Explosive
For Drakonlily and Verdot
(-warnings: doom, don't try this... any of it, these two are explosive-)
Bang. The sound was pure ecstasy.
Vincent Valentine had had a gun fetish ever since he could remember being old enough to categorize it as such. It was the feel of the heavy-leaden weight in his hand, the smell of the greasy polish on a wave of heat radiating from the tip of the muzzle. It was controllable, and it was exacting. Sleek, sexy, and powerful. There was no other high quite like it.
Bang. Bang.
Mostly controllable. Almost exacting.
Like a child delighted, waving his snub-nosed revolver in Ephram's face. Shining silver and dull, black encased handle firmly fisted in his leather glove. It was a part of him, and it was apart from him, and there would be no bargaining with it, him, no matter how the miserable wretch begged for his life.
He hated old misers, businessmen, the higher ups. Sitting around, stuffing their faces, trying to figure out what to do with all of their wealth and how to obtain more. No matter that ShinRa was on his way to becoming the very thing he hated, and no matter that he was helping him along. The compensation he received was something no man in his position would ever refuse. ShinRa would write him a check at the end of the week, and he could deal with that.
Besides, Ephram was a sniveling weasel, disloyal in his dealings. He was privy to many of the company's secret projects, as he'd been one of ShinRa's financial partners, but rumor had it that he'd begun investing in other sources, competitive ones. As ShinRa had no more use for him, having finished with him only a short time ago, the company had no reservations about ending his life.
Vincent didn't really care whether the rumors were true or not. When it came to protecting his job and his anonymity, he was very adamant about jumping the gun, so to speak. And knowing that he could do whatever he wanted to this man - this discarded, useless shell - and then walk straight out the door without consequence was the ultimate power trip. Any compunctions he might have had about shooting an unarmed man flew out the window with the knowledge that where underground business was concerned, he was - no, he was above - the law, and Turks lived and breathed destruction because that's what Turks were.
He looked at the mess on the wall behind Ephram's fallen body. "This...damned thing," he cursed softly, frowning at his gun. "It's off."
Meanwhile, Veld had turned his attention from the older man's bookcase, attracted by the noise of excess fire. "Shit, kid. Are you using magnums in that thing?"
"Maybe," Vincent replied distractedly, holding his Quicksilver up for inspection. "I'll have to file the sight-"
"Don't be stupid," Veld said, walking over and stooping down to assess the damage his partner had dealt; one to the shoulder, one in the chin and the third to his head. "Use thirty-eight's next time. If it's still off, then you can worry about filing, or bending, or whatever the hell you want to do with it." He scoffed. "No wonder you can't handle the damned gun. A three-fifty-seven is overkill for a barrel that short."
Vincent frowned and pocketed his revolver in the shoulder-holster beneath his jacket. He liked overkill. And it wasn't his fault Ephram had made a futile attempt to lunge past him at the last second. Adjustments had to be made. Valentine reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lighting up on his way to the door and muttering around it to himself. "I'll show you who can't handle what..."
"Rookie."
Vincent turned at the entrance to the dining room and shot Veld a look of annoyance. There was more to that. "Yes?"
Veld lifted his eyebrows in expectation. "...We have a body on the floor."
"So?"
"Get your ass over here."
Vincent walked over to where Veld stood next to the mahogany china hutch, Ephram's blood-pool beginning to creep toward his partner's shoes. He stopped pointedly, an abrupt jerk of his head as he idly surveyed the room. And lifted his eyebrows. "...What?"
The other man reached out and plucked the cigarette from Valentine's mouth, stubbing it out on the wood.
"Hey-!"
"You can do that later. Now help me with this body."
Vincent watched as Veld turned and went into the kitchen, grabbing kitchen towels and rummaging around in the cabinets. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Veld pulled some bleach out from under the sink and set it on the countertop next to the stove, while he searched around in the refrigerator. "Go into the bedroom and strip the bed. Take my knife," he said, unclipping the sheath from his belt and tossing the object to Vincent, "and bring the sheets back here."
Vincent looked down at the knife in his hand. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he repeated, albeit with more indignance. Veld was unfazed.
"I don't think I need to tell you that there are reasons the public isn't wise to us. Now go."
"Let me get this straight," Vincent said, holding up his hand. "I thought we were Turks, not custodians. Explain."
"Later."
Vincent set the knife down on the countertop. "I'm walking."
"Ah-ah!" Veld clipped, pulling Valentine back by the collar of his jacket. "You shot the man full of holes, now you have to clean up the mess."
Vincent shrugged out of Veld's hold, turning on him and raising an eyebrow in question. "Is that how this works?"
"For now, yes." Veld crouched down, frowning as he began to sop up the blood beneath the fresh corpse. "When ShinRa takes office, then you can shoot and walk away. Until then, you're down here with me."
The younger man glared at his superior. This was definitely not what he'd had in mind. "I just don't see why we have to do this," he muttered, stalking toward the back of the house.
"Would you really trust someone else to cover your tracks?" Veld called to him from the other room. "Or give them a portion of your pay to do it?"
"Well, if you'd told me we were going to clean up the mess, I might have been a bit more careful," Vincent retorted, ripping the sheets from the king-sized mattress. "Isn't there an easier way to do this?"
Veld's voice echoed back at him through the halls as he searched the closets for more towels. "We're going to do it this way."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
Vincent's rust-red eyes rolled in his head as he piled the sheets in his arms. He'd been getting speeches like this all week, and he would rather not hear another. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he murmured under his breath, stumbling back down the hallway, linens hanging from his arms. He dumped the pile at Veld's back and crouched down on the floor beside him.
Veld nodded to the pile beside him. "You still have my knife?"
"Yeah."
"Cut the sheets into strips. We're going to wrap him up."
Vincent blinked. "We're moving him?"
"Sure." Veld reached for another towel. "Look, I've already got most of the blood cleaned up. You've got your work cut out for you," he said, wrapping the larger towel around the man's head. "Just go from the top down."
Vincent just stared at the other man as he grunted his orders. Veld stopped what he was doing when he realized Vincent wasn't making a move.
"...What?"
Valentine's face twisted into an amused smirk, which quickly spread into a full-blown grin. Veld frowned at this.
"What's so godsdamned funny?"
Vincent reached out to pick at the older man's chin fuzz, and Veld jerked away, batting at his hand.
"Valentine! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Wait..." Vincent weakly protested, getting more humor out of the situation than trouble. "You've got brain on your face."
At this, Veld stopped moving almost instantly, affording Vincent the time he needed to pluck the disgusting grey matter from the other man's beard. Vincent held the offending gook up for observation, and Veld made a sickened face. Valentine nearly flicked it off to the side, before realizing he was supposed to be minimizing the mess; he made a show of looking around nonetheless, and when his eyes met with Veld's rapidly growing stare of annoyance, he wiped the slimy guts on Ephram's own shirt.
"...Ugh."
"Adding insult to injury, rookie?"
Vincent smiled at Veld's almost-amused expression. "I could have simply chosen to not tell you about it."
Veld grimaced, rising from his position on the floor. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with."
Valentine frowned as the other man left the room, towards the master suite. "Where are you going?"
"You'll see," he called over his shoulder. "And don't stop what you're doing. I have eyes in the back of my head, you know."
Vincent rolled his eyes again and began cutting the linens into strips, wrapping them around Ephram's limp carcass and knotting them tightly. He shredded both the top and bottom sheets, and all of the pillowcases, winding extra around the dead man's head. By the time he was finished, there were still some cloths left over, and he was ready for that cigarette.
"Not now." Veld plucked the unlit cigarette from Vincent's fingers and tucked it behind his own ear.
The younger man frowned, taking in his supervisor's appearance. "Where'd you go? And...did you wash your face?"
"Maybe," Veld replied. He dropped a bath caddy down next to their cadaver. "Thank the Missus."
Vincent threw Veld some unused material, and the other man wiped his chin clean. "What's that?"
"Just some goodies." He threw the cloth back at his rookie. "Tuck those into the couch cushions, then come and help me move this body. And leave bits of 'em sticking out."
Vincent's eyes grew as he watched Veld begin to rummage through the caddy, setting items aside, pulling packs and bottles of pills out and scanning through the ingredients. "...You're going to set the place on fire."
"Yep," was the short reply, as his superior set a bottle of nail-polish remover to the side with the other liquids.
Valentine was growing more frustrated with his partner by the minute. "Why did you have me wrap the damned thing up, then?" he demanded.
Veld raised his head, a smug look on his face. "To make a point."
"Which is...?"
"That I don't care how you got here or how good you think you are, and I don't care whatever your reasons. When you're with me, you'll do your job, and you won't be asking any questions about it. You're going to get over that attitude of yours." He smiled, firm and crooked as his face neared the other's. "Got that?"
Not, "...or you'll find yourself without a job," or, "...or I'll kick your ass." Just, you will get over it. Period. Vincent glared at the man.
"Good. Now go and do as I said."
"You're buying me a drink after this," he grumbled, grabbing the material and standing up. Veld walked out the front door, towards the side of the house.
"Like hell I am."
Vincent stalked over to the couch in the next room, stuffing the shredded bedsheets inbetween the cushions. He didn't see how sending up smoke signals wasn't a hundred times worse than shooting and walking away, unless Veld was just messing with his head then, too. Luckily for them, Ephram's property was rather large and secluded; gates, walls, the whole she-bang, and a good distance from the public roads.
Veld breezed back in through the open doorway, stooping down next to the body. "All right, kid. On the count of three."
Vincent met him on the kitchen floor and grabbed Ephram's upper half.
"One...two..."
"Three."
The men grunted as they lifted their victim. The corpse was thick, and Veld and Vincent each only weighed in at around a buck and a half, even with Vincent being as tall as he was. Once Ephram was laid across the couch, Veld began pouring chemicals on him.
Rubbing alcohol, liquid facial cleanser, the nail-polish remover. Vincent lifted an eyebrow. "Acetone?"
Veld nodded, and sprayed the material with aerosol. Then he grabbed some of the old wife's concealer and headed back into the kitchen.
"Now I know that's not flammable," Vincent said, following him.
Veld just turned around and shook the bottle at him once, a devilish grin playing on his face and a dangerous glint in his eyes. "No. It's combustible."
Vincent's heart sped up as he watched Veld reach around the back of the stove and come away with the plug undone. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he would teach him something new.
"Make yourself useful, kid. Go out back and shut off the gas valve."
The younger Turk hesitated as the older man crushed up some pills and unscrewed the cap to the lemon juice he'd found in the refrigerator. He'd thought he remembered hearing something about bleach, citric acid and heat, though he couldn't remember from where. Probably some movie or an old chemistry class. Either way, anyone could tell just by watching that what the man was doing was dangerous. Veld was planning on making one very big explosion...
"Don't just stand there. Go!"
Vincent did as he was told, disappearing around the corner of the house. He quickly located the valve his partner was talking about and shut it off, tight as it would go. He could only imagine what was to come next; he'd never witnessed anything like it.
By the time Veld walked back into the front yard, Vincent was somewhat grateful he'd been stuck with the psycho for his training. His limbs were like gelatin and his bones were numb, but when Veld told him to turn the gas back on, he felt it in his spine. Nearly tripping over himself to get back to the car, falling in and slamming doors and then speeding away to the end of the dirt road which curved just so...
It was heaven and hell from where they stood, fiery clouds billowing upon one another as they reached towards the sky. Leaning against the black sedan, feeling the hot wind rush them as they witnessed their handiwork. A shaken and wobbly sort of pride filled the youth as he was rewarded with yet another loud roar from inside Ephram's house as it burned higher and higher, collapsing in on itself, windows and doors blown out, walls crumbling to ash.
Even Veld, he saw, had a strange look in his eye as he watched the house go up in flames. He had to wonder how long the other man had been at it; the expression on his face told him that he hadn't stopped to watch just because it was Vincent's first show. And to think; before that day, Vincent had thought there was no better feeling than having a gun in his hand.
Veld pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and fished a lighter out of his pocket. Vincent's eyes narrowed at him.
"That's mine, you know."
"Hmm," the other man said, rounding the front of the car and opening the driver's door. "Mine now."
"You still owe me a drink," Vincent reminded him, sinking into the leather opposite him.
One side of Veld's face pulled into that curious, crooked smile. "Like hell I do."
Vincent let it go for the time being as he searched through his own pockets for his pack. There was something in that moment following what he had just witnessed, had just been a part of, that he didn't want to destroy. Something powerful and awe-inspiring, and something that deserved his respectful silence.
As they sped away toward the office, Vincent watched the glorious burning shrink in the view of his side-mirror until it was nothing more than a pile of kindling in the distance, painting the sky black above it.
Some things were better than guns.
End
Final Fantasy VII and its characters are © 1997 Square-Enix Co., Ltd.