[fic] FFVII - "Hide and Seek" (Prologue)
May. 3rd, 2007 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
konstantyaTitle: Hide and Seek (Prologue)
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII (OGC)
Genre: Drama, general.
Characters: Vincent, OFC (with some Vincent/different!OFC in this prologue).
Rating: PG-ish
Word count: 4,513
Summary: A Turk mission decades before the war with Wutai. A chance meeting because of a bottle of whiskey and a torn shirt. Thirty-three years later, a woman comes looking for Vincent Valentine. (Or, I try to write a "Vincent has a daughter!" story that doesn't quite suck.)
Index post can be found here.
Prologue
Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity
Of this still life…
The Green Lantern was dim inside, filled with the warm, smoky light that one would expect from such an establishment. The tavern was also uncharacteristically subdued. Conversations between patrons buzzed and hummed in careful hushes instead of stormed merrily, and for once, one could actually hear the jukebox in the corner and the mellow crooning of a traditional Wutain song. The bar itself was startlingly empty, except for two men who sat on its right side.
It was into this scene that Mimi Yuramisa walked. She was somewhat of a local beauty who made her living as a seamstress, was not prone to taking risks, and did not frequent bars. Though this one in particular was somewhat familiar to her, the atmosphere was significantly different than she had ever remembered, and her steps up to the bar slowed in caution. Her attention fell on the two men sitting there, and though she couldn't see their features, their style of dress said they were from the east. Navy blue business suits. It was obvious that they were the reason behind the underlying tension in the tavern, but that fact hardly seemed their concern.
The bartender caught sight of her halted advance and gestured her on up. He was a short man leaving middle age, with grey hair and a wrinkling face, who smiled with a fondness that came from being a long-time friend of the family. "Mimi," he greeted warmly as she made her way up. "What can I get for you?"
She steered herself toward the left side of the bar, away from the foreign men. Intuition told her to be wary, but she smiled bravely back at the bartender. " 'Evening, Vashi. Just a bottle of Wild Phoenix whiskey."
Wispy eyebrows shot toward the ceiling and amusement played about his mouth. "When did you start going for the hard stuff, girl? And why was I not the one to convince you to do so?"
"It's for my father," she corrected in a laugh. "He's come down with a cold that settled in his throat, and since I was visiting, I was given the chore of getting him a bottle."
As Vashi turned around to search for an unopened bottle of the requested drink, a woman's laugh momentarily rose above the rest of the quiet talking, and Mimi looked over. One of the blue-suited men at the bar, the one furthest from her, was talking in hushed tones with a buxom woman with wide red lips. He grinned the sort of grin one would expect from a wolf (if wolves had short brown curls), filled his glass again from the bottle next to it, and drained half of it in one gulp.
His companion was hardly such the socializer when inebriated, and only because of the fact that they were sitting next to each other and were dressed alike would one have assumed they were there together. A sullen drunk, features partially obscured by pieces of black hair, fingers bringing his glass to his lips with purpose.
Despite how Mimi was only looking at him for scarcely even a couple seconds, it was enough time for him to notice, even with the alcohol in his system. With one dark-eyed look that was startlingly sharp considering his condition, it seemed that he summed her up, analyzed her, categorically broke down her characteristics, and filed her away. She had been half-expecting a lecherous gaze, and admitted to herself that a lecherous gaze would have left her feeling significantly better than the alternative had.
Swallowing, she hastened to pull her gil out of her skirt pocket, as Vashi had since turned around with the bottle of whiskey. "Well," he said with humor, "if this doesn't help his throat, at least it can help him to forget that he ever had a sore throat to begin with."
Mimi laughed again, pleased that it came out sounding as such and not a nervous titter, and began counting out the appropriate amount of money.
The bartender spoke again, this time in their native tongue—something that was being used less and less as the years went by, forgone in favor of the common language the rest of the world spoke. "They're a couple of those from the east," he said, and though his aged face and tone remained amiable, Mimi knew he referred to the men in the dark blue suits. "The ones that do that corporation's dirty work. So just watch yourself while they're around."
"That corporation" in the east. One rarely had to specify the name "Shin-Ra" these days.
Vashi grinned then, a wide, disarming smile that stretched the growing lines in his face, as if he hadn't just been talking about the men sitting practically right in front of him. "And when is that fiancé of yours due back?"
Peripherally, Mimi could see the quiet one looking in their direction, and for a fearful moment, she wondered if by some chance he had understood what the bartender had said. Turks, she recalled the name with a chill down her spine. Rumors had flown for the past few days about them, ever since they had silently shown up in Wutai, and if even half of what was said about them was true, it was no wonder that the mere presence of two foreign men in navy blue suits had almost emptied the drinking establishment.
However, despite the serious issue he had presented, Mimi couldn't help but smile at Vashi's question. "Within a week," she responded in the common tongue.
His eyes were glittering mischievously, as if he were one of her girlfriends and not a fatherly figure in his fifties. "Ah, and within a week after that," he continued in Wutain, "you'll be a blushing bride, and will no doubt make him a very happy man. If you haven't already," he added suggestively.
"Stop it!" she exclaimed with a laugh, cutting off anything else he might say, her cheeks turning red. "You're embarrassing me!"
Vashi merely grinned again, crookedly. "Well, that's what I'm here for," he said, dropping back into the common language as he put the bottle into a bag. He took the gil in exchange for the whiskey and sent her on her way.
Mimi walked out without even a sideways glance at the other patrons. She swore she could feel dark eyes on her, so heavy and intense the sensation was almost tangible, all the way until she exited the building and the door shut behind her.
At the bar of the Green Lantern, a glass was drained. A long-fingered hand raised in silent gesture for another.
---
It was the next night, a little over hour after she had locked the door and ended business for the day, that a knock came.
"I'm sorry, I'm closed for the night!" Mimi called good-naturedly. "Come back tomorrow."
Another knock, quiet enough to qualify as gentle, but loud enough to indicate persistence. A voice came through the door, muffled and male, low in timbre. "Please."
With a little sigh, Mimi made her way to the door, stepping over the red satin that was in a spread-out heap on the floor. Unlocking the door, she then opened it part-way, as if reiterating the statement to the person's face would make it more clear. "I'm sorry, but I'm…closed."
His dark eyes still held the liquid glaze of alcohol, but were far from appearing as intoxicated as they had the night before. Was he sobering up, or had he simply not consumed enough to get fully drunk? His eyes absently blinked at her, suddenly looking strangely weary in his expressionless face. As if he were a marble statue that had grown tired of its perpetual youth.
Mimi's heart leapt into her throat, but she pushed it back down with a swallow. "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to come back tomorrow." She was excessively proud that her voice wasn't tremulous, but when he continued to simply look at her, some dark part of the back of her mind idly wondered if he was going to kill her for her dismissal.
"…Unfortunately, I cannot," he finally said, voice quiet and deeper than she would have expected from a man as slim as he. He made no move to leave but also made no move to force his way into the shop. Mimi was about to speak, but he continued when her mouth opened. "Please," he said again. "I will pay double, even triple the cost of the repair."
She merely looked at him, finally taking note that he wore no tie, nor anything but an undershirt under his navy blue jacket. A white, collared shirt was draped over his arm. She took a deep breath, her mouth hesitantly moving before words actually came out. "I'll…see what I can do."
He nodded once. "Thank you. It's simply a sleeve I need mended."
Mimi nodded back, then took a step back, making room in the doorway. "Well…" she murmured, making a tentative gesture with her hand. He stepped up, into the building, and she closed the door behind him.
Standing a step below her at the door, they had almost been eye level with each other, but now that he was on the same plane as she, he stood almost a head higher. The height difference just served to swell her uneasy feelings and increase the intimidating aura he exerted—something that he gave no indication of even being aware of.
She suddenly wished she hadn't been so stupid, and instead had made up an excuse. She could have said she had a headache, a migraine, or was sick with the flu and had just thrown up before he arrived, or was suffering from menstrual cramps that made her want to tear out her uterus, or anything.
And she couldn't just suddenly change her mind and demand that he leave. As if she could force a Turk out of her home. She might as well just go buy a gun and shoot herself, that was how suicidal attempting such a thing would be.
And Kayden would be devastated to come back into Wutai's harbor after such a long trip only to find his fiancé dead. Especially over something as ridiculous as refusing to mend a shirt because it was after nine o'clock.
He held out his shirt for her, and she took it. "The sleeve, you said?" she asked, beginning to assess the garment. Anything to keep her mind from the Turk standing in front of her.
He nodded. "Yes. A tear in the right one."
It was a significant rip, up near the shoulder, but upon closer inspection, she could tell that it was not the sort of tear that came from catching the material on something or simply pulling it too hard. It was a clean cut through the fabric, like the type caused by a pair of scissors.
Or a knife. Maybe even a sword.
Automatically, her eyes began to inspect the clothing not for the tear itself, but for any stain of blood around it. Whether it was a relief or not, she couldn't find any. The fabric of the tear was just as immaculate and white as the rest of the shirt. Almost absently, she noticed it smelled freshly laundered with the slightest hint of something else. Maybe cologne, or maybe just the natural scent of his skin.
But it didn't seem to smell like blood or gunpowder, at any rate, and that was a good thing, she decided.
Mimi suddenly realized that he was still standing in front of her, waiting for her appraisal. Collecting herself, she looked back up at him. "It will be a simple fix. Shouldn't take very long at all."
He nodded in acknowledgement. "Would you mind if I simply waited here until you're done?"
I think I would. Yes, I would. "No, that's all right. It won't take long enough for you to do much of anything in the meantime, anyway." Like discreetly killing someone, her mind added. As if it were a disobedient child, she gave it a strong reprimand and warned against the continuation of such behavior. "Uh—please," she said, catching herself and lifting her hand in the direction of where a couple chairs sat, "have a seat."
He looked over to where she gestured, at the simple pieces of furniture she commonly used when customers wanted to discuss something, like choice of fabric or what colors would look good together. He simply looked at them momentarily, as if sizing them up, before he returned his gaze to her, nodded, and moved over to them.
Mimi sighed silently, feeling slightly more at ease now that he was not so close in proximity to her. Gingerly, she lowered herself to the chair at her workbench, reaching forward to grasp her white thread and a needle from the array of supplies that rested in shelves against the wall. Within a moment, her fingers were already repairing the damage done to the shirt sleeve, deftly working the needle in and out of the material.
She was almost halfway done with the repair when she accidentally pricked her finger. Not hard enough to draw blood, but even so, it was not a mistake that should have occurred from the simple stitches the repair required. Mimi could feel his eyes on her, and it was slowly shredding her nerves to pieces. Another long moment tensely passed, and she could bear it no longer. Using an imaginary itch on the back of her leg as an excuse to avert her eyes from her work, she glanced at him in what she sincerely hoped was a discreet manner.
He was sitting in the chair, straight and dignified, one ankle propped up on the knee of his other leg, concentrating on one of her sewing magazines that sat open in his lap. She slid her eyes over to him again, and for the life of her, she couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested in what he was reading or merely bored. His focus suddenly flicked up to her, and she quickly busied herself, not sure if he had caught her eyes or not, that was how fast she had looked away.
A couple more stitches, and she dared to glance at him again, to see if he was still looking at her. His gaze was back down on the magazine, and with a silent breath of relief, she refocused on his shirt. Her fingers wanted to move quickly to finish the repair, but she forced herself to keep a good pace and not hurry herself. She didn't want him to see exactly how nervous he was making her, nor did she want to stick her finger again.
She was sure a lifetime, or at least a good few excruciating hours had passed by the time she tied off the thread and snipped away the excess. Never before had she been so relieved to have finished a job, and she held the shirt out by the shoulders. "Done," she said.
He looked up. Silently closing her magazine and replacing it in the exact location he had found it, he stood with a dangerous grace that put the ladies at court to shame.
Mimi rose from her bench and gave the shirt one sharp shake, straightening it out and giving it a final inspection. Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she folded it once vertically, and held it out for him.
Before he took it, he unzipped his jacket, sliding his arms out of the sleeves, and her eyes immediately went to a bandage that was tied around his right bicep. Her pulse kick-started again, and she swallowed, hastily dropping her eyes to the shirt she still held. She realized she was staring at the rip she had just repaired.
Gently, he took the garment from her and placed his jacket on the edge of her workbench with a very muffled clunk. Her heart actually managed to skip a beat. Fabric generally did not clunk against a table surface; a loaded weapon generally did.
Swallowing again, she looked away, apprehensively looking back when she realized that she not only had nothing to entertain her vision, but felt even more nervous when she couldn't see what he was doing.
And what he was doing involved looking very, very nice. What was it with her and foreign men?
She bit the inside of her cheek harshly, in hopes the pain would bring back some of the common sense that had since fled from her mind. What in the world was she thinking? She was not just eying the—for all purposes—corporate hitman, and she was not noticing how enigmatically attractive he was, and she was not in a cheap romance novel that her friend Machiko had always read when they were teenagers. The man she was engaged to was not after her money (she hardly had a fortune anyway), was not conniving, or evil, or ugly, or an imbecile, or undeserving of her. And the man in front of her was not the dangerous and merciless scoundrel who simply needed the right woman to enter his life, show him the error of his ways, and unlock his cold, cold heart with the power of love.
And even if he was that type, she was not the right woman, had no desire to be the right woman. For all she cared at that point, he could go kidnap and torture and kill as much as he wanted to, so long as he did it very, very far away from her.
So long as he did it very, very far away from her and didn't remove any clothes of his in the process.
He slid his arms into the shirt, shrugged it over his shoulders, and gave the collar a sharp flick with his hands to straighten it. With the shirt on his person, he gave the shoulder a looking over. "Thank you," he said, looking at her as his fingers worked on fastening the buttons. "Doesn't even feel as it were ever damaged." He hardly looked pleased, but there was a scarcely perceptible softness in his tone and deceptively straight face.
Mimi smiled tremulously at the praise, however slight it might have been. "You're welcome." For a split second, she thought she saw something flicker in his eyes—perhaps the same look he had worn the night before—before she quickly looked away.
Maybe two more minutes, she estimated. Maybe two more minutes, probably less if she was lucky, and he would be out of her home and she could relax. She could draw herself a bath and have a small glass of rice wine and let her nerves unwind from the tight spring he had coiled her into.
Difficult as it was to tuck his shirt into his pants with his belt still secured around his thin waist, he managed it, retrieving his dark blue jacket from the workbench, weighted down with the gun she couldn't see, but knew was there.
He walked over to her, heavy shoes quiet against her floorboards, the top button of his collar unbuttoned, his jacket unzipped. Reaching into the inside of the navy blue garment, he pulled out a billfold, extracting a generous sum of money—certainly more than she normally charged for such a simple repair, and quite probably exceeding triple that amount. Replacing the remainder of his gil back in his jacket, he held out the money to her.
Mimi was honestly too shocked to simply take the money and smile, which was what a wiser person would have done, she was sure. "Oh, I can't accept that much for just—"
With his free hand, he pulled her hand up, placing the gil in her palm and closing her fingers around it. "I insist," he said very seriously, strong fingers with callused tips pressing lightly against her skin. "For your trouble."
He has the hands of a killer, her mind urgently told her, quickly and logically. There's no rule that says a murderer can't be attractive and polite when he wants to be, and the hands that are against yours are the hands of a killer. Gods only know how much blood has been on them, and not from being a noble warrior, either, but from being a dishonorable murderer. And those little tingles that are running from your hand all the way down your spine? That's simply the fear of imminent death he's put into you. That's it.
She dropped her eyes to the sum of money in her hand, noticing that his long fingers seemed to simply engulf hers, making her feel even smaller in comparison. "Oh…" she murmured. "If you insist."
He dropped his hand from hers with the slightest brush of his fingertips and inclined his head respectfully. "…Goodnight, miss." And with that, he turned and began to walk toward the door.
Regaining control over herself, her propriety kicked in with the realization that she had survived his visitation. "Oh, here," she said, dropping the gil on the bench top and fumbling to catch up with his long strides, determined to not appear rude before he left. "At least let me see you ou—"
In her haste, she had cut a path too close, and her slipper had caught on the red satin bunched on the floor. For the first time, she cursed Mrs. Shigemo for being such an opulent woman, if only because her size necessitated such a large amount of fabric for a dress.
He didn't give her time to look entirely clumsy, and with a dexterity that only made her feel further ill at ease, he had caught her, steadying her in his arms. It was only the polite thing for a man to do, but Mimi felt ready to die, and would have much preferred a painful tumble to the floor.
When she came back to her senses—if that's what she wanted to call them—she realized one arm was against him, the heel of her hand close to his shoulder, and her other hand was resting on the firm upper part of his right arm.
Even after she was steady on her feet, he didn't immediately release her. Nor did she immediately back up, out of his hold, when by all means, she should have.
She knew she should have.
The seconds became drawn out and still she did not move and still his arms lingered around her. After an excruciatingly long minute, his hold on her tightened almost imperceptibly. It wasn't that he pulled her closer, just that the fingers of one of his hands constricted, pressed against her back a fraction more, as if he was as much at odds with himself as she was. Against her will—she swore it was against her will—she leaned a little closer, felt his hand tentatively slide around her waist a little bit more. Unconsciously, her fingers tightened their grip much the way his had, and a very soft inhalation hissed through his teeth at the pressure she put on his injury.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in a contrite hush, suddenly opening eyes that she hadn't remember closing. "I'm sor—" The last syllable of her apology turned into a small gasp and a tremble when she felt his lips lightly brush against the skin below her temple, felt him breathe in the scent of her upswept hair, felt a warm breath softly whisper over her ear. She had to force herself to not grab his arm again.
The last vestiges of her good sense were sending frantic diplomats to try to reason with her muscles, and unfortunately, there was not much success to report back.
Killer, assassin, kidnapper, thief.
Polite, mannered, gentleman, Turk.
The injury his arm had sustained had not been from anything like a simple barroom brawl, and there was no doubt in her mind that he had efficiently and effectively killed the perpetrator, whoever it had been. He wasn't the sort of man a girl in any frame of mind brought home to her mother, and he constantly carried a loaded gun on him—she could feel the hard edges of it through his jacket as her forearm was pressed against him—and nobody who killed in cold blood for a paycheck had any right to feel so warm.
She could tell him she was engaged, could tell him she would be married in barely two weeks, should tell him. He was a gentleman, at least he was when not doing his job, and he would probably understand and apologize and bid her goodnight and excuse himself. And she would no longer have a dangerous man in her shop, in her home, in her life, and she could easily let this go. There would be nothing to feel guilty about, because nothing would happen, and she could tell Kayden the truth—that a Turk had come to her shop, and despite that, he had been a gentleman, and she had repaired his shirt, and he had paid her extremely well for causing her any inconvenience, and there was nothing terrible about that in and of itself. Just a few simple words and that would be that.
But she didn't say anything.
Had her fiancé really been gone on shipping business that long? Was she really that lonely? Had her life really become that monotonous in his absence?
Could she really not wait a scarce few days more for attention of this sort?
Just a few more days, and she didn't even know his name, and after all she was happily engaged, and she did not love the man in front of her.
"I…" she began, then immediately trailed off.
He halted respectfully, gently. "…Yes?"
The word floated to her ear, and she knew that if she continued to speak, the words she would say would be true, but would also be exactly the opposite of what she wanted to say. She couldn't say anything, and after a moment her hand pressed against his chest, speaking the words her lips couldn't bear to form.
There wasn't one more word spoken after that, and though his lips ran over her neck and jaw and shoulders and skin, he never strayed toward her mouth, as if to kiss her lips with his own would be far too personal. Mimi was never sure whether to be disappointed or grateful because of that.
He was gone by the time she woke the next day, leaving her with a phantom of a memory. There were only two pieces of evidence that proved he had truly been real, and she had not somehow imagined him. One was the sum of money still on her bench top. The second sat next to the first and was a small note that simply read:
Thank you.
—Vincent Valentine
Passing through the market that morning, she discovered from overheard conversations of relief that the Turks of Shin-Ra had left with the dawn, back to Midgar in the east.
Twelve days later she was married.
-----
A/N: So I'm curious… Can anyone remember reading a genuine one-night stand between a canon character and an OC? I mean, one that wasn't a contrived attempt/excuse for romance? I know I can't. Thinking about this objectively, I'd rather read a Vincent/OC one-night stand than a full-fledged Vincent/OC romance, considering the average quality of those…
Anyway. When this idea first came to me in a big flash (quite literally, the entire basic storyline popped into my head, beginning, middle, and end, though it did go through some tweaks), I had absolutely no clue where it came from. But, thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to take an idea that is usually considered bad and hackneyed and generally irritating, and turn it into something that wasn't. A personal challenge, if you will.
So come one, come all, as I try to write a "Vincent has a daughter!" story that doesn't quite suck.
Lyrics at the top taken from Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" (which, if you've never heard it, could best be described as a cappella electronica, and I'd like to think served as stylistic inspiration).
All other fics can be found here.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII (OGC)
Genre: Drama, general.
Characters: Vincent, OFC (with some Vincent/different!OFC in this prologue).
Rating: PG-ish
Word count: 4,513
Summary: A Turk mission decades before the war with Wutai. A chance meeting because of a bottle of whiskey and a torn shirt. Thirty-three years later, a woman comes looking for Vincent Valentine. (Or, I try to write a "Vincent has a daughter!" story that doesn't quite suck.)
Index post can be found here.
- Hide and Seek -
Prologue
Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity
Of this still life…
The Green Lantern was dim inside, filled with the warm, smoky light that one would expect from such an establishment. The tavern was also uncharacteristically subdued. Conversations between patrons buzzed and hummed in careful hushes instead of stormed merrily, and for once, one could actually hear the jukebox in the corner and the mellow crooning of a traditional Wutain song. The bar itself was startlingly empty, except for two men who sat on its right side.
It was into this scene that Mimi Yuramisa walked. She was somewhat of a local beauty who made her living as a seamstress, was not prone to taking risks, and did not frequent bars. Though this one in particular was somewhat familiar to her, the atmosphere was significantly different than she had ever remembered, and her steps up to the bar slowed in caution. Her attention fell on the two men sitting there, and though she couldn't see their features, their style of dress said they were from the east. Navy blue business suits. It was obvious that they were the reason behind the underlying tension in the tavern, but that fact hardly seemed their concern.
The bartender caught sight of her halted advance and gestured her on up. He was a short man leaving middle age, with grey hair and a wrinkling face, who smiled with a fondness that came from being a long-time friend of the family. "Mimi," he greeted warmly as she made her way up. "What can I get for you?"
She steered herself toward the left side of the bar, away from the foreign men. Intuition told her to be wary, but she smiled bravely back at the bartender. " 'Evening, Vashi. Just a bottle of Wild Phoenix whiskey."
Wispy eyebrows shot toward the ceiling and amusement played about his mouth. "When did you start going for the hard stuff, girl? And why was I not the one to convince you to do so?"
"It's for my father," she corrected in a laugh. "He's come down with a cold that settled in his throat, and since I was visiting, I was given the chore of getting him a bottle."
As Vashi turned around to search for an unopened bottle of the requested drink, a woman's laugh momentarily rose above the rest of the quiet talking, and Mimi looked over. One of the blue-suited men at the bar, the one furthest from her, was talking in hushed tones with a buxom woman with wide red lips. He grinned the sort of grin one would expect from a wolf (if wolves had short brown curls), filled his glass again from the bottle next to it, and drained half of it in one gulp.
His companion was hardly such the socializer when inebriated, and only because of the fact that they were sitting next to each other and were dressed alike would one have assumed they were there together. A sullen drunk, features partially obscured by pieces of black hair, fingers bringing his glass to his lips with purpose.
Despite how Mimi was only looking at him for scarcely even a couple seconds, it was enough time for him to notice, even with the alcohol in his system. With one dark-eyed look that was startlingly sharp considering his condition, it seemed that he summed her up, analyzed her, categorically broke down her characteristics, and filed her away. She had been half-expecting a lecherous gaze, and admitted to herself that a lecherous gaze would have left her feeling significantly better than the alternative had.
Swallowing, she hastened to pull her gil out of her skirt pocket, as Vashi had since turned around with the bottle of whiskey. "Well," he said with humor, "if this doesn't help his throat, at least it can help him to forget that he ever had a sore throat to begin with."
Mimi laughed again, pleased that it came out sounding as such and not a nervous titter, and began counting out the appropriate amount of money.
The bartender spoke again, this time in their native tongue—something that was being used less and less as the years went by, forgone in favor of the common language the rest of the world spoke. "They're a couple of those from the east," he said, and though his aged face and tone remained amiable, Mimi knew he referred to the men in the dark blue suits. "The ones that do that corporation's dirty work. So just watch yourself while they're around."
"That corporation" in the east. One rarely had to specify the name "Shin-Ra" these days.
Vashi grinned then, a wide, disarming smile that stretched the growing lines in his face, as if he hadn't just been talking about the men sitting practically right in front of him. "And when is that fiancé of yours due back?"
Peripherally, Mimi could see the quiet one looking in their direction, and for a fearful moment, she wondered if by some chance he had understood what the bartender had said. Turks, she recalled the name with a chill down her spine. Rumors had flown for the past few days about them, ever since they had silently shown up in Wutai, and if even half of what was said about them was true, it was no wonder that the mere presence of two foreign men in navy blue suits had almost emptied the drinking establishment.
However, despite the serious issue he had presented, Mimi couldn't help but smile at Vashi's question. "Within a week," she responded in the common tongue.
His eyes were glittering mischievously, as if he were one of her girlfriends and not a fatherly figure in his fifties. "Ah, and within a week after that," he continued in Wutain, "you'll be a blushing bride, and will no doubt make him a very happy man. If you haven't already," he added suggestively.
"Stop it!" she exclaimed with a laugh, cutting off anything else he might say, her cheeks turning red. "You're embarrassing me!"
Vashi merely grinned again, crookedly. "Well, that's what I'm here for," he said, dropping back into the common language as he put the bottle into a bag. He took the gil in exchange for the whiskey and sent her on her way.
Mimi walked out without even a sideways glance at the other patrons. She swore she could feel dark eyes on her, so heavy and intense the sensation was almost tangible, all the way until she exited the building and the door shut behind her.
At the bar of the Green Lantern, a glass was drained. A long-fingered hand raised in silent gesture for another.
It was the next night, a little over hour after she had locked the door and ended business for the day, that a knock came.
"I'm sorry, I'm closed for the night!" Mimi called good-naturedly. "Come back tomorrow."
Another knock, quiet enough to qualify as gentle, but loud enough to indicate persistence. A voice came through the door, muffled and male, low in timbre. "Please."
With a little sigh, Mimi made her way to the door, stepping over the red satin that was in a spread-out heap on the floor. Unlocking the door, she then opened it part-way, as if reiterating the statement to the person's face would make it more clear. "I'm sorry, but I'm…closed."
His dark eyes still held the liquid glaze of alcohol, but were far from appearing as intoxicated as they had the night before. Was he sobering up, or had he simply not consumed enough to get fully drunk? His eyes absently blinked at her, suddenly looking strangely weary in his expressionless face. As if he were a marble statue that had grown tired of its perpetual youth.
Mimi's heart leapt into her throat, but she pushed it back down with a swallow. "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to come back tomorrow." She was excessively proud that her voice wasn't tremulous, but when he continued to simply look at her, some dark part of the back of her mind idly wondered if he was going to kill her for her dismissal.
"…Unfortunately, I cannot," he finally said, voice quiet and deeper than she would have expected from a man as slim as he. He made no move to leave but also made no move to force his way into the shop. Mimi was about to speak, but he continued when her mouth opened. "Please," he said again. "I will pay double, even triple the cost of the repair."
She merely looked at him, finally taking note that he wore no tie, nor anything but an undershirt under his navy blue jacket. A white, collared shirt was draped over his arm. She took a deep breath, her mouth hesitantly moving before words actually came out. "I'll…see what I can do."
He nodded once. "Thank you. It's simply a sleeve I need mended."
Mimi nodded back, then took a step back, making room in the doorway. "Well…" she murmured, making a tentative gesture with her hand. He stepped up, into the building, and she closed the door behind him.
Standing a step below her at the door, they had almost been eye level with each other, but now that he was on the same plane as she, he stood almost a head higher. The height difference just served to swell her uneasy feelings and increase the intimidating aura he exerted—something that he gave no indication of even being aware of.
She suddenly wished she hadn't been so stupid, and instead had made up an excuse. She could have said she had a headache, a migraine, or was sick with the flu and had just thrown up before he arrived, or was suffering from menstrual cramps that made her want to tear out her uterus, or anything.
And she couldn't just suddenly change her mind and demand that he leave. As if she could force a Turk out of her home. She might as well just go buy a gun and shoot herself, that was how suicidal attempting such a thing would be.
And Kayden would be devastated to come back into Wutai's harbor after such a long trip only to find his fiancé dead. Especially over something as ridiculous as refusing to mend a shirt because it was after nine o'clock.
He held out his shirt for her, and she took it. "The sleeve, you said?" she asked, beginning to assess the garment. Anything to keep her mind from the Turk standing in front of her.
He nodded. "Yes. A tear in the right one."
It was a significant rip, up near the shoulder, but upon closer inspection, she could tell that it was not the sort of tear that came from catching the material on something or simply pulling it too hard. It was a clean cut through the fabric, like the type caused by a pair of scissors.
Or a knife. Maybe even a sword.
Automatically, her eyes began to inspect the clothing not for the tear itself, but for any stain of blood around it. Whether it was a relief or not, she couldn't find any. The fabric of the tear was just as immaculate and white as the rest of the shirt. Almost absently, she noticed it smelled freshly laundered with the slightest hint of something else. Maybe cologne, or maybe just the natural scent of his skin.
But it didn't seem to smell like blood or gunpowder, at any rate, and that was a good thing, she decided.
Mimi suddenly realized that he was still standing in front of her, waiting for her appraisal. Collecting herself, she looked back up at him. "It will be a simple fix. Shouldn't take very long at all."
He nodded in acknowledgement. "Would you mind if I simply waited here until you're done?"
I think I would. Yes, I would. "No, that's all right. It won't take long enough for you to do much of anything in the meantime, anyway." Like discreetly killing someone, her mind added. As if it were a disobedient child, she gave it a strong reprimand and warned against the continuation of such behavior. "Uh—please," she said, catching herself and lifting her hand in the direction of where a couple chairs sat, "have a seat."
He looked over to where she gestured, at the simple pieces of furniture she commonly used when customers wanted to discuss something, like choice of fabric or what colors would look good together. He simply looked at them momentarily, as if sizing them up, before he returned his gaze to her, nodded, and moved over to them.
Mimi sighed silently, feeling slightly more at ease now that he was not so close in proximity to her. Gingerly, she lowered herself to the chair at her workbench, reaching forward to grasp her white thread and a needle from the array of supplies that rested in shelves against the wall. Within a moment, her fingers were already repairing the damage done to the shirt sleeve, deftly working the needle in and out of the material.
She was almost halfway done with the repair when she accidentally pricked her finger. Not hard enough to draw blood, but even so, it was not a mistake that should have occurred from the simple stitches the repair required. Mimi could feel his eyes on her, and it was slowly shredding her nerves to pieces. Another long moment tensely passed, and she could bear it no longer. Using an imaginary itch on the back of her leg as an excuse to avert her eyes from her work, she glanced at him in what she sincerely hoped was a discreet manner.
He was sitting in the chair, straight and dignified, one ankle propped up on the knee of his other leg, concentrating on one of her sewing magazines that sat open in his lap. She slid her eyes over to him again, and for the life of her, she couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested in what he was reading or merely bored. His focus suddenly flicked up to her, and she quickly busied herself, not sure if he had caught her eyes or not, that was how fast she had looked away.
A couple more stitches, and she dared to glance at him again, to see if he was still looking at her. His gaze was back down on the magazine, and with a silent breath of relief, she refocused on his shirt. Her fingers wanted to move quickly to finish the repair, but she forced herself to keep a good pace and not hurry herself. She didn't want him to see exactly how nervous he was making her, nor did she want to stick her finger again.
She was sure a lifetime, or at least a good few excruciating hours had passed by the time she tied off the thread and snipped away the excess. Never before had she been so relieved to have finished a job, and she held the shirt out by the shoulders. "Done," she said.
He looked up. Silently closing her magazine and replacing it in the exact location he had found it, he stood with a dangerous grace that put the ladies at court to shame.
Mimi rose from her bench and gave the shirt one sharp shake, straightening it out and giving it a final inspection. Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she folded it once vertically, and held it out for him.
Before he took it, he unzipped his jacket, sliding his arms out of the sleeves, and her eyes immediately went to a bandage that was tied around his right bicep. Her pulse kick-started again, and she swallowed, hastily dropping her eyes to the shirt she still held. She realized she was staring at the rip she had just repaired.
Gently, he took the garment from her and placed his jacket on the edge of her workbench with a very muffled clunk. Her heart actually managed to skip a beat. Fabric generally did not clunk against a table surface; a loaded weapon generally did.
Swallowing again, she looked away, apprehensively looking back when she realized that she not only had nothing to entertain her vision, but felt even more nervous when she couldn't see what he was doing.
And what he was doing involved looking very, very nice. What was it with her and foreign men?
She bit the inside of her cheek harshly, in hopes the pain would bring back some of the common sense that had since fled from her mind. What in the world was she thinking? She was not just eying the—for all purposes—corporate hitman, and she was not noticing how enigmatically attractive he was, and she was not in a cheap romance novel that her friend Machiko had always read when they were teenagers. The man she was engaged to was not after her money (she hardly had a fortune anyway), was not conniving, or evil, or ugly, or an imbecile, or undeserving of her. And the man in front of her was not the dangerous and merciless scoundrel who simply needed the right woman to enter his life, show him the error of his ways, and unlock his cold, cold heart with the power of love.
And even if he was that type, she was not the right woman, had no desire to be the right woman. For all she cared at that point, he could go kidnap and torture and kill as much as he wanted to, so long as he did it very, very far away from her.
So long as he did it very, very far away from her and didn't remove any clothes of his in the process.
He slid his arms into the shirt, shrugged it over his shoulders, and gave the collar a sharp flick with his hands to straighten it. With the shirt on his person, he gave the shoulder a looking over. "Thank you," he said, looking at her as his fingers worked on fastening the buttons. "Doesn't even feel as it were ever damaged." He hardly looked pleased, but there was a scarcely perceptible softness in his tone and deceptively straight face.
Mimi smiled tremulously at the praise, however slight it might have been. "You're welcome." For a split second, she thought she saw something flicker in his eyes—perhaps the same look he had worn the night before—before she quickly looked away.
Maybe two more minutes, she estimated. Maybe two more minutes, probably less if she was lucky, and he would be out of her home and she could relax. She could draw herself a bath and have a small glass of rice wine and let her nerves unwind from the tight spring he had coiled her into.
Difficult as it was to tuck his shirt into his pants with his belt still secured around his thin waist, he managed it, retrieving his dark blue jacket from the workbench, weighted down with the gun she couldn't see, but knew was there.
He walked over to her, heavy shoes quiet against her floorboards, the top button of his collar unbuttoned, his jacket unzipped. Reaching into the inside of the navy blue garment, he pulled out a billfold, extracting a generous sum of money—certainly more than she normally charged for such a simple repair, and quite probably exceeding triple that amount. Replacing the remainder of his gil back in his jacket, he held out the money to her.
Mimi was honestly too shocked to simply take the money and smile, which was what a wiser person would have done, she was sure. "Oh, I can't accept that much for just—"
With his free hand, he pulled her hand up, placing the gil in her palm and closing her fingers around it. "I insist," he said very seriously, strong fingers with callused tips pressing lightly against her skin. "For your trouble."
He has the hands of a killer, her mind urgently told her, quickly and logically. There's no rule that says a murderer can't be attractive and polite when he wants to be, and the hands that are against yours are the hands of a killer. Gods only know how much blood has been on them, and not from being a noble warrior, either, but from being a dishonorable murderer. And those little tingles that are running from your hand all the way down your spine? That's simply the fear of imminent death he's put into you. That's it.
She dropped her eyes to the sum of money in her hand, noticing that his long fingers seemed to simply engulf hers, making her feel even smaller in comparison. "Oh…" she murmured. "If you insist."
He dropped his hand from hers with the slightest brush of his fingertips and inclined his head respectfully. "…Goodnight, miss." And with that, he turned and began to walk toward the door.
Regaining control over herself, her propriety kicked in with the realization that she had survived his visitation. "Oh, here," she said, dropping the gil on the bench top and fumbling to catch up with his long strides, determined to not appear rude before he left. "At least let me see you ou—"
In her haste, she had cut a path too close, and her slipper had caught on the red satin bunched on the floor. For the first time, she cursed Mrs. Shigemo for being such an opulent woman, if only because her size necessitated such a large amount of fabric for a dress.
He didn't give her time to look entirely clumsy, and with a dexterity that only made her feel further ill at ease, he had caught her, steadying her in his arms. It was only the polite thing for a man to do, but Mimi felt ready to die, and would have much preferred a painful tumble to the floor.
When she came back to her senses—if that's what she wanted to call them—she realized one arm was against him, the heel of her hand close to his shoulder, and her other hand was resting on the firm upper part of his right arm.
Even after she was steady on her feet, he didn't immediately release her. Nor did she immediately back up, out of his hold, when by all means, she should have.
She knew she should have.
The seconds became drawn out and still she did not move and still his arms lingered around her. After an excruciatingly long minute, his hold on her tightened almost imperceptibly. It wasn't that he pulled her closer, just that the fingers of one of his hands constricted, pressed against her back a fraction more, as if he was as much at odds with himself as she was. Against her will—she swore it was against her will—she leaned a little closer, felt his hand tentatively slide around her waist a little bit more. Unconsciously, her fingers tightened their grip much the way his had, and a very soft inhalation hissed through his teeth at the pressure she put on his injury.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in a contrite hush, suddenly opening eyes that she hadn't remember closing. "I'm sor—" The last syllable of her apology turned into a small gasp and a tremble when she felt his lips lightly brush against the skin below her temple, felt him breathe in the scent of her upswept hair, felt a warm breath softly whisper over her ear. She had to force herself to not grab his arm again.
The last vestiges of her good sense were sending frantic diplomats to try to reason with her muscles, and unfortunately, there was not much success to report back.
Killer, assassin, kidnapper, thief.
Polite, mannered, gentleman, Turk.
The injury his arm had sustained had not been from anything like a simple barroom brawl, and there was no doubt in her mind that he had efficiently and effectively killed the perpetrator, whoever it had been. He wasn't the sort of man a girl in any frame of mind brought home to her mother, and he constantly carried a loaded gun on him—she could feel the hard edges of it through his jacket as her forearm was pressed against him—and nobody who killed in cold blood for a paycheck had any right to feel so warm.
She could tell him she was engaged, could tell him she would be married in barely two weeks, should tell him. He was a gentleman, at least he was when not doing his job, and he would probably understand and apologize and bid her goodnight and excuse himself. And she would no longer have a dangerous man in her shop, in her home, in her life, and she could easily let this go. There would be nothing to feel guilty about, because nothing would happen, and she could tell Kayden the truth—that a Turk had come to her shop, and despite that, he had been a gentleman, and she had repaired his shirt, and he had paid her extremely well for causing her any inconvenience, and there was nothing terrible about that in and of itself. Just a few simple words and that would be that.
But she didn't say anything.
Had her fiancé really been gone on shipping business that long? Was she really that lonely? Had her life really become that monotonous in his absence?
Could she really not wait a scarce few days more for attention of this sort?
Just a few more days, and she didn't even know his name, and after all she was happily engaged, and she did not love the man in front of her.
"I…" she began, then immediately trailed off.
He halted respectfully, gently. "…Yes?"
The word floated to her ear, and she knew that if she continued to speak, the words she would say would be true, but would also be exactly the opposite of what she wanted to say. She couldn't say anything, and after a moment her hand pressed against his chest, speaking the words her lips couldn't bear to form.
There wasn't one more word spoken after that, and though his lips ran over her neck and jaw and shoulders and skin, he never strayed toward her mouth, as if to kiss her lips with his own would be far too personal. Mimi was never sure whether to be disappointed or grateful because of that.
He was gone by the time she woke the next day, leaving her with a phantom of a memory. There were only two pieces of evidence that proved he had truly been real, and she had not somehow imagined him. One was the sum of money still on her bench top. The second sat next to the first and was a small note that simply read:
Thank you.
—Vincent Valentine
Passing through the market that morning, she discovered from overheard conversations of relief that the Turks of Shin-Ra had left with the dawn, back to Midgar in the east.
Twelve days later she was married.
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A/N: So I'm curious… Can anyone remember reading a genuine one-night stand between a canon character and an OC? I mean, one that wasn't a contrived attempt/excuse for romance? I know I can't. Thinking about this objectively, I'd rather read a Vincent/OC one-night stand than a full-fledged Vincent/OC romance, considering the average quality of those…
Anyway. When this idea first came to me in a big flash (quite literally, the entire basic storyline popped into my head, beginning, middle, and end, though it did go through some tweaks), I had absolutely no clue where it came from. But, thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to take an idea that is usually considered bad and hackneyed and generally irritating, and turn it into something that wasn't. A personal challenge, if you will.
So come one, come all, as I try to write a "Vincent has a daughter!" story that doesn't quite suck.
Lyrics at the top taken from Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" (which, if you've never heard it, could best be described as a cappella electronica, and I'd like to think served as stylistic inspiration).
All other fics can be found here.
