Hello, dear readers. Sorry it took so long to get this up, life's been getting in the way. I won't bore you with the details other than a brief complaint about stupid customers and "why the hell did I decide to get another tattoo on my arm when I kept stupidly brushing the last one up against my boob?"
Thanks for all the love and support, I love hearing from you guys. ^_^ And a few of you mentioned Cid's utter and complete assholery the last few chapters. You're right, of course, Cid is an unmitigated ass. Believe me, I'm replaying the game right now. But you get to see his more fluffy, loving side this chapter. With a side helping of angst. Please, no one kill me for what you're about to read.
Disclaimer: Yeah, right. If I owned FFVII there would be a lot more ass-kicking mpreg babies running around.
"Tseng, please don't tell me you've been following him this whole time."
Tseng did his best not to roll his eyes. "Yes, sir, I have been chasing him this whole time. If your fiancé was threatening to call off your wedding, you would too."
Rufus gazed up at him from his wheelchair, a look of morbid fascination written across his face. "Shera's really threatening to call off the wedding?" he asked. Tseng nodded. "Alright. Permission granted, but I want all of you back here as soon as Vincent is delivered to Rocket Town."
Tseng could have kissed his boss at that moment. He rushed out of the office at breakneck speeds to wake his coworkers and get them on their way to the City of the Ancients. Rufus sighed and turned a bemused smile to the figure standing in the doorway to his private room. "Why am I letting him get married again?"
"Because you're not the evil, manipulative bastard that you pretend to be?"
Rufus gave him a simpering pout that had been known to bring lesser men to their knees.
~*~Insert a witty line break comment here~*~
Vincent Valentine did not move from his perch. The gunman was sitting on a tree branch twenty feet above Tseng's head, apparently dead to the world. All winter he had chased this man across Gaia, chasing ghosts and shadows and stories until just the mention of Vincent's name was enough to make him jump. And after all that he found him in the City of the Ancients, still following the three silver-haired boys that had appeared outside of Cosmo Canyon. Tseng really wanted to beat his head against a tree right now.
Vincent was not getting away again. It was spring and he and Shera were supposed to be married in less than a month. If he failed to get the gunman back before then, the wedding was off. Tseng flipped his phone open and dialed Reno to make sure everyone was in position.
"Why are you making such a big deal about this, anyway, yo?" Reno asked grumpily. Tseng could almost see him sitting in a tree somewhere, arms crossed and pouting. "It's four in the morning! Couldn't this have waited until, I dunno, six?"
Tseng closed his eyes. "Because I'm not going to let Shera call off the wedding because I didn't bring Cid's boyfriend home on time."
~*~See previous line break~*~
Shera found the song blaring from Cid's radio highly ironic. Who in their right mind wrote a song about waiting on pink lines? Downstairs, she could hear her mother and sisters fussing around the kitchen, tutting and grumbling about the sorry state that Shera had to live in. They had arrived just over two weeks ago and there had been instant animosity between them and Cid. Shera's mother took every opportunity to snipe at Cid for something, for the way he treated Shera, for the way he didn't treat Shera, for the way he kept the house...
It was true Cid's house was a mess, but Shera had grown to accept that fact, even enjoy it. Cid was a master of organized chaos and once you figured out his pattern it really did not seem that messy, just a little cluttered. Okay, a lot cluttered. Cid Highwind was a pack rat, but he was Shera's pack rat, damnit! She did not need to bother defending him, though, Cid wasted no time in letting it be known how very little he enjoyed his house invaders. More often than not, it was left to Shera to keep them from trying to kill each other.
She stared hatefully down at the little white piece of plastic sitting on the sink in front of her, fingers crossed and praying that she was wrong. Even more, she was praying she would have her answer before another fight broke out. The radio sung out the last few notes of "Waiting on Two Pink Lines" and moved onto a song about chrome.
Downstairs, Cid came grumbling into the kitchen in his boxers, hair askew and scratching something that really should not have been scratched in the presence of three already grumpy and irate women. Shera's mother, a diminutive woman with flyaway white hair and thick, pink-rimmed glasses that failed horribly at hiding her disapproving glare, gave him a dour look.
"Mornin', ladies," he greeted with a half-asleep grunt as he shuffled across the room in search of his tea pot. Once he got water boiling and made sure he had enough tea for his breakfast, he shuffled towards his coffee pot to start the disgusting swill he made for Shera every morning.
There was only one problem. "Whyz 'ere already coffee 'n 'ere?" he asked sleepily.
"Shera needs to stop drinking that godawful sludge you make her drink in the morning," one of her two sisters, Cid thought her name was Emily, groused.
Cid opened the lid of the pot and sniffed it curiously, pulling quickly back with a scowl. "The fuck is that? Doesn't even smell like coffee!"
"It's decaf," Emily tutted, "Much better for you than those.... dregs you drink." She glared disdainfully at the various types of tea scattered across the counter as though they had given her some personal insult.
"I like my goddamn tea," Cid grumbled, "and Shera likes her goddamn coffee." He proceeded to pour the contents of the coffee pot into the sink and scrubbed the rest of the machine with a vengeance. Both of Shera's sisters squawked irritably and tried to rescue their coffee pot. "Look, I don't give a rat's ass if yer Shera's family!" Cid snapped, "I draw the line at ye tryin' ta rearrange my kitchen!"
He put a big hand on each of the younger women's backs and shoved them out the door, then turned around and picked up Shera's protesting mother and deposited her on the only chair in the living room that did not have something else on it already. "And if I catch any of ye in my kitchen again-" he was cut off by a shriek coming from the bathroom.
All four of them were on their feet and racing for the small upstairs bathroom. Cid got their first, flung the door open, fully expecting to find Shera standing on the toilet and brandishing a hairbrush at the weird rat with the cigar that kept popping up everywhere or trying to beat some poor defenseless spider with a blow dryer. Instead, the hysterical woman threw herself into Cid's arms, giggling like a school girl.
"Shera?" Cid asked, totally dumbfounded. "Shera, the hell have ya been smokin'?"
"I'm pregnant!" she crowed, arms thrown around his neck and kissed his cheek. "I'm pregnant!"
Cid felt his jaw drop. He knew how much Shera loved children, how much she had always wanted kids. It was one of those things that had scared the hell out of Cid, the idea of kids running around his house causing chaos, and any kid of his was bound to be trouble.
But since it was Tseng's kid, and Tseng had to take care of it...
Cid picked Shera up and spun her around. "That's fuckin' great!" he shouted, leaning down to kiss her forehead, all misgivings about her getting married forgotten in the face of her pure delight. He even managed to forget about the harpies that were Shera's mother and sisters until one of them spoke up.
"But you're not married yet!" her mother gasped, obviously appalled.
Cid and Shera stopped celebrating and simply stared at the old woman for a few moments. "Yeah, so?" Cid finally asked.
The explosion of screeching and screaming that followed would leave Cid's ears ringing for hours afterwards. Shera's mother and sisters screamed in rage, ranting about her embarrassing their family and making a fool of herself and something about chastity before marriage until Cid finally lost his temper and unceremoniously threw all three women out of his house in a fit of rage.
"And don't fuckin' come back until ye can be fuckin' happy for her!" he roared at the three startled women who were now sitting on their butts on the front step and slammed the door. He leaned against the door for a moment, catching his breath, before turning and swinging the door open again. "On second thought," he told the three women, who were still sitting in shock on the ground, "just go fuck off and don't come back." He slammed the door again.
He made his way over to the couch where Shera was sitting on a pile of blueprints with a lost look on her face. "Ye okay?" Cid asked, peering down at her.
"I knew they'd be disappointed," Shera muttered, shaking her head absently, "but I thought, since I was getting married to him..." She suddenly burst into tears and brought her hands up to cover her face.
"Oh fuck, don't do that!" Cid moaned and threw himself down onto the couch next to her. He hated it when women cried. He had no idea what to do! Gingerly, he brought his hand up and meekly patted her back.
Shera threw her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. Cid grimaced and put his arms around her and just let her cry, rubbing slow, gentle circles on her back like his mother had done when he got hurt as a child. "Don't ye worry about those old bats, Shera," he muttered, "I'm happy for ye, and Tseng's gonna be fuckin' thrilled when ye tell him. That's all that matters. We love ye, don't matter if ye get yaself knocked up before or after ye marry the bastard."
Shera made a little noise that might have been a laugh between sobs, or it might have just been a hiccup. Cid sighed and kissed the top of her head, "We'll love ye no matter what." Shera sobbed gratefully onto his shoulder.
~*~Poor, Poor Vincent~*~
"And why am I being kidnapped and dragged back to Rocket Town against my will?" Vincent asked as he sulked in the front seat of Tseng's helicopter. Tseng thought he very much looked like an overgrown, pouting child.
"Because Shera said she would call off the wedding if I did not bring you home," Tseng answered patiently. In the back of the chopper, Yuffie giggled. She was being flown to Rocket Town to be fitted for her bridesmaid dress and Shera had asked Tseng to pick her up on the way back from the City of the Ancients.
"I do not recall Rocket Town being my home," Vincent replied stiffly.
Tseng chuckled. "Well, Shera seems to think you belong there," he answered. "She thinks you can cure Cid's incurable grumpiness."
"Well, Cid cures Vinnie's!" Yuffie chirped from the back.
Vincent slouched lower in his seat and glared straight ahead. Even his cape seemed to be quietly fuming. Tseng laughed. "One more question," Vincent spoke up.
"Hm?" Tseng asked.
"We are several hundred feet in the air and you've already confiscated my gun, so why do you still have be tied up?" Vincent asked through gritted teeth.
"So Cid can unwrap you, of course!" Yuffie answered before Tseng could. Tseng chuckled, but remained silent. Truthfully, he had tied Vincent up on Shera's orders, the woman being convinced that Vincent would some how magically escape. Considering the five hour game of net-launcher tag he had led them on, Tseng honestly believed he might have managed it. There was something to say for a man who could trick seven armed Turks into netting each other instead of their target.
He set the chopper down on the custom landing pad Cid had installed for him two months ago and, despite Vincent's protest, carried the taller gunman over his shoulder into the Highwind house, a maniacally giggling Yuffie skipping along in front of them with Vincent's gun in her arms.
"Honey, I'm home!" she called as she paraded into the house.
"Not so loud!" Cid shouted from somewhere in the living room, "Ye'll wake Shera up!"
"And your shouting won't?" Vincent grumbled from his position on Tseng's shoulder. "Would you please untie me now? I'm not going to run off."
They found Cid sprawled out on the couch, apparently unconcerned by the fact that he was lying on several inches of paperwork, with Shera nestled between him and couch, Cid's arm draped protectively across her shoulders with his other hand occupied by a cigarette. Tseng dropped Vincent onto one of the chairs with a little less care than he intended and glared at Cid. "And why are you laying like that with my fiancé, Highwind?" he asked, arms crossed and foot tapping patiently.
Cid took a drag of his cigarette and grinned up at Tseng. "'Cause I just saved her from three evil harpies tryin' ta eat her heart," he explained simply, "she was just thankin' her prince charmin'"
Tseng grumbled something and reached over Cid to pick Shera up and cradle her against his chest. "Mine," he growled possessively and carried her back towards Shera's room.
Cid sat up and rubbed his shoulder. He gazed bemusedly at Vincent, "Why the fuck are ya tied up like that, Vin?"
Vincent sighed, "Apparently I am supposed to be some kind of present for you." Cid laughed and walked over to untie him while Yuffie wandered off to raid Cid's kitchen.
"Where the hell have ye been, ya silly shit?" Cid asked as he pulled off the last of the ropes, "We've been worried sick about ya."
"I was thinking," Vincent replied evenly. He carefully stretched his aching muscles and listened to the pleasing sounds of his joins popping that never failed to make Cid grimace.
"'Bout what?"
Somewhere in the kitchen, Yuffie screamed. "Cid!" she screamed, "there's something moving in your refrigerator!"
"So find somethin' ta hit it with!" Cid shouted, "Yer a ninja, ain't ya?"
"But it's wiggling!" Yuffie wailed.
Cid rolled his eyes and grinned at Vincent, "Don't you try sneakin' off again." He stalked into the kitchen to rescue Yuffie from the evil, wiggling thing.
"Pregnant?!"
An ominous thump issued from Shera's room and Cid almost felt the slightest bit sorry for Tseng.
Three weeks later, Tseng and Shera were married. Cid disappeared for a week to the outrage of Shera and the bemusement of Vincent. Shera and Vincent found him sleeping on the couch the day before the wedding, covered in white paint and dirt and smelling as though he had not bathed in a month. Outside, the largest cherry blossom tree either of them had ever seen was now planted on the hill behind Cid's house and painted white for the wedding, the whole thing in bloom with pink petals.
"He really is a sweetie at heart, isn't he?" Shera giggled as Vincent draped a blanket across the dozing man. Cid snorted in his sleep. "And cute, too."
"Adorable," Vincent replied sarcastically.
The wedding itself was woefully uneventful. Shera dropped a few jaws, most noticeably Cid and Tseng's, when she appeared in the most elegant white kimono they had ever seen, her hair hung loose in curls and woven with pearls and white ribbons. Cid, who had never seen her in anything other than engine grease and blue jeans, tripped over his own feet and nearly lit the cherry blossom tree he had brought on her fire with his cigarette.
It was a beautiful scene in the end, petals flying through the air in a brilliant pink blizzard as Tseng and Shera said their vows. Shera's mother and sisters sat in the back and sulked, shooting wicked glances as Cid from time to time. A few relatives on both sides questioned the creepy man in the red cape that was perched in the tree through the whole wedding, and a few more actually jumped back in alarm when he suddenly descended after the ceremony was over and Shera gave a delighted shriek and threw her arms around the much taller gunman.
"I thought you didn't come!" she nearly sobbed. She had done everything in her power not to cry during the wedding, but now that she was over making a tearful fool of herself seemed much more appealing. "I was afraid you were still mad at me!" Indeed, Vincent had been quietly sulking since Tseng had dragged him home. He had barely spoken to Shera for the first two weeks.
Vincent looked torn between the urge to flee or laugh. He carefully put his arms around Shera's small frame, "Mad or not, Shera, wild horses could not have kept me from coming to your wedding."
Shera giggled and buried her face in Vincent's cloak, tears of delight and relief streaming down her face. She now understood why her friends had given their sympathies when she said she had to finish the planning for her wedding by herself. Cid and Tseng watched in bemused shock as the cloak actually seemed to wrap around Shera and hug her. "Doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you," Vincent added as an afterthought. "You did make your husband tie me up and drag me back here."
"I'd have done it myself if he hadn't," Shera muttered. "You belong here, Vincent. I don't know why you feel the need to wander around and drive me and Cid mad with worry."
Vincent remained silent. Relatives began slowly creeping towards Tseng to ask which one of them the creepy tall man was related to and if they should be scared of him and his possessed cloak. Finally, exasperated and a little irritated at how immature they were all being about it, Tseng announced loudly that he was Vincent Valentine, he was Shera's brother -to which Cid, Vincent, and Shera were all forced to hold back laughter-, and the next person who so much as looked at him sideways would find a ShinRa issue EMR shoved into the first orifice the nearest Turk could find.
From their various places scattered around the party, Elena, Reno, and Rude have him salutes with said EMRs. Tseng's closer relatives, more or less accustomed to the oddity that was Tseng's friends, too this in stride. Everyone else, however, very quickly gave Vincent and the Turks plenty of room. Shera rolled her eyes and escaped Vincent's arms to kiss her husband.
"You're lucky I love you," she giggled.
Much to Shera's unabashed shock and delight and Tseng's slight mortification, the reception party which had originally been planned to take place in Cid's back yard, was instead moved to the deck of Cid's wedding present: Shera and Tseng's own airship.
"Cid," Tseng asked as Cid brought the airship to a healthy cruise several hundred feet in the air, "what am I going to do with an airship? Particularly one that could probably hold two hundred people comfortably?"
Cid turned on the specialized auto pilot system Reeve had designed for the ship on and stepped down from deck. "Ask Shera," he suggested, grinning somewhat maliciously, "she's the one who said she wanted an airship for her next birthday."
Tseng groaned and wandered off to find his wife. Vincent appeared from a shadow and handed Cid a drink. "No alcohol, as promised," he said as the two walked over to the railing. Cid had designed Shera's ship so that the protective glass that normally guarded the pilot could be withdrawn and leave the deck open to the air.
"Thanks," Cid murmured. He gazed down at the ground passing below them, "Guess it's just ye an' me now, huh?"
"Guess so," Vincent mused. "Shera says she will personally drag me back by my testicles if I run off again."
Cid chuckled and they fell back into a comfortable silence. Cid finished his drink and Vincent offered to get him another one.
"Chief?" Vincent asked as he made his way off the deck. "Normally you don't mind drinking. What's the special occasion?"
"I don't wanna do something to screw this up for Shera," Cid said with a slight shrug. "I get mean when I get drunk, Vin, ye know that. Normally I know my limit but I ain't gonna take my chances tonight."
Vincent nodded, touched a the odd little show of affection and went off get them more punch. Three hours later, Shera was uncomfortably aware of how many of her party goes were drunk when she knew a fair few of them normally had much more sense.
"Tseng!" she called nervously to her new husband. Tseng almost immediately appeared at her side. "Tseng, what are the chances one of your Turks spiked the punch?" she asked. She nervously wrung at the hem of the simple white yukata she had donned in favor of her heavy kimono.
Tseng looked around, "Pretty good, I'd say. What are the chances one of Cid's friends did?"
"Considering Yuffie's conspicuously absent," Shera sighed, "pretty good." She took a deep breath and massaged her temples, "I thought I was feeling a suspicious buzz coming on. Remind me to kill those two when this is over." She took Tseng's drink and downed it in a single gulp, "Let's hope that autopilot works."
~*~And this is where the shit hits the propellers~*~
Cid Highwind had done a lot of things in his life that qualified as stupid, and a few that he had kicked himself over for a while afterwards. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed was not the most stupid thing he had done in his life. He was slightly concerned about the fact that he could not remember the night before, but with luck he had not done anything too...
The back next to him was painted with several different colors of bruising and crisscrossed with newly healed cuts. So much for not doing anything too out of control. Cid knew he was going to be kicking himself for several months to come over this.
Shera was going to kill him when she found out.
Slowly, Cid examined the injured body next to him, taking in the pale skin, horribly delicate looking, but obviously hiding powerful muscles. Long, tangled black hair was spilling across the pillow next to him and something about it looked frighteningly familiar. Cid's stomach clenched uncomfortably.
"Oh please don't tell me..." he muttered, gently reaching over to move the black hair aside. The first thing he noticed was a large, ugly black eye marring a face that Cid had long thought of as perfect. A gauntleted hand came up to swat Cid's hand away.
Cid bolted from the room and was lucky enough to find his way to a bathroom before emptying the contents of his stomach. At least he knew where he was now, but he wondered what he had been thinking designing Shera's ship so the bathrooms were so far away. For a few minutes he just sat on the floor, head pressed to cold porcelain while he tried to catch his breath and gather his thoughts, too tired and stunned to even curse. He hadn't had any alcohol last night, so how on earth had he ended up there?
Finally, he managed to get his feet back under him, flushed the toilet, and went wandering back to the room. A few hungover party goers were wandering the halls now, but frankly Cid did not give a damn and most of them seemed too preoccupied with their own headaches to worry themselves with the naked blond man stalking down the hall.
When he got back to the room, Vincent was gone.
As usual, Please R&R. Feedback is much loved and appreciated... especially anyone who manages to point out my typos/stupid scrambling of words/etc because I'm too dyslexic to find them.