The Theatre
by Darker Angel
Characters belong to their respective owners. The main character in the first person belongs to me... he was just an idea that popped into my head a long time ago. I am not sure if I'll keep this as a single chapter, or post the others. Even so, it's a rather short, depressing thing about a guy who deals with life. This doesn't exactly follow the story line of the game... which is why I'm rather iffy about showing this off. It isn't my best work, but it's a start.
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Chapter 1
Maybe it was too much effort for him to understand what I was going through. Or maybe he really didn't care. His ruby red eyes gazed at me, so indifferent and uncaring, that for a moment I hated him passionately. He turned away. I remember his voice distinctly, which was muffled in the small and eternal space of the enclosed room.
"I don't love you."
I think I fell. It hit me like a bullet. I crumpled under the weight of the truth like a person made of tooth picks. My resolve cracked, and my hate melted into something like - I don't know - despair and overbearing hopelessness. What was it good for now? All the time that had brought us closer and closer together, the whole lot of us, as a family, now amounted to precisely nothing. And whatever anyone else felt about me, hardly truly mattered now, because Vincent Valentine did not love me.
I didn't know the man as well as I thought I did. But whatever the reason, when I was finally sane enough to stand and get myself back to the hotel, Vincent was gone. Nor was he at the hotel. No note. Nothing.
I hate Midgar. It has a tendancy to rain ten times more in this area of the world than anywhere else. I know I'd been there for more time than was my normal lifetime quota, but after all that time I still could not bring myself to love the place. The waifs, the whores, and the young boys that catered to the homo's and bi's that wandered the streets in search for love in all the wrong places.
Boy, had I chosen wrong.
No. I can't start the story this way. I should probably go back a little farther... back, when I had tasted love's sweetness and savored the comfort it gave me... back before when I loved the world, and loved *him*...
* * *
KABLAM!
Gunshots flickered like little flashes of lightning in the semi-circular enclosure. The theatre resounded with the screams of running feet and the noise of yelling, heavy male voice, guns blasting away like a bunch of drummers congregating in one big space. The actors, in their brightly colored cloaks and flashy tunics and silky pants, scattered like endangered insects across the stage, fleeing back into the dim-lit hallways, to find shelter in their dressing rooms.
I wasn't as lucky as them, unfortunately. During the melee that suddenly exploded at the back of the theatre, when panic began to fall over the crowd like a fog, I had been ruthlessly shoved aside, and had crashed in between the two front-most rows. And, against my better judgement, I decided to remain crouched there, even people's feet crushed against my fingers, my face, my back and shoulders.
Finally, the cracking of guns dissipated, and all I heard now were the scuffling of careful feet. I could discern as much that they were large, muscular men, deadly, who wore combat boots daily so that they were used to the additional weight to their feet. I cringed, squeezing my eyes shut as I heard a peculiar sharp click of shoes on the ground near my head, with the boots close in tow.
A gun clicked near my ear. And then a voice.
"No."
A deathly pause, as someone breathed. "What do you mean NO, Valentine? Shoot the motherfucker. He's a witness."
"He couldn't have seen anything. He's been stuck under there. He can't move. Get him out."
I peered up, whimpering at the shoes. The one with the shoes, obviously Valentine, was having a staring contest with the other man. This went on for several painful seconds, during which I heard other than the sounds of boots the crackle of radios and clicking of guns. Then, in the distance, the occasional gunfire as witnesses were conveniently disposed of.
"Fine," the soldier said. "You take care of him. But he isn't leaving to go home to mom and dad to tell about the happenings here today. You watch him, Valentine. Watch him like a hawk. He isn't leaving my custody until he's properly questioned. THEN he can go home."
The soldier moved away, and the gunman looked down at me, as I struggled to look up. There was an exceedingly painful crick in my neck and I found myself near to crying because it hurt so bad. Hey, I wasn't scared. No, really. But the man reached down, the coldness in his eyes terrified me to my very core. He reached, gripping the collar of my cheap outfit, and yanked my body free of the theatre seats.
He dropped me into one of the chairs, while I rubbed a bruise on my elbow. He looked at me, evenly, the gun casually held at his side trained to my forehead. I could feel it pulsing against my skin, though there wasn't any need for laser sights.
"I'm not going to run away," I spat angrily, my bravado steadily weakening. "I don't have anywhere to go anyway. So you can point your happy gun somewhere else, asshole."
Unfortunately, he didn't find this very amusing, nor convincing, and he stayed silent. He didn't seem all too interested that I was bleeding from a cut in my forehead, nor that I was still in a great deal of pain. But at this point, to tell you the truth, I was too numb with fear to really feel anything. Despite all of this, I could still find the time to look up at Mr. Valentine, and get to know who the hell I was looking at.
He was tall - nearly 6 feet, if not that - and he has short, slicked back shiny black hair and the most incredible dark eyes I had ever seen. I knew it that they were brown, slightly slanted showing that he probably had some Wutai heritage somewhere down the line, but whatever it was, it had been long forgotten. He wore a clean cut suit, pretty neat, well-taken care of. No doubt, had to be a Turk. A very...sexy, though disturbingly quiet man.
I probably owed him my life, since he just saved it from being thoughtlessly shot a gazillion times with an assault rifle. But now, as I realized my fate, I had no preconception of just how much shit I was in.
Another man in a suit walked up, though his suit was rather rumbled. I could remember him distinctly later, aside from his wild fiery hair, that he had the most shocking eyes I'd ever seen in a human being. Other than that, I was repelled by his crude speech, though his slurred, relaxed eloquence was rather appealing. "The situation, regardless of the casualties, is pretty damn good. We can take our new boy home with us, so the SOLDIER guys said, and question him."
Yes, I know I seemed a bit young to them. Hell, I was maybe around 19, making my way as an actor. But, my boyish face, my somewhat accidental feminine tendancies seemed to appeal to a crowd of mixed orientations, so I was chosen for the third-most important role in the script of the play. But now, all that hard-earned practicing would not produce hard-earned cash, because the play was interrupted by this little terrorist movement.
The dark-haired Valentine nodded curtly. Then, as his eyes turned toward me I sank back into my chair. But I couldn't escape - he reached down, seized me again wordlessly by the shirt collar and pulled him to his side. I felt like I was about to crumble like a piece of burnt paper. But his powerful grasp prevented me from falling and just disappearing. We went outside, to a car that waited for us. It was a dizzying trip... In the midst of flashing red lights, highways, and stops periodically so I could throw up, I found myself finally deposited in a car next to the silent man to the drive to his apartment.
I remembered what had happened back at the "station" or whatever they called it. An officer had confronted Valentine, and glared at him full in the face. "You think I'm going to keep his sorry ass here? WRONG! YOU wanted to keep him alive... he stays at your place! Got it? He's your responsibility, not mine! Now, get outta here!"
The drive was a gentle one, thankfully. I managed to steal a look over at Mr. Valentine - my hero, I thought bitterly. He drove calmly, gazing out from the windshield. I thought to myself, *God, he's beautiful.* and then I thought, *This man could snap me in half like a twig.*
He seemed not to notice me. He had put his gun away and for that I was grateful. With all these guns being waved around, you'd think I'd fall faint of a heart-attack should one of them happen to go off on accident. Certainly, I knew that these men were professionals, and that Vincent wouldn't have shot me unless he really meant to. Still.. it was good to see no more the threatening glare of light against the sleek chrome.
He pulled into a friendly looking neighborhood. It was raining, and my poor outfit for the show was torn in so many places it was hard to count them all. I stretched out my long legs, allowing myself to languish in the leathery seat for awhile. At last, as soon as I began to fall asleep, I felt the car stop moving, and the sudden transfer from motion to stillness made my stomach twist uncomfortably. What was once before a more than willing attempt to vomit was no more than just plain painful discomfort; I was wet, I was miserable, and I was in pain.
Valentine shut the car off, and stepped out, walking around. I watched him through dulled eyes as he walked around, and opened the door on my side.
"Get out," he said.
I shook my head.
"Get out now, please."
Again, I shook my head, looked up at him, my eyes pleading. Finally, I spoke in a cracked, tearful voice. "I..I can't.... M-My legs h-hurt, I'm sor--" I was cut off short, as he bent suddenly, reached in, grasped me around the shoulders and hauled me out of the car with alarming care. I felt the rain on the back of my neck, and he carried me, kicking the door shut, toward the apartment stairwell.
In silence, he took me into his apartment, which came alive as he flicked on a switch. The living room wasn't too special - it looked like any living room I'd been in, when I was turning tricks on the street before I went into acting. It was neat... y'know, like a well-educated man's living room who had cash.
He deposited me onto the couch, and disappeared promptly into the kitchen. He came out again, this time without the coat. He he'd unbuttoned the first two top-most buttons on his shirt, and he rolled up his sleeves, sitting down across from me on the other chair. I looked back at him, my body involuntarily curling up on the couch against all reasoning, and the last thing I saw was his calm and collected gaze on me, watching me as he was told to do. And then I was out, blessedly, like a light.