, yes, but he wanted it to be quiet overlaying passion, not just more quiet. "I don't want to talk about this."

"But, Cid-"

"Get out!" he yelled. She flinched, but as usual when he screamed, she didn't move. Sometimes he wondered if she were stupid.

"Cid-"

"I don't fucking want you here!" he yelled at her, trying to ignore her tears as he grabbed her arm and propelled her towards the hatch. He didn't want to think about how she'd introduced herself to Vincent. As his girlfriend? His lover? Cid's kiss with Vincent in the engine room a week before had stuck with him, though neither of them discussed it, and he wanted to continue it, touch that sleek underfed body and find out how the rest of him tasted. Providing Shera hadn't managed to screw it up for him. "Just go!"

She sobbed, clinging to him in an attempt not to fall as he propelled her along. "But, Cid, I love you!"

He reached the hatch outside and flung it open. "Yeah? Well I sure as shit don't love you!" He pointed at the stairs down. "Out."

Whimpering, she ducked out the hatch. "I'll be waiting for you," she promised but he just shut the hatch. Turning, he stopped as he saw Vincent, beautiful in his filthy coveralls and messy braid, with a big wrench in his metal hand. Cid hesitated, not sure what to say. If he'd been thinking, he wouldn't have been so cruel where Vincent could see him.

Vincent looked at him calmly. "Unrequited love is a nightmare," he told him at last and turned around, shuffling into the darkness to continue his work.

Cid stood by the hatch and swore for an hour at least.

"Shit, you did a good job," Cid muttered, peering into the bowels of his ship. Everything sparkled at him like it was new again, years of dirt and grease gone so that the metal was revealed again. Clean oil coated the parts that needed it now, glistening faintly golden.

"You seem surprised." Vincent's voice sounded faintly amused.

Cid grinned at him over his shoulder. "Just impressed. I didn't think it would come this clean." He stood and stretched his back. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Vincent wiped his hands on a rag and turned his back, starting to take off the coveralls to show black pants and a shirt underneath.

"Going somewhere?" Cid asked, a lump in his throat.

"Your ship is repaired. You don't need me anymore."

Before the dark-haired man could leave the room, Cid stepped up behind him and snaked an arm around his waist, pulling him back against him. "How can you be sure about that?" he grinned.

Vincent sighed, but he didn't pull away. "What makes you think I like men, Cid?" he asked.

"The fact that you didn't slug me or leave when I kissed you before." He nuzzled his ear.

Vincent jerked his head out of reach. "Don't."

Cid wrapped the other arm around him. "Your voice says no, but your eyes-"

"They say no too." Vincent pulled free and turned around, one hand holding him back. "You can't force things, Cid. I tried to force Lucretia to have feelings for me and all I got was thirty years of heartache." His voice caught briefly on her name but he kept speaking. "I'm going."

"So you can shoot yourself again?" Cid glared.

"No. I don't want to die anymore." Vincent turned and walked out. "But I do want time to myself."

"Fuck," Cid growled. At least Vincent wasn't suicidal anymore. But that wasn't enough. All Cid had started out wanting was to save a friend, then to have a tumble with the most gorgeous man he'd ever seen. Now he'd somehow ended up having to deal with that unrequited love shit Vincent warned him about, all without ever getting the man into bed. He stayed where he was in the engine room, not wanting to watch Vincent take his hair out of the braid, put on his bandana and cloak, then holster the Death Penalty and walk out the door. That would remind him too much of Shera every time he left her. He heard the outer hatch close though, with a grim finality.

Finally, he went back up into the main part of ship. The room next to his own that he'd given to Vincent was empty, nothing left behind. Cid cursed and went up to the control room, his resolve gone as he tried to see any last glimpse of the man through the big windows. He was gone though, no sign of him as Cid peered out at the hanger his ship was in. Vincent was gone.

"Fuck," he muttered and pulled back. His hand knocked against something loose next to the control panel and awkwardly he fumbled for it, barely catching it before it hit the ground and cursing whoever left it there unsecured.

It was a can of beer.

Cid stared at it, blinking, then grinned and popped the tab. It foamed over his hand, warm from being out of the fridge and somewhat flat, but it tasted great as he toasted his friend's return.