Considering as most Valentine's day fics featuring Vincent are trite, annoying, and Yuffentine, I've decided to try my hand at one. This features the borderline AU Jenova project members. Ifalna is there and Veld makes an appearance as well. Two OCs of reunion's (or Hojo here on the Pit) also appear, because I can't seem to think of the Project without the things her stories have put in my head. So Pepper Feynman and Irena Tesla are property of her.

Let the crack begin.

Vincent was sitting, the remains of a brandy old fashioned in front of him, rubbing his head in a spot that would most certainly bruise later. He was still in his suit, sans tie, sans part of his pant leg, and trying to keep his hand from shaking. In short, Vincent Valentine was a mess.

The bartender appeared. "Have a rough day?"

He turned his eyes lazily to the man. "You could say that."

xxx

"AND FURTHERMORE..."

Vincent had stopped listening a half an hour ago. It was a good thing that Shinra had free calling cards for its employees, or else Veld would never get the chance to call him up and yell at him so long. It was three am. He was tired. He didn't fucking care that he forgot to send in his paperwork a month ago.

"THAT'S IT. I'M HOPPING THE FIRST TRAIN OUT THERE." He knew that it would come to that. Not that he i really /i minded. Being yelled at in person meant at least a 30 chance that things would… well, it was a bit early to be thinking about that.

He flipped on the light and glanced over at the calendar. Veld had hung up abruptly, like always, and Vincent hadn't even put the phone down yet. It was February. The 14th. Oh gods.

He'd had the most unfortunate luck in that his last name shared the title of a particularly popular commercial holiday. The trite cards. The flowers. And worst of all… the chocolate. Bribing women with things that will make them complain later about being fat was in fact a i bad idea /i . Whoever invented the holiday needed to be shot.

He decided that getting showered and dressed might be a good idea. It took the train five hours to get to Nibelheim from Midgar, and knowing Veld he would get on the first train… i literally /i . This meant one hour from now, as Midgar and Nibelheim were in slightly different time zones. And the train took five hours. Maybe he could get some coffee before then.

He left his room and made his way down the hall, well aware that his hair was sticking up at very odd angles. Good thing it was so early, no one would be—

"HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!"

--up.

"Hello. Iffy." Everyone knew that Ifalna was a tad batty. It was part of her charm, and besides, she could cook better than any of them. He should have figured she would be up to sneak attack various unwanted well wishes upon his person. Christmas had been a trip, thanks to her 'carrots of holiday joy.' He still found a few of them in his closet. He was beginning to mildly fear vegetables.

She smiled. It was then that he became aware of two things. She was wearing a snappy red hippie-like outfit that included gargantuan heart earrings. And…

"Are those… heart shaped broccoli?" And he'd thought the carrots were bad.

"Of course, silly. Broccoli give you good advice on your love life when you talk to them." Ah ha. He turned around to go back to sleep, Veld yelling at him be damned.

She grabbed his elbow.

"Oh come on. You think he'll like them?" Vincent raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"Well Veld, silly. He was yelling at you on the phone, wasn't he?"

"Are you stalking my every move?"

"I'm not stalking YOU silly." He felt a headache coming on.

"You are lucky that you are small and cute and people would feel bad strangling you, or else I do fear that my rather grouchy superior would have shot you already." The little nagging mean part of him almost wished Veld had. But when the man had met Ifalna, she'd somehow talked him into not only reaching for her basket on the top shelf, but gathering the flowers she wanted, but helping her pick them.

He still had pictures of him looking very confused wearing the garland she had made. Blackmail was a beautiful thing.

"You need to brush your hair."

"I need a shower, that is what I need."

"Uh, you don't want to go in there now." He was losing patience.

"And why not?"

"You don't want that kind of biology lesson." Now she just wasn't making any earthly sense.

He pushed past her, he was an over six foot tall Turk after all and she was a five foot two hippie. She chattered some more about how badly he didn't want to go to that bathroom and the chem wash would work as a fine way to keep up with his hygiene and he REALLY didn't want to open that—

He blinked.

--door.

There were all sorts of lab techs running around the Mansion, and there were two in particular that stood out. Pepper Feynman was a generally quiet and dutiful man, who kept to himself. Irena Tesla anything but kept to herself, and there was a rumor that she had prosthetics. Not that he engaged in lab gossip. The only thing that had really stood out to him about them was their hair; two different variations of flaming red.

His opinion of the docile young man was slightly altered now. And the prosthetic rumor was true… and was that a… he didn't want to think about it.

"Hey, can you close the door? It's a little drafty in here," Irena said, giving him a particularly interesting look from the highly improbable position she was currently in. Pepper just about turned the color of his hair, which was impressive. Among other things.

He shut the door without a word.

"Told you," Ifalna said, broccoli tucked under her arm. He hoped that whatever brain damage he just incurred wouldn't be permanent.

He made his way to the chem wash.

xxx

He'd lost Ifalna somewhere in between the unnecessarily secret lab entrance and the upstairs where his room was. Much to his joy, no one was in the lab, and he made for a quick douse in the shower set up there for chemical emergencies. Well, considering the state of his hair, this was an emergency.

He'd almost toweled dry when he heard it. The i giggling /i .

Throwing his pants on with a speed he'd only learned while on missions, he peered over to where the sound was coming from. A thin trail of smoke rose up over a lab bench that he'd only looked over once. It was then that the giggling sounded… like a man's giggling. It was a disturbing sound, to say the least.

"Good puppy," giggle "Pepper did such a good job with you." Vincent strained to listen as he buttoned his dress shirt. Maybe he didn't want to know. Flashes of the brain scarring he'd just had assaulted him.

Then he heard a growling.

Part of this project was animal testing. There were several dogs that were kept in the lab, usually in cages. This was the large black one with eerie red eyes, a side effect of them testing on him, that Lucrecia affectionately called 'Blackie.' He'd been too distracted by her cleavage to comment on the five year old name or the fact that the dog looked more like a 'Killer' but that's not what he was thinking about now.

He stood perfectly still.

"Oh hey Vin!" Gast. Thus the smoke. Hippie the second.

"Uh…hi. Can you tell Blackie to… lay off?" Gast grinned at him in a manner that only people that were blitzed out of their minds could manage.

"Naaaaw. He likes ya, man. Just gotta go with the flow, man." Vincent glared.

"Listen you da—Doctor. Can you get it back in its cage?" Gast shook his head lazily.

"It's free, man."

He figured that it was far better to make a run for it than to trust his life to the hippie. And he'd left his gun in his room too… stupid Valentine's day. Stupid bosses calling him at three am. Stupid stupid hippies.

The dog, or more appropriately Hellbeast, was hot on his trail, and no amount of training had prepared him for this situation. He'd forgotten his tie near the chem wash, and he only briefly cursed the demerits he would earn over that fact. He also cursed not fully listening when Lucrecia explained how to disarm the dog, there was some kind of keyword… but he only remembered the particular way that the little silver locket she wore dangled nicely into her tasteful amount of décolleté…

Damn his hormones. Nibelheim sucked.

"Man, look at him run free… man."

xxx

Several hours later, after shouting every scientific sounding keyword he could to disable the Hellbeast's mad rage against him, Vincent, tired and exhausted, and most certainly without his tie, shouting the last thing he could think of.

"Oh… hell… STOP THIS WILLY NILLY!" He felt about forty. But the Hellbeast stopped, whined, and trotted back inside.

He was stunned. So much that he didn't notice the man beside him, or that he wasn't that far outside of the mansion at all.

"Looks to me like i you /i are the one getting into the willy nilly, Valentine." He nearly jumped. Veld was sneaky like that. And unfortunately where he'd learned the word. He wondered briefly if the man was born, miraculously, at forty. He certainly acted like that.

"Nice to see you too, Veld."

"You're not wearing your tie." Vincent rolled his eyes. He had just open his mouth when a high speed blur of red rushed past him.

"It's so nice of you to visit, look what I made for you!" She held out a vegetable, fruit, whatever it was, it was bright pink. And vaguely edible looking.

Veld cocked his head to the side. "Fractalfruit?" She giggled. Vincent felt queasy.

"It is most certainly a vegetable, Velly." Only he used to be able to get away with that nickname. Sometimes he wanted to bop Ifalna over the head and stow her body on an outgoing Wutaian freighter.

Veld smiled. "Oh, what's its name then?" Vincent pantomimed his speaking with a hand. Veld glared. Vincent grinned. Veld rolled his eyes.

He was so going to get his ass kicked later. But not with Ifalna around.

"A Romanesco. You should try it. I asked this one to be festive while it was growing." Vincent pantomimed her too, looking rather girly and ridiculous in the process. Veld ignored him.

"Maybe once I get inside. You still have some tea?" He couldn't have caffeine, because when he was twenty-two he nearly burst a blood vessel and Lucrecia had suggested that he tone down on anything that could raise his heart rate. Getting the man on decaf had been… well, a bitch.

"Oh, yes. And you should check out the broccoli I grew. If you have time maybe we can go talk to the ones I didn't pick." Vincent was convinced the woman was completely batshit. And when Veld walked into the Mansion with her, completely ignoring his reason—to yell at Vincent—he was convinced that the man was batshit too.

Oh, he i hated /i Valentine's day.

Standing in the yard, missing part of one leg of his pants, and violating Turk regulations as he was missing his tie, he had a revelation. He needed to make the most of this crappy day and seek out some pleasing visual artwork, particularly of the female variety. Not that he had an entire folder of slightly older brunette male pictures on the Shinra mainframe. He just happened to find those one day.

Unfortunately, he himself did not have any artwork. But he knew Hojo did.

There was a trick to figuring out the password to Hojo's computer. On his first day for this project, the rather disagreeable man told him that if he wanted to ever get on the computer, he had to solve The Riddle.

He still remembered it too. Because if anyone ever took a good look at Toshiro Hojo, they could tell he was a dirty pervert that most likely kept lots of po—pleasing artwork on his computer.

I am the eyes that cannot see. I am many shapes. Many sizes. Always constant in number.

It didn't take him long to sit in front of the computer. Solving the riddle was another matter. He sat, diligent, blank look on his face for several hours. Lucrecia passed by once or twice, but he was focused on his task. Hojo passed by a few times, but he was still focused. Ifalna left a heart shaped broccoli next to him… still focused.

Finally, he looked at the screen. Directly in the middle was a particularly pink and particularly bright piece of paper affixed with a sticky adhesive substance. In neat block letters he saw:

PASSWORD: BOOBIES

Directly under it in hasty text was:

don't let the turk see this note.

He banged his head on the keyboard. Unfortunately, this set off Hojo's security system, which in addition to creating a rather annoying whine the permeated throughout the household, also alerted the computer security force. Namely, himself. And a baseball bat.

He caught a glimpse of a half dressed Lucrecia, distracting him, which allowed the scientist the right opening. By the time Veld and Ifalna were aware what was going on, he was already out the door, hand on his head and making straight for the town bar.

He. Hated. Valentine's. Day.

xxx

"That brings us to about now," he sighed, looking into his drink forlornly.

"You know you could have just bought some new po—"

"Pleasing pictures."

"Right, pleasing pictures." The bartender snickered a moment before attending to someone else. It was then that Vincent looked up, and in his slightly intoxicated vision made out several people in labcoats walk in. He almost recognized on of them, a man with a black suit on, his lab coat seemed a little out of place.

One, with a dark ponytail, sat down next to him.

"You know, Lucrecia and I were thinking, you must feel… left out in the project. I mean, I have her, Iffy has Veld, Pepper has Irena, Gast has his weed… it must get pretty lonely for a Turk." His tone was almost sympathetic… nice.

"What you planning on setting me up with someone." Hojo smiled.

"Yes, we have just the girl for you, actually. She's been around the labs for quite some time… you might not have noticed her." Vincent raised an eyebrow.

"What's her name?" Hojo smiled broader.

"Jenny."