Blood & Sympathy (FFVII: Vincent x OC)

Ch19 - Nightly Threat

She felt the silver taste of blood that made her gag. Jocasta looked at her clothes, drenched in bloodstains of her victims. It was night. She could hear the wolfs’ distant howling in the forest. She felt tired as the breeze brushed her, bypassing the holes made on her clothes by the claws and nails of whatever unfortunate animals her demon had consumed this time.

“You really had to make a mess, didn’t you?” Jocasta asked her demon, out loud. There was no one around her to question her about it. Jocasta walked within the thick forest outside Gongaga Village. She could barely see around her, but her advanced vision and the full moon’s light were enough to guide her back to the camp.

I was hungry.

“I see that. But now I need new clothes and a shower,” Jocasta protested.

About time you got one.

“Hey!”

Jocasta just shook her head and stopped talking when she spotted light ahead. She assumed it was the camp, she, Vincent, Cid and Cait Sith Model No. 2 had set in the forest.

The team had been divided in groups searching for Aerith the past few days, while Tifa stayed with Cloud in a local hotel. No matter all that studying Jocasta had done on psychology, there were some cases, like Cloud’s, that needed an actual professional. Her best guess was that he needed time. The moment he told her he’d passed at least once through a severe case of Mako Poisoning, it was all she needed to know to understand that he had suffered a loss of memory.

And while Cloud was resting, the team was searching for Aerith. For the gang, she’d disappeared. Just like that. With no notes left behind, no warnings, nothing. They couldn’t go on without the Cetra. Even though Jocasta knew what was going on, she knew they couldn’t move on with their Leader being in a comatose state.

“Ya look like shit, kid,” Cid’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

Jocasta sighed and tried to ignore her bloody fingers and clothes as she sat on the soil around the campfire. “Thanks, old man,” she said sarcastically.

“Ya done eating, lassie?” Cait Sith asked.

“Yeah…” she slipped her gaze around them “Where’s Vince?”

“Vamps went hunting not later after you did,” Cid said.

He poked the firewood closer to the flames with a stick before he settled it beside him and he searched his pockets for his cigarettes. He took one out, lighted it, and started dragging a few puffs as silence fell between them.

Jocasta grimaced “You know that thing’s slowly dragging you towards death, right?”

Cid chuckled “Like I give a shit!”

“I gotta agree with the doctor, lad,” Cait Sith said “Aight, I’mma have to run some diagnostics,” the cat said before the robot was shut down by whoever controlled it.

Jocasta stared at Cid as he kept puffing the cigarette. She grinned.

“Did you know that the tan thickens your blood significantly increasing your chances of having clotted arteries? And carbon monoxide with nicotine make the heart work faster, increasing the blood pressure and heart rate, damaging blood vessels. And that it reduces the amount of oxygen in your blood and not to mention the-” Jocasta started and Cid cut her with an exclamation of frustration.

“Alright, alright, I get it, for fuck’s sake!” Cid tossed the cigarette into the campfire and raised his hands in surrender “Just shut the fuck up, jeez, you remind me of Shera,” he frowned, running a hand over his tired eyes.