Grave Robber
Kidnap the Sandy Claws
Throw him in a box
Bury him for ninety years
Then see if he talks
Cid rubbed at his ear.
It was a nice place, Halloween Town. Sure, he'd never want to live there, but of all the places he could've crashed the Gummi ship on, it wasn't bad, once you got past the whole 'dead people are walking the earth' thing and didn't think so much about how everything smelled like either rot or candy. Hell, he could put up with anything when the alternative was getting swallowed by a giant whale.
He could even put up with hearing things that probably weren't there.
Cid took another long drag on his cigarette as he walked down the gloomy, cobblestone street. He frowned at a lamp as its yellow light flickered. Damn streetlamp. Somebody should get that checked. Looking around the gloomy Guillotine Square, Cid figured that it had probably been done on purpose. Atmosphere and whatnot. Dark streets crawling with shadows, iron gates and faraway hills twisted into sinister curls, pumpkins with tormented faces carved into their orange shells watching him with yellow eyes that flickered like candles. Cid was strangely enough the odd one out, having not gone to great lengths to make himself look particularly morbid, stubbornly keeping his pilot's jacket and plain cargo pants. The people of this world were giving him strange glances as he passed, puffing smoke into the already misty air as he went. That funny-looking king of the pumpkins guy was giving him another friendly wave, though, his pale face splitting into a wide, dark grin. Cid lazily raised a hand and saluted back. Sora knew him, and for a skeleton he didn't seem to be so bad. Completely off his rocker, assuming he had ever had one to sit in in the first place, but Cid had known worse.
The shadows were giggling again.
Cid paused beside a tall iron gate, squinting at what he had written on the napkin, then squinted to see past the iron bars. Tombstones jutting out of the earth, a few coffins resting beside the low, brick wall, and a full moon shining yellow behind the dark hills. This was the place.
The gate easily swung open and Cid strode inside. He looked in the coffins that were above ground first, kicking off the lids. Most were empty. One had a staircase. One held a disgruntled corpse that forced Cid to apologize first before he put the lid back on. None had what he was looking for.
Brushing off the itching feeling that he was being watched by something that wasn't alive, Cid planted his hands on his hips and took a good look around. There was one tombstone that was shaped like a doghouse, and now had something dog-like floating in it when it had been completely empty just a second before. Cid finally understood what it was the rag-doll lady had been talking to him about when she gave him those directions and took out the napkin again, reading the notes he had wrote.
"Zero?" he said finally.
The ghost simply continued to look up at him. Cid could feel a chill steadily creeping up his spine. He couldn't for the life of him figure out how two black holes in a piece of floating white cloth could look so…well, happy, if that was the word for it. It was only a white tablecloth, for chrissake, glowing and floating in the air.
It had a tiny pumpkin glowing orange on the tip of its long nose.
"$%#," Cid said.
The ghost started to glide away, smoothly maneuvering around the clustered grave markers, although Cid suspected he could float right through them if he wanted to. It suddenly occurred to him just how far down the universal rabbit hole he had plummeted, now that he was following a floating tablecloth that looked like a dog, moved like a dog, and even quacked like a dog, hoping to find something.
And that was definitely a giggle he heard coming from behind that gravestone.
Cid stopped in his tracks and turned his head. He heard somebody shush someone else, which only provoked more demonically high-pitched giggles. Cid slammed the butt of his spear into the dirt of a freshly dug grave and took the cigarette from his lips.
"All right, cut the crap," he told the brick wall. "I know you've been following me, you little shitters, you might as well get your asses out here."
A red demon with a permanent grin plastered on its face climbed out of the trash can, hauling a small sack with him. Behind him, a wiry-haired witch and a round skeleton poked their heads out, the skeleton grinning widely. None of them could have stood taller than Cid's kneecaps.
"Look, another one," the red devil said, his voice muffled.
There was a noise that made Cid want to pull his eardrums out. It sounded a little like a laugh.
"Boy, they just keep getting uglier," the witch said nastily.
"He's even funnier-looking than the last one," the skeleton agreed.
Cid smiled. Aerith was always telling him that he should be nicer to kids. "Fuck off."
He picked up his spear again and spotted the ghost dog patiently waiting for him a few tombstones away. He could tell that they were still following him. So long as they kept their distance, he didn't care and he wouldn't give into the urge to skewer them all on the Venus Gospel. He wanted to ignore them, but they were talking again and theirs were the voices that could drill holes in steel if it meant they could reach an eardrum.
"Let's hang him by his ankles and see how long it takes for him to fall into the sewer."
"No, let's take him to the boogieman."
"Let's eat him."
High pitched giggles like nails on chalkboard and Cid wanted to jump on something, spear-first.
"The last one was no fun, he wanted us to do it…"
"I heard him screaming, though!"
"No, that was the cat."
"Aw, I thought he was screaming…"
He threw the spear because he couldn't throw his cigarette and the three scattered like spiders. Zero waited while Cid dutifully trudged to retrieve it, trying not to wonder if he had thrown it because he was angry and didn't think about the time he would have to waste retrieving it, or if he wanted to waste time. What did he think he would find here, in a graveyard, anyway?
The dog took him over a low stone wall and into a big field littered with more tombstones. The yellow moon was impossibly large as it hung behind the horizon, the curled hills silhouetted before it. Away from the moon, farther from the town, there were fewer tombstones faced farther apart. The dog stopped, then turned eagerly to face Cid. Zero barked. Cid just stared, dumbfounded, into the dogs pleased face. Behind him, the weird kids were giggly hysterically. There was something he was just not getting, and he could slowly feel something like panic disguised as anger creeping up inside him.
"There's nothing here," he told the stupid dog.
Zero cocked his head, then slowly sank to the ground, into the ground, until he had disappeared completely and Cid was left staring at a mound of packed dirt. Zero rose, his head sticking out of the ground.
He barked once.
The kids had to be shitting themselves, they were laughing so hard.
"What the hell's your problem?" Cid couldn't help it. Something in him had snapped and he was yelling so he didn't have to think about how in a minute his life was about to get very, very weird.
He was so glad his spear hadn't been destroyed.
"I thought I told you kids to get lost!" he hollered.
"Did not!"
"You told us something nasty!"
"Stupid, foul-mouthed man."
Cid gritted his teeth. He would count to ten, first, before he decided whether or not he was in a child-spearing mood.
"Idiot."
"Yeah, he probably doesn't even know about the shovel…"
There was a loud, resounding SMACK from behind a tombstone carved to look like a screaming angel.
"Barrel!"
"Ow! I didn't say anything!"
"Shut up!"
"I didn't say where!"
"Stop it before I stuff a spider in your mouth."
"I'll bite you!"
"Shut UP!"
"You!"
Cid felt a tiny twinge of disappointment as he watched the three run away, shrieking like banshees. He found the shovel, with a little help from Zero, and after removing most of the roots and leaves from the handle and spade and deciding that it wouldn't fall apart so long as he didn't try uprooting any tombstones with it, took it to the spot where Zero was dutifully waiting. Cid snuffed out his cigarette, smothering it with the toe of his boot on the ground.
Cid started digging. When the moon was almost gone, Cid discarded his jacket and scarf, draping them over a tombstone and pushing his sweaty hair back with his goggles. The hole was pretty deep by morning, Cid was up to his waist in dirt, the mountain growing a few feet away, rising over his head when he stood in the hole. He wondered if he was in the right spot, but the stupid ghost dog was giving him a look. Dogs weren't supposed to look like they were happily wagging their tails when they didn't have one.
"Goddammit, you're the kind of mutt that'd make even Rufus Shinra take him in if you showed up on his doorstep in the rain," Cid muttered, looking away from him.
Cid ignored it for most of the morning, but by the time the gray afternoon rolled around his stomach was beginning to verbally voice its opinion, in case Cid hadn't gotten the first message that he shouldn't be running on empty. Zero started barking and forced Cid to haul himself out of the hole, propping the shovel up against the mound of dirt, and follow him to the screaming angel tombstone. The three brats had left behind a large black sack. Zero gave him an encouraging bark. If it weren't for Zero's damn puppy-dog look to reassure him, Cid wouldn't have touched the thing with a fifty foot pole. Wondering if he was about to loose an arm, Cid gingerly pulled the drawstring. A few hairy spiders the size of rats crawled out and scattered, but when they were gone, Cid found the bag stuffed with candy.
"Huh, not on your life," Cid told Zero, dropping the bag and returning to the hole. No way was he going to eat anything that had been touched by those kids.
Cid managed to ignore his stomach for another hour before he found himself sitting in the hole, huffing loudly, and badly wanting a cigarette. Yeah, right, candy wasn't going to fill him up, but he crawled out of the perfectly rectangular hole and got the bag, digging around until he found a few caramel-covered apples. After looking one over several times, sniffing it, putting it in the screaming angel's hand and tapping it with the tip of the Venus Gospel, which he held out at an arm's length to make sure that if it detonated it wouldn't between his teeth, and then forcing Zero to take the first bite, he devoured them and moved the bag closer to where he was working.
Cid knew why he left all the gardening up to Aerith. He just really hated dirt. He hated the way it was sticking to his sweaty face and getting in his hair and being gritty in his clothes. He'd rather jump in the barrel of acid in the Moogle's synthesizing machine than roll around in some hole out in the butt of the universe. He was covered in filth and aching all over. He was tired and the sky was growing dark again and just how fucking deep was he going to have to go?
THUMP.
He had dislocated his shoulder, for sure. Cid pressed down with his boot. The shovel wasn't going any deeper. He raised the spade.
THUMP.
Cid was on his knees, pushing at the dirt with his hands. He could feel something hard and smooth under his gloved fingers.
"Damn."
He had splintered wood.
"Goddamn!"
With a whoop Cid grabbed the shovel again and started attacking the ground, dirt flying as he happily thought of the many ways one could strangle someone else with a spear and a scarf. He was standing on the lid of a coffin.
"Hey!" he hollered, stomping one foot on the wood. "Anybody fucking down there?"
No answer. Cid knelt down. The coffin was nailed shut. He swore over and over and he climbed out of the hole, grabbing his spear, then jumped back in. A small pile of bent nails grew as Cid set to work. He stuffed them into one of the pockets in his cargo pants and stood up, figuring out a way to lift the lid. A push, a jump, more swearing, and the lid was up, Cid straddling the coffin, leaning at an angle as he kept the lid propped up. He had to take a minute to catch his breath and look at what was in the coffin, having some trouble because he wasn't able to do both at the same time.
"Good fucking morning, Sunshine," he huffed.
Vincent Valentine slowly opened his eyes, red glowing slightly in the shadow Cid and the lid were casting over him. Vincent was dressed in black and the ugliest boots Cid had ever seen, a red headband doing a poor job of keeping his messy black hair out of his face. His arms crossed over his chest, one forearm bare and sporting a glove, the other made of metal. He was missing the red cloak and Cid could see all of Vincent's face, pale like rotten wax, lips slightly purple as they parted to take a little breath. Eyelids drooping, Vincent's body shuddered as fresh air ran through it. Eyes open, some weird expression to them that Cid couldn't figure out.
"Hello."
He sounded horrible, raspy, like he was speaking through dust. Cid wanted to say something that didn't only consist of profanity, but his brain was slowing down and it was hard to think properly. Vincent hadn't moved, and it didn't look like he was planning to anytime soon. You'd think he was comfortable, lying there in a narrow wood box.
What was moving was Vincent's hair. He didn't seem to notice that his own, greasy black locks had obtained a mind of its own. Cid opened his mouth to say something, and an orange face looked up at him. Cid couldn't even swear as two green eyes blinked at him.
"Meow?"
The orange kitten untangled itself from Vincent's hair, sitting up with its front paws on his cheek and head bobbing as it blinked and sniffed, dazed with disbelief as it looked up. It started crawling over Vincent to get to the edge of the coffin. Only Vincent's human arm moved as it stretched out to gently catch the kitten before it could reach the dirt. Vincent brought the squirming bundle of fur to his chest and carefully cupped his metal claw around it while it moved.
Cid sucked in his breath and held it, counting to five before he let it go.
"Well, shit, Vince," he said, shifting his shoulders. "Not that you don't look cozy there, but this is kind of fucking heavy."
Vincent grunted and stretched his arms out, gripping the sides of the coffin. The kitten cried with delight at being released as Vincent twitched and tried to pull himself into a sitting position. Cid waited, but he was not feeling particularly patient at the moment holding up the lid and that damn kitten starting to climb up his pant leg. He tried not to crush Vincent as he shifted the lid on its side and stood it up against the wall of the hole, holding it up with one knee.
"All right, come here," Cid leaned over and slipped his arms under Vincent's. Vincent grunted again, this time in protest, but Cid ignored him and pulled him up. He weighed a lot more than Cid expected him to, which was something close to nothing as Vincent didn't seem to have a pinch of fat anywhere on him. Somehow, Vincent found his footing and was standing up, leaning heavily on Cid.
"Hey, you okay?" Cid grabbed Vincent's shoulder.
He wanted Vincent to hit him for asking such a stupid question, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. He settled for one of Vincent's sideways looks. I've only just been dug out of a grave, but yes, considering, I'm fresh as a goddamn daisy.
"Just got to get used to moving again, I guess," Cid said for him. "Okay, come on, I'll give you a leg up. Just don't poke me or anything."
That was all he needed, the icing on the cake of this day, was for Vincent to poke his eye out with his pointy, ugly-as-sin brass-tipped boots. Cid knelt down, Vincent holding onto his shoulders. He cupped his hands, braced himself, and caught Vincent's foot. Vincent's grip tightened as Cid stood up and practically threw the other man out of the hole. Satisfied that Vincent had managed to crawl onto solid ground, he looked down at the kitten, who hadn't shut up since it found itself breathing fresh air again. Cid shook his head and managed to catch it, still meowing its head off, and toss it up and out of the hole before climbing out himself.
It was a long walk back to the gummi ship. Vincent walked slowly and Cid had decided to take the sack of stolen candy with them. The town was much emptier by day than it was by night. They only passed one lone skeleton playing a saxophone by the gate and a lone almost-woman standing by the neighboring hill.
"Oh, you've found him," Sally said, reaching out to touch Cid's hand. "Did the instructions I gave you help at all?"
"Help?" Cid repeated. "They're the only reason I was even able to goddamn find him. Without you, I would've been digging out there until my arms fell off."
Sally turned to Vincent, taking his large, human hand in both of hers. "I was so worried when you disappeared and I heard those little monsters bragging about what they'd done to you. Why did you ever let them?"
Vincent took a moment to speak, his voice cracking somewhat. Cid noticed that he couldn't look her in the eye and instead he stared at the ground.
"They offered," he said. "And I was so, so tired..."
Sally squeezed his hand. She looked like there was much more that she wanted to say, but the words failed on her lips and she let go, shyly tucking her hair behind one rotting ear.
"I should really let you both be going," she said, looking back to Cid. "Thank you for coming for him."
Cid grunted. "Don't need to be thanked. Thank you."
Sally nodded, taking small, ballerina steps backwards towards the gate. The skeleton continued to play. She gave one last, shy wave to them before slipping behind the crooked brick wall.
It took Cid a few hours to boot up the gummi ship engine and they sat on the hull, watching the afternoon sun. It was almost pretty, up on the hill. They shared the candy from the bag. A small mountain of crinkled, empty cellophane wrappers was growing on the ground below.
"What's his name?" Cid asked, after a while.
"She," Vincent corrected.
The she-kitten meowed as a metal finger carefully stroked her head.
"Her name is Dinah."
"Hey," Cid shrugged, making a mental note about the scratching posts he would have to build later. "Dinah's a nice name, I guess, whatever floats your boat."
"It's not my boat that she's floating. She had that name when I found her. A girl named Alice gave her to me to take care of."
Cid got to his feet, stretching and feeling his sugar-bloated belly swell over the belt of his jeans. He scratched his nose and sniffed, finally turning to clasp Vincent on the shoulder.
"Don't you ever, ever do something so stupid like that again," he said. "You know what'll happen if you do?"
Vincent responded a little more quickly than Cid expected of the man.
"I'll be in for an ass-kickin', Chief," Vincent replied, dutifully, in a voice that was perfectly wry.
"...That's right," Cid retorted, a little lamely. "You wanna get out of here?"
"More than anything."
Cid led Vincent into the hull of the ship, closing the hatch and igniting the engine. Vincent slipped into the copilot's seat, closing his eyes and tightly gripping the armrests as Cid lead the ship into departure from the atmosphere.
Zero watched them depart from the graveyard, sitting beside the fresh hole in the ground and the abandoned coffin with the long, peeling scratches under the lid. His tail was wagging happily.