Still don't own them. For full disclaimer please see Act 1.
And In This Dream...
By Colleen
ACT 12
SCENE 1
BANG, thud, squeak, stuff, scrape, scrape. BANG, thud, squeak, stuff, scrape, scrape. BANG, thud, SQUEAK… Vincent looked over from his shooting practice in the basement of the theatre as what looked like a few hundred rats spilled from the shadowed areas in the space and came together to form, of all things, a small cat like creature wearing a gold crown and a small red cape. Vincent frowned at it, not sure why he found Thing's latest shape both disturbing and familiar at the same time.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Thing asked in a Scottish accent, the sound of his own voice causing him to start and look down at the form he'd chosen to shift into. A slightly confused look came over his face when he realized that he was a stuffed toy rather than a tentacle monster. Mentally he shrugged, suspecting that having broken his mind into a few hundred smaller creatures was making him slightly barmy.
Vincent just grunted at Thing and reloaded his duelling pistol again before shooting down another defenceless plastic bottle that he had filched out of the recycling box back stage.
"Vincent."
"Does it matter? Sleeping tends to be optional for both of us."
"Well I was still doing it before you started putting holes through things. What's got your panties in a bunch anyway?"
Vincent sighed as he reloaded the one shot duelling pistol. "I asked Yuffie out on a date, which isn't until 6:30 tonight. I just needed something to keep busy with until then."
"Please tell me you're not going to shoot things for the next ten hours."
Whatever Vincent was going to reply to that was lost in the moment when both of them felt one of the doors to the theatre open and someone who did not belong to the theatre enter. With a quick look at each other Vincent holstered the pistol he was holding and moved off to investigate, while Thing once again dissolved into a few hundred rats that scattered to hide in the darkness.
SCENE 2
Hoping to squeeze a little more out of their day, Detective Wilder and Detective Spencer had ignored regs and split up. Dom headed over to the hospital, so he could take a second run at questioning Nelson Potts now that the actor was a little more coherent, while Justin opted to search the theatre again. After checking each of the doors to make sure that none of the seals had been tampered with he broke the one on the back door and unlocked it with the key that he'd gotten from management. The inside was dark and far colder than the sunshine warmed air outside. Justin shivered slightly, his body attempting to remind itself what heat felt like and he paused long enough to zip up his jacket before he proceeded to check out the stage.
Consulting the files and photos he'd brought with him he mapped out the scene, looking for anything new or forgotten. Unfortunately nothing shook loose. He spent about ten minutes looking for that much talked about squeaky floorboard and spent another two or three minutes echoing the sound of the snap, creak, crack off of the walls of the auditorium.
Then he searched the dressing rooms.
It was now that he had to acknowledge that something more than just the cold was affecting him. He'd tried to chalk it up to his imagination, the two or three times he'd noticed it while out on the stage, but the feeling that he was being watched felt stronger here and ran goose bumps across his body.
The feeling was unsettling enough that he kept misplacing things. He stopped putting the files down because every time he did they seemed to go walk-about and he was getting tired of searching the room for them, only to finally find them where he thought he had put it in the first place.
He'd also noticed that after he'd moved a couple of items during his searches he must have moved them back, without noticing that he'd done so. Or at least, that was his story, and he was sticking to it.
As soon as he stepped down into the basement he desperately wished that he and Dom had not split up this morning. Every small hair on his body seemed to stand at attention and plead with his skin to just crawl its way back up the stairs to safety.
There was too much random junk down here. Too many places for someone to hide and here the feeling of eyes pushed against him like he was walking through glue. Sweating, Wilder was seriously starting to consider calling in a squad of men to search the place when the beam from the flashlight he'd grabbed from the crews workroom caught the glimmer of eyes.
Lots of eyes.
Eyes that scurried on four legs and gave little squeaks, before hiding admit the boxes of rubbish that the theatre was storing down here.
Wilder let out a relieved breath and made a mental note to tell Talley that he had a rodent problem and that he had better bring someone in to take care of it before some health department made his life hell.
Wilder got out of the basement just as fast as he could after that and made a check of the theatre's second level. Feeling a little silly over his earlier reaction he lingering in props as he studied the different bits and pieces that went into giving a sense of reality to a play. He even gave the skull that was playing Yorik a playful rap on the top of its head, blanching slightly as he realized that the thing was real and not a plaster cast. Chilled by the revelation he decided that he'd had enough of the place. As he headed down the stairs he checked his note book for a phone number and flipped his cell phone open to give the manager a call, telling him that they could have the place back the next morning.
He left by the back door, his attention fully on getting out of the building and back into the sunlight. If he had looked behind himself one more time before leaving he would have seen a tall man, with long dark hair and glowing red eyes watching him from midway up the stairs to the second level. The man's hand was on the butt of a pistol he had holstered at his side, his other hand rubbed at his head in an annoyed fashion, as if he'd suddenly been struck by a headache.
It was just as well that he didn't look.
SCENE 3
Ahhh, Yuffie couldn't believe it. She had nothing to wear, her hair was a disaster, she couldn't find her favourite earrings and Vincent was going to be picking her up in FIVE HOURS.
Yuffie stopped and just breathed. It was going to be alright, she'd find something to wear, she still needed to wash her hair and straight was in so that should be fine, she had lots of other earrings and Vincent wasn't picking her up for five hours.
Aaahhhhh!
Still, all in all she managed to get it together. She picked out a comfortable sleeveless green dress, one that was dressy enough to go out to dinner in, but casual enough to wear to take in a movie. She added a little sweater in a similar but lighter shade of green, a gold chain, gold ear studs and a pair of black flats. Not that she couldn't use the height that a pair of heals would give her, especially given how much taller than her Vincent was, but she liked to move and she wasn't able to do that very well in anything over half an inch.
Unless it was dancing, then you had to have heels.
Yuffie wondered if Vincent danced.
One date at a time Yuffie, one date at a time.
-oooo-
Vincent had to stop himself from messing with his hair, it didn't need brushing, it was already laying as flat as it always did and it wasn't like he was planning to curl it or anything. The suit he was wearing was only slightly different than the one he had worn the day before, but that couldn't be helped. He made sure that he already had money on hand so he wouldn't have trouble with it and he only had, oh look, four hours to go before he had to pick Yuffie up.
Darn it, why did Thing have to toss him out of the basement? A few more hours of target practice would have taken care of all of this waiting.
With a huff Vincent sat down on a couch in the manager's office and tried to calm down. You'd think he'd never been on a date. He got up and picked up the newspaper he'd gotten that morning after the detective had left. Opening it to the entertainment section he once again checked the names, start times and theatres of the three movies that he was still trying to decide between to take Yuffie to.
Maybe he should just ask her which one she'd like to see.
Or they could just hit one of those multiplex places and pick one out at random.
No, no, a date should be planned out, otherwise it was just two friends getting together to go out.
And he wanted it to be more than that.
SCENE 4
Finally after all the waiting and fussing and general panic 6:15 finally rolled around.
Vincent arrived those fifteen minutes early and stood outside the doors to Yuffie's apartment building wondering if he should buzz her place or wait for her to come out. Luckily for him Yuffie stepped out of the elevator, arriving fourteen minutes early in a plan to wait outside for him.
Yuffie stopped herself from doing another physical check of herself. The one at her door had probably been good enough and if it hadn't the ones waiting for the elevator and in the elevator should have caught anything that was wrong.
And besides, Vincent was watching her.
Always the gentleman Vincent held the outer door open for her. "So, is Italian alright?"
Yuffie would have noticed that Vincent wasn't quite able to look her in the eyes. Would have noticed that is if she wasn't currently feigning interest in her shoes. "Yeah, that would be fine."
The tableau held for a few moments before Yuffie let out an aggravated breath and looked up. "This is silly, just because we... well its silly. We've eaten dinner together lots of times.
"Yes," Vincent said looking up into her eyes.
Yuffie forgot to breathe for a moment as Vincent's eyes were all she could see, all she could concentrate on. She felt a part of her teetering on the edge of something, but just before she was going to fall Vincent's posture stiffened and he quickly looked away.
Yuffie shook her head and blinked rapidly trying to clear the glaze from her eyes. "Ok, right, so we're both in agreement, it's silly."
Vincent looked, well, awkward, but he agreed with her once again before offering her his arm and walking Yuffie the few blocks to the restaurant. The place was one of the lively Italian places that managed to be popular with students, couples and families.
Even though the place as busy they only had about a ten minute wait before getting a table. The place was packed with people and the tables had barely enough space for the waiters to weave their way through. The noise level from the conversations around them was high, but it gave a strange sense of privacy to each of the diners as the blending of voices made it near impossible to listen in on another group's conversation.
Once seated Vincent looked over the wine list and after a quick question to Yuffie ordered two glasses of wine, forgoing the house brand for a slightly more expensive and easier to drink Merlot. The waiter took their order with a smile and quickly ran down the evenings specials before leaving them with their menus.
Yuffie looked the menu over, quickly dismissing every meal with a tomato sauce. Visions of meatballs or ravioli covered in the slippery stuff squirting off to slime its way down the front of her dress made sure of that.
She finally settled on the four cheese tortellini. Having a mishap with that dish still wouldn't be good but it was much better than tomato. Now she'd just have to be careful with the wine.
Damn, dating was hard work, and they hadn't even finished dinner. She'd never worried this much when she'd had dinner with Vincent before.
Vincent, she noticed, ordered the ravioli, tomato sauce and all. Of course he was dressed in his usual black and tomato sauce wouldn't be very noticeable if he had an accident.
Yuffie carefully played with her wine glass for a bit before looking up at Vincent's eyes. This time the pull from them wasn't as extreme as before, though she still felt she was in danger of falling.
Time to talk then.
"So, you were going to tell me at least one thing about yourself that I don't know." Vincent winced softly, but nodded in agreement.
"So?"
Vincent took a breath, he had decided on this piece of information earlier, but was still nervous about it. He knew he shouldn't be. It was normal, though personal information about himself, nothing dangerous at all. His own family had of course known, as did Aaron and Lucile and really in this day and age it wasn't a big deal...
"Vincent?"
"Sorry, just thinking a few things over."
She looked at him expectantly.
"Ok, one thing you don't know about me, is that I am one quarter Wutanese."
"Oh!" She said and then paused. "Ohhhhh." Yuffie narrowed her eyes at him and smirked slightly. "That explains the chopsticks."
Chopsticks, Vincent thought, what...? And then he remembered their first dinner together. He nodded in answer to her implied question.
"So, which side of the family?"
"My father's. His mother, my grandmother came over..." He trailed off, realizing that he couldn't give her that date, not yet. "She came over as a young girl."
"Ok, so your dad was half and you're a quarter. She paused as a thought lit up her face. "Do your parents live here?"
"No, I'm afraid they both died several years ago."
Yuffie winced and started to apologize for asking, but Vincent waved it off, telling her she couldn't have known. Yuffie was saved from any more embarrassment by the timely arrival of their meal.
They ate, talking quietly about which movie they'd like to go see after dinner. They finally settled on a romantic comedy, which was something they hoped they could both stand.
And Yuffie did manage to finish her meal without spilling anything. Not wanting to further tempt fate she declined dessert and stepped carefully through the tightly packed restaurant to wait by the door while Vincent paid the bill, leaving the money for it along with a tip on the table.
Yuffie looked back at their table as they were about to leave and noticed the waiter looking at the money Vincent had left. With a shrug he tucked the bills into his apron pocket and then she was out the door on Vincent's arm, heading to the theatre.
SCENE 5
The romantic comedy turned out to be something neither of them could really stand. Thankfully the couple in it didn't remind them of themselves in anyway. In fact both of them fervently hoped that such a couple didn't exist anywhere other than in bad Hollywood scripts and even worse Hollywood movies. Still it didn't matter, as the movie wasn't important. The two of them together was what was important.
As Vincent walked Yuffie home both of them fell into a comfortable silence. At the same time both of them realized that this was by far the best part of their evening together. The two of them were finally alone without noisy dinners or popcorn munching teenagers to distract them.
And, even though they might not be ready to admit it, they really didn't want to be distracted from each other.
They arrived back at her apartment building far too soon.
"So, would you like to come up for awhile?" Yuffie asked, nervously twisting a lock of hair around one finger.
"I don't think I should Yuffie."
Yuffie put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "I'm not taking no for an answer."
"Yuffie."
"Vincent I know you're a gentleman and I know you won't do anything that I wouldn't want you to, so come up for a little while."
Vincent raised an eyebrow at her little speech, but agreed to come up. Yuffie practically bounced through the apartment doors and into the elevator, much of her normal enthusiasm suddenly coming back to her.
She hadn't thought about the ride up.
Elevators, even big ones aren't really all that big. Standing across from one another with nothing but each other to look at even for the short period of time it took to get up to Yuffies apartment was, to say the least, nerve racking.
But they got through it.
The trip down the hall was alright and Vincent waiting at her side as she unlocked the door was fine. They entered okay and Yuffie showed him into the living room. They stood in the middle of the room, somewhat closer to each other than necessary.
"So, I'm afraid I don't have any coffee to offer, but would green tea be alright? It's what I usually drink."
"Tea would be fine."
And suddenly they were wrapped in each other's arms, lips seeking each others. Vincent ran his right hand along Yuffie's arm while burying his leather clad left one in her hair. Yuffie moaned slightly as she opened her mouth to Vincent and she shuddered when he accepted the invitation. He kissed her deeply and thoroughly as she rubbed her hands up and down Vincent's back and marvelled at the play of muscle she could feel under his clothing.
Vincent was in simple awe of the feeling of her mouth on his. Her scent cut through his senses, making him dizzy and he wanted her like he'd never wanted anything before. Yuffie made another of those little moans that cut through another part of his anatomy and he deepened the kiss for a moment before horrible common sense cracked him over the head and he let go. He backed away from her, breathing hard.
Yuffie's breathing wasn't much better and she blinked in confusion at the lack of heat and presence that had previously enveloped her.
"I think that maybe," Vincent said, his voice hoarse, "I shouldn't stay for tea after all."
Yuffie opened her mouth to protest, but closed it quickly, realizing just how far they had gone in a few seconds and just how far she would have gone if Vincent hadn't pulled back.
"Vincent..."
"I'll see you tomorrow at the theatre," Vincent said as he backed out of the room, towards the door.
Yuffie took a step towards him and stopped when she realized she had a sudden urge to throw herself at Vincent. She wanted to, she really did, but sadly she just wasn't ready to test the, whatever it was they had, by going that far. Not yet anyway. And apparently, neither was Vincent.
"Right, tomorrow. I'll probably be in early to see what's been screwed up by the police while we were gone."
"Good," he said as he backed up towards the door and felt behind him for the knob, fumbling with it slightly. Relief etched across when he managed to open it. "Until tomorrow then." He hesitated a moment. "Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow?"
Yuffie brightened at the invitation and nodded. "I'd love to."
"Good, well then, goodnight Yuffie."
"Goodnight Vincent"
And Vincent slipped through the door, closing it quietly behind him.
