Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Once a Man ❯ Life and Its End ( Chapter 7 )

Once a Man

Chapter 7: Life and Its End

I woke up the next morning in bed with Vincent curled around me cradling my hurt body against his. The instant I tried to move, I regretted it, so I closed my eyes again and composed my call-in for work. I had just gotten to the part about being mugged -I was mostly sure Vincent would back me up- when I felt him stir behind me. Normally, I would have rolled over and checked to see if he'd be interested in a morning wake up greeting, he does love having sex in the morning, but pain and a restraining hand on my hip stopped me.

“Go back to sleep.” He brushed a kiss against my temple. “No one is expecting you to be anywhere today.”

Oh, yes. I had forgotten. This was Vincent that I was dealing with, not some brain dead stud with a macho complex. He probably called while I nodded off under the medication's effects.

But I wasn't the only one that needed care. I caught his hand and held it in place. “You, too. You're tired.”

I got another brushed kiss, “I'll be back by noon. Now, sleep and I'll leave breakfast on the bedside table. I don't want you out of bed today.”

He slipped away and I felt myself sliding back into sleep. I fought it for awhile, enjoying the little sounds that I had never really treasured until they were gone, like the sound of his showering, the small burble of the coffee maker, the muffled thud of the door as he went to get the paper and returned, and the small chiming clinks of him making breakfast.

He slipped quietly back in holding breakfast, a glass of water, and a bottle of medicine. Seeing that I was still awake, he put my meal and the glass on the night table and shook some medicine out of the bottle.

“Here take these.” He carefully helped me sit up. “Take them every six hours.”

I took the medicine and swallowed most of the water. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not consider myself a know-it-all. I am good at bio-chemistry. Other things, like engineering, psychology, and first aid are really beyond me. Mind you, when dealing with Vincent after what she did, I took a crash course in medicine, advanced human physiology, demonology, and a few other sciences, but I still generally bow to the experts in fields where I have limited experience- that is after all what a staff and research assistants are for. Vincent, being a Turk, had a lot of experience with aftermaths of bar fights and field triage, so if he said stay home, stay in bed, and take medicine, I wasn't going to argue.

He tucked me back under the covers and left. I managed to stay awake long enough to hear the door close behind him and the receding sounds of him walking down the stairs. I vaguely remember getting up to visit the bathroom and taking a good look at myself in the mirror. I had a few problems focusing my eyes -I think that was when I finally bowed to the inevitable and decided to get glasses- and even focused, I couldn't recognize myself. My face was swollen, bruised and had scrapes and cuts littered about its planes. My body, when I bravely lifted the tee-shirt Vincent must had maneuvered me into yesterday while I was out cold, I looked like an abstract artist had painted all over me in blues, purples, reds, and pinks. I quickly put the shirt back down, did what I came to do, and retreated carefully to bed.

Vincent, good attentions aside, didn't reappear till after dusk. I woke when I heard the door close quietly behind him. This really wasn't a slip up on his part. I learned later, he can, when needed, enter and exit any place without all the sound of a shadow passing over a calm lake. However, when coming in or exiting our apartment, he always let the door close with a small sound to alert me that he was home.

When we lived together, I always met that sound by calling out a greeting. He liked that. Apparently Grimiore hadn't allowed unnecessary noise at home, claiming that it interrupted his work, so having someone call out a welcome home, was completely forbidden. Silence was the rule of the day and even though Vincent's mother had tried to make it better by kisses and hugs, the distinct lack of welcome had its effect. When I absently yelled out a welcome the first time he walked in our apartment, he stood smiling a silly smile in the entry for a minute then came over to express his enthusiastic approval. From then on, if I was home, I made sure he got at the very minimum a hi.

He dragged himself in and looked me over as I sleepily blinked at him. “Better.”

Liar. I looked like hell, but then again, so did he. The bruised look to his eyes had only gotten worse, he was even paler, and he was slumping. Vincent slumping is a dead giveaway that he was near to complete collapse.

I patted the bed next to me. “Get some sleep. You're tired.”

He shook his head. “Dinner.”

The second giveaway that he's about as exhausted as he can get is when he talks in one word phrases. Yes, he's quiet, but he's also articulate. Even for him, one word at a time is a bit too quiet. I've only seen him that tired a few times, mainly when he'd been out on an assignment that was too dangerous for him to even trust his partner to adequately protect him while he slept, so they both huddled together in whatever slummy tenement Shinra had them lodged in, and kept vigil with drawn weapons and pots of coffee.

I patted the bed again. “Come on. There's food in the freezer. I feel good enough to put things into the microwave.”

Yes, heathens, we stone-age people had microwaves back then. Mind you they were large, clunky affairs, but they were microwaves. When I got hired at Shinra, I bought myself one in a giddy celebration of having enough money to buy such small luxuries.

He didn't argue, probably because he was too tired to argue, came over and collapsed on the bed. He was instantly asleep. I shuffled to my feet and carefully pulled off his shoes then covered him with the blankets. I figured I'd try to wiggle him out of his clothes later after I got dinner heated up and had to wake him so he could eat. To my too critical eyes, I thought he looked a bit too thin, but then he always looks too thin to me. I spent copious amounts of time trying to put weight on him to no avail. I even nagged a nutritionist into giving me a diet for him once. Vincent hated the food and even threatened to shoot me when I presented him with a professionally recommended, nutritionally sound meal. I had to toss it out and heat up my mother's beef and vegetable chow mien, pork dim sum, and hot and sour soup before he put away the weaponry. He's thin and he's going to remain that way.

I managed to get out to the kitchen without any painful mishaps and had our dinner spinning around in the microwave. I noticed that he'd dropped what looked like a small arsenal near the door and stood trying to decide if I should even touch it. I knew guns, but he'd dropped a bandier of grenades in the pile. I hate grenades. I suppose I'd watched too many movies where some poor shlub got heroically blown to bits trying to save his friends from a carelessly dropped grenade. I decided to leave the stuff where it was and went back to the kitchen to find some caffeine-free tea to go with dinner.

He woke up when the tea kettle whistled, even though I snatched it off the stove in a second. He appeared in the door, slumping tiredly and now mildly mussed up. He, by the way, looks adorable when he's mildly mussed up, which I suppose is why I always loved ruffling his hair up and tugging his clothes loose.

He frowned at the small microwaved banquet. “Where?”

“My mother sends me food every week.”

And thus began his love affair with my mother's cooking.

For the next week, I was excused from coming in to the office, though every night Vincent had dragged home a large section of the never ending paperwork that Shinra produced to keep my occupied. It was like I never left.

How cheerful.

I don't remember the exact time we decided that we should live together. It was more of a gradual accumulation of Vincent's things as he spent most of his time at my place. He did have a very nice apartment, provided by Shinra, but the place was a sterile nightmare of ultra-modern leather furniture, recessed lighting that managed to light nothing, glistening counters that had all the warmth of a coroner's slab, and unending vistas of white, pastel, and chrome. (I was relieved when that home fashion trend disappeared.) He preferred my place with its second hand couch that was big enough to sleep on, old TV that you had to get up to change the channel, temperamental stove, and chipped bathroom.

One morning, I went to my closet, dug through Vincent's uniforms and realized that we really needed a bigger place. I didn't even consider when he'd settled in, why his uniforms where now crowding out my clothes, how his toiletries came to be cluttered in with mine, or what his book collection was doing rubbing shoulders with mine. I just dug out my clothes, and yelled to him that we should find a larger apartment, preferably one with two closets. He wandered in from the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth and nodded.

“I'll get my secretary to work on it.” He mumbled and went back in to rinse.

We moved in a week. The new place had the requisite two closets, a huge office where we could both have a private desk to work at, a wet bar that was nearly in constant use as friends came over to relax, and a large master bedroom that he gleefully ordered an immense bed for then bounced playfully on the edge of it till I came over to help him “break it in”. It was also closer to work, so we could spend more time lazing over our morning routines, and it came with a weekly housecleaning service. This was mainly for the times when Vincent was off on assignment. He had me well trained to be cleanly by the second month of living in Bone Village, but he still had images of me living in complete squalor when he was gone. The housekeeping service relieved his anxieties that I was downing in filth and he'd come home to find me dead, done in by virulent dust bunnies.

Our lives melded together seamlessly. We both still had our previous lives and had no overly romantic notions that we couldn't be complete without the other nearly handcuffed to our sides. He, either by preference or by orders, had to spend most of his time trawling through Midgar's bars, night clubs, and pool halls. You might think that I joined him at times, but after the bar fight, he severely cut down on my public drinking. I think I scared my big, bad Turk with that stunt. I had experiments and deadlines that often required me to stay at the lab, sleeping on the decrepit vinyl sofa in my office. He'd stop by and drop off takeout food at night for us to eat together, or sometimes bring clean clothes to me in the morning after an all nighter. But generally, we lived a warm, peaceful, often busy life with friends dropping in, -Mr. Snide Laugher was actually Veld, who back then still had a soul and a personality- vacations, relatives -I was not entirely enthusiastic about Grimiore being a sort of father-in-law and he wasn't entirely thrilled by the relation either. Neither Vincent nor myself grieved very much when we were notified about his sudden passing. Grimiore only had two loves in his life: science and young, nubile women. While I was semi-interesting because I was a scientist (and eventually had to work with him on projects), Vincent barely rated more than a fatherly pat on the back before he was treated like a servant or piece of furniture. (This also should have been my first warning that she was either an accomplished liar or delusional when she tearfully claimed Grimiore's last thought was of Vincent, but I was too stupidly blind to see it.) My mother, on the other hand, was a frequent, welcome guest and Vincent delighted in going to visit her since she stuffed him full of Wutain food and cuddled him unmercifully- and we enjoyed going out on the town to the non-lowlife areas Vincent didn't visit often like the movies, nice restaurants, and coffee houses.

I suppose I could give you a sample of our day to day lives: the tiny pleasantries; the naggy little details like bills, minor illnesses, and meaningless arguments over inconsequential things; making love in the overly big bed Vincent liked to spend his days off lounging around on; and other common acts that made up our lives. The problem is that there really was no one day that stands out as special. There were holidays spent exchanging gifts and visiting relatives. There were anniversaries of dates we found special to the two of us that were celebrated with a meal out and hours of play in bed. There were bad times when Vincent didn't come home and Veld would knock on the door to bring me shaking and terrified to a hospital to hover anxiously till some doctor finally said all would be well. There were vacations to Wutai and up to Bone Village to visit the City of the Ancients. But there was no one day that stands out as more special than the rest.

We could have gone on like this forever, till one of us finally passed into the lifestream to wait for the other. I would not have minded. I had all I wanted. I don't think he would have minded either. He'd sometimes, especially after a stressful mission, daydream about retiring to less active duty as a trainer and ask if I would mind moving to Costa del Sol or Wutai. Since neither of us truly believed he'd survive that long, I'd vote for Wutai and we'd ramble on about what we'd do, what kind of house we'd live in, and whether or not my mother would live with us -He wanted her to. I didn't.

It ended quite innocently, even unnoticeably. The boys up in Bone Village finally found the rest of Jenova. That sparked off quite a bit of excitement. Gast went personally up to Bone Village to retrieve the specimen and the science department reprioritized all its projects. I barely cared. Jenova, as I said, was interesting, but I noticed more than a few worrisome effects. I figured it would be poked, experimented on, and then, like Gast's other insane ideas, shuffled into the back of the lab to gather dust. The thing that destroyed our peaceful lives was the fact that Gast decided to hire more assistants. This led to her arrival.

I was at lunch talking to one of my own assistants about an experiment that had failed. It was an anti-toxin that could be deployed like a potion, but instead of curing, it could be thrown before combat to neutralize any toxins that might be produced by the monster, a preventative cure. Unhappily, the experiments were less than promising, and Gast was making noises about cutting budgets to focus nearly all resources on Jenova. We were trying to see if there was any way to save the project when she walked up to the table an introduced herself as Gast's new assistant.

I will say here, that I was a complete fool. Even after being in Vincent's presence for so long, watching as he used his stunning looks to manipulate others, and watching others try to use the same trick with him, I still fell for her innocent seeming beauty. And she was beautiful, with her sweet angel face, soft voice, glorious hair, and luminous eyes. She nearly radiated sweetness, naïve earnestness, and delicate refinement.

“I'm sorry to interrupt.” She stood at my shoulder, smiling shyly at me and my assistant. “I'm Professor Gast's new assistant, Lucrecia.”

I, in an excess of good manners stumbled awkwardly to my feet. “Hello, I'm Hojo, the assistant director.”

My lunch companion stumbled to his feet too. “Nabisuki, I'm one of Hojo's assistants. Pleased to meet you.”

I should have killed her. I should have grabbed a knife off the table and tried to cut out her non-existent heart. What did I do? I invited her to join us.

“Please, join us.” I waved to a seat. “We were just talking shop.”

My assistant knew enough to keep his mouth shut about project failures in front of any of Gast's assistants. No matter how angelic they appeared, office politics were office politics and the staff was already divided into two camps, Gast's and everyone else's. When we “talked shop” around one of Gast's people, it was generally to babble Shinra friendly slogans and exclaim about Gast's greatness. To do otherwise was unlucky, as in all your funding would suddenly dry up and perhaps you'd be invited to leave Shinra-which qualified as being academically blackballed and you'd spend the rest of your miserable days as a public sanitation worker, if that.

She sat down and gave us another shy smile. “Thank you.” She looked around as if slightly nervous. “I don't know anyone here yet.”

“Have you had lunch?” I noticed she had nothing with her.

“Oh…yes, with Professor Gast.” She looked so… harmless.

The three of us had a pleasant lunch, talking about Midgar, -Isn't it lovely! Ah, the wonders that Shinra has produced for the people!- the wonder that was Gast, -Such a brilliant, kind man!- and how to navigate around the Shinra building -Not that there is a problem! Oh, no. It's just so immense. A true testament to the greatness of Shinra!- She eventually got to the place where she wanted the conversation to be, though I didn't realize that at the time.

“I…I heard about the Turks.” Her brow wrinkled briefly with worry. “Are they…dangerous?”

I laughed. “No. They're really quite friendly.”

My assistant laughed too. “To him. He lives with the leader of the Turks.”

She acted startled. “Oh!”

I waved it away and laughed again. “Come by and I'll introduce you to Vincent. You'll see. ”

I should have killed myself before I ever let her come near him. Happily, I was spared that horror.

She looked down at her watch and jumped guiltily to her feet. “Oh, I have to go. I'll be late.”

My assistant and I got politely to our feet and nodded our goodbyes as she rushed out of the room. We separated soon after and returned to our work. I didn't think much more about her for weeks. Gast and his assistants stayed in another part of the science complex, leaving me and the rest of the department relatively lunatic free. The lab became a rather busy and stressful place as more and more projects were axed for the glory of Jenova.

A few disgruntled scientists, seeing their life work fall before Gast's mania, made a small public protest, which was met in the usual Shinra style of complete and ruthless suppression. Vincent and the Turks were assigned to thinning the ranks of dissidents and I was warned quite fiercely by my lover to keep my head down, keep smiling, and suck up to whoever I needed to, to keep myself from finding myself on the wrong end of a gun.

Vincent was a stressed out mess during this time, which I think made him more vulnerable later to her conniving than he would otherwise have been. He spent his days hunting down terrified scientists that until a few days ago had casually stopped by the apartment for drinks and a few laughs. He came home every night and grabbed me into a relieved hug, as if he had spent the entire day believing he'd find me dead, another threat to Shinra's greatness eliminated in a bloody puddle on the floor. At night he would cling to me, refusing to let go until the alarm clock rang. Our lovemaking didn't seem so much about pleasing as it became a way for him to reassure himself. I think he made an inventory and with careful fingers and relieved kisses tallied that I was all there and unharmed each night.

While I will not go so far as to claim on paper that Vincent was in anyway less than loyal to Shinra during that time, I have to say that in the years that followed I did occasionally see a man or woman who looked remarkably like some of our old friends who'd been erased by the Turks, living quiet, unnoticeable lives in out of the way locations. The resemblance was truly uncanny. Well, you know what they say, someplace in the world you have a twin. Funny how all those twins lived in tiny villages where Shinra's power was the weakest and how no Turk ever seemed to notice anything suspicious. I even saw Veld nod hello to a twin of a man he had been assigned to erase without even breaking stride as he walked into the local inn for a drink. The man, in return, bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the ground.

It was not a fun time, and it finally came to an end when Shinra decided to isolate the Jenova project to a small town on the Western Continent called Nibelheim. I was more than happy when Gast informed the department of the change. I wasn't as happy when I was informed that I would be part of the research team assigned to there. While Nibelheim is rather picturesque, it wasn't what anyone would term a tourist destination. Added to that, it meant months trapped with Gast in an old mansion that the President of Shinra's grandfather bought to house -read incarcerate- his insane, first wife. I felt like all my childhood nightmares of haunted houses inhabited by crazed lunatics came true all at once. I only felt marginally better when I learned that Vincent was coming with me to head up the security.

Vincent and I packed our things -he had learned to defer to me in the area of packing. The difference in our luggage on our trip to Bone Village had impressed on him that I was the expert in that area of endeavor- and said our goodbyes to our friends with one last party then headed to the armpit that was, and is, Nibelheim.

I hate that place. Vincent hates that place. I remember the first look we had of it. We had traveled from Midgar to Junon in a helicopter then took a boat over to Costa del Sol. He managed, through a “confusion in transport arrangements” to extend our stay there for three days, before our helicopter came to drop us off just outside Nibelheim. We stood with all our luggage at our feet looking at that monstrosity of architecture with all the excitement of two men about to go to a proctologist.

“And how long do we have to be here?” I queried, vaguely wondering just who had been the insane one in the Shinra family.

“It's not certain.” Vincent swallowed hard. “You'd think they'd at least keep up the landscaping.”

The entire yard was dead. If you go by it today, it doesn't look terribly dissimilar to what we saw when we looked at it. If anything, the fighting, materia blasts, and other additions that Avalanche and Vincent have made probably at least make it look lived in. Too bad it still stands. The only real renovation that could improve that place is a wrecking ball.

We stood looking for a bit more.

“It haunted. I know it. It's haunted.” I muttered.

“I didn't think you believed in ghosts.” He didn't look terribly thrilled with my observation.

“I didn't. I just became a believer.” I pick up my luggage. “If some crazy, dead woman comes creeping around our bed late at night clanking chains and oozing slime, I'm quitting and becoming an archaeologist.”

“Thanks for the visual.” He picked up his luggage and we trudged merrily in to meet our doom.

Gast was waiting for us in the front hall. “Well, you're here.” He laughed a hearty, booming laugh. “What do you think of the place.”

Vincent shrugged. “Not bad.”

I took my cue from him. I was still wary after the witch hunt for traitors about saying even the most innocuous of things. “Needs a bit of cleaning.”

“All taken care of, my boy. All taken care of. A cleaning crew will be out tomorrow.” He threw a companionable arm around our shoulders. “Let's get you settled in.”

The three of us went up the stairs as if we were the best of friends.

Gast nodded to a bedroom on the left. “That's Dr. Cresent's room. Vincent, you're going to be assigned to her for our stay here.” Vincent frowned, but Gast waved it away. “I know, I know, but she's a city girl and needs a bit of hand holding. It shouldn't interfere with your real duties.”

Vincent still didn't look happy, but Gast was right, once the security system was set in place, Nibelheim would be very easy for Vincent to watch over. He'd have more than enough time to babysit a frightened city girl. It sounded reasonable.

I should have been suspicious. The too warm welcome. The odd assignment. The very reasonableness of the whole thing. I should have grabbed Vincent and run out of that place as fast as I could. Instead, I shrugged and trundled down the hall to where Gast indicated our room was.

It was nice enough. No dead, crazy women floating around spreading cheer and ectoplasmic goo. There was an old bed, a battered night stand, a few lacy curtains, and a tired chair that drooped in the corner near a dented brass lamp. Vincent and I stood in the door a moment, taking in our new room.

“Lovely.” Vincent pulled his luggage in and went to sit on the bed. It creaked ominously at him.

I hated to think what it would sound like at night with the two of us bouncing around on it. Half the mansion would know everything we did and the other half would have a good idea. I was too disgusted to do much more than frown at it before I walked over and dropped my things in front of the closet.

“I hate to think what the lab is like.” I muttered glaring at the rat chewed carpet under my feet. “I can already tell this is going to be a nightmare.”

How right I was.

Little did I know the nightmare had already begun.

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Review please.

AN: I just watched my first episode of Deathnote and am I insane or is there a young Vincent like guy roving around as part of the investigative team? Oooooh, the crossover ideas that sparks!