Author's notes:
A late Christmas story indeed! When I first named this story, I didn't foresee that it'd take me two years to finish it... xP And I didn't make it before Christmas this time either...nor New Years...nor Chinese New Year...but hey, there's still the Persian New Year, right? Ehehehe...
Sorry for the long wait *bows in apology* But in a way, I'm glad I took this break. I had actually written about 70% of the final chapter two years back, but I didn't like what I wrote. After looking at it again after two years...it really was crap. It figures that nothing good came out of my writings in a time when I was stressed and tired and uninspired. So yeah, I'm now feeling much more like myself again, and I re-wrote the majority of what I had before, and now this story is finally finished! Yay~~~~
And yeah, English is not my first language. Verb tenses will never stop fighting me and I will never stop fighting them -_-
Hope you'll enjoy this late, late, laaate Christmas story~
Warnings: suggestions of sexual content of the unconventional persuasion, though I think this might be my first fic that is not rated 'M' :P
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 and all its characters, settings, etc., belong to Square Enix, and likewise, everything of Pet Shop of Horrors belong to their creator, Akino Matsuri. This is a fanfiction written purely for fun and no profit is made from it.
Chapter 3 - Christmas Day
December 25
9:02am
"Ding dong!" rang the door bell.
Cid pulled on his bathrobe to appear half-way decent, and limped gingerly to the door. Whoever was behind that door better have some damned fine tea or cigarettes to offer him — or a death wish. His brain was still not quite processing all that had happened, and Cid Highwind was NOT in the mood for entertaining guests this Christmas morn.
"Ding dong!" the door bell rang again, and Cid could feel his already short fuse fizzling away.
"Alright alright! I'm comin'!" he bellowed. But whoever was on the other side of the door was either deaf or stupid, for the door bell kept on ringing. And Cid wasn't about to go any faster – not with that damned pain in his lower back!
"Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding d-"
"^% #$#$%! Are ya %#$ ^$ DEAF? I SAID I was COMIN'!" Cid ripped the door open and roared into the face of his visitor, only to stop short in surprise, "...Shera?"
"I...I...I'm sorry..." stammered the tiny, bespectacled woman, "The door bell s-seems to be broken... I...I only rang once..."
As if in agreement, the door bell sounded once again. Cid slammed a fist into the button to make it finally shut up, and then turned to see Shera frozen and wide-eyed before him.
Shit!
"...ahem...so...err..." desperate to salvage the situation, the pilot fumbled for the words to tell her how happy he was to see her home. He opened his mouth, and too late realized that his voice was sounding way too gruff from all the overuse earlier, and too late realized that his brain really was no good with "happy" words.
"...What are ya doing here?"
Dammit!
"I...I..." clearly flustered, Shera too, fumbled for words, and finally settled for suddenly thrusting something thin and dressed in colourful Christmas wrapping into Cid's face, "I...I just thought... I know you probably don't want to see me... but... it's Christmas, and I thought..."
Kicking herself inwardly for blabbering on and stammering to boot, Shera chanced a glance up up to find Cid...hunched over in pain with his eyes watering and a hand covering his nose. She had misjudged the distance in her nervousness, and had unknowingly rammed the present right into Cid's nose...
CRAP!
"Oh no! Oh Cid! I'm so sorry!" in a panic, Shera reached out to grab Cid's hand to get a better look at the damage on his nose, but she forgot that she still had the present in her hand, and ended up poking him in the eye with one of its corners.
"OW!" Cid reflexively recoiled...except that his back was still VERY much in pain, and instead of simply jerking backwards like a normal person, he lost his balance and ended up falling on his ass...which did NOT help with his back problems...and so he ended up a pathetic, moaning heap on the floor.
"Oh gods! Oh gods! I'm sorry! I'm sorry..." Shera was almost in tears. How could everything go so wrong so quickly? And just when she thought she had finally made amends for the past too! It's just like her to go and ruin it again like this! Gulping down a few deep breaths, Shera did her best to calm herself down to a more functional state, and this time, slowly and carefully, hooked her arms under Cid's to help him up, "Here, let's get you to the couch and take a look at you..."
"NO!"
The arm between hers wrenched itself away and slammed into the doorframe, blocking her entry into the house.
"Yer NOT going into da #$ #% house!"
It took all of Cid's strength to get his body to #%^$ MOVE to stop Shera from getting in the house. In all this commotion he had almost forgotten something very very important: the cats! ...Men...whatever they were! When he left them in a hurry to answer the door, they were still a pair of barely-clad men! What if Shera saw them? Oh gods...what would she think once she saw?! He would NEVER be able to explain it to her!
Panting from a mix of pain and exertion, Cid carefully turned his body to face Shera, and then almost dropped his miraculously ever-present cigarette when he found her frozen and deathly pale, her face in an expression of hurt as if she had just been slapped.
Oh shit...which part of his scrambled thought processes did he just say out loud?
...
...
FUCK!
"Shera...I..." Cid tried to start an explanation, but his voice died in his throat when Shera's shoulders jerked with the beginning of a sob.
But she did not cry. Though If she did, then Cid might have had a better idea of what to do to clear up this mess. Instead, she slowly stood up, more calmly and quietly than Cid had ever seen, so calmly in fact, that icy cold dread settled in the pit of the pilot's stomach.
When she stood up to her full height, she stayed there and sniffed a little as if to gather herself, then she quietly apologized for ruining the rocket launch, for ruining Cid's dreams, and for being too clumsy to of much help to him.
Cid's heart twisted in his chest. It was not true, all the horrible things that Shera was saying about herself. It was his fault, it was him being such a %$ ^& ass to her all the &^#$% time, that made Shera think so little of herself. He struggled to stand up, to find his voice, he wanted to stop her self-deprecating apology, but Shera had already bent down to pick up her Christmas present, and pushed it into Cid's hands with the solemn air of a formal farewell, and then she turned and started walking away.
No no no no no! Cid silently screamed at his back to stop hurting and his legs to start bearing his weight. He could tell from the way Shera's shoulders shook, that she was not nearly as calm or as collected as she may have seemed. She was about to break into a run any second, and that petite body may not look it, and her agonizingly slow, overly-detail-oriented work ethic may never hint it, but Shera was fast. Cid had never been able to outrun her. If he didn't hurry up and catch up to her now, he will never catch her – in more ways than one – ever again.
Suddenly, a strong pair of hands took him by the elbows and helped lift him to his feet.
"Pardon the intrusion master, but it seems you are in dire need of assistance."
Cid froze at the soft, low voice behind him.
At the unfamiliar voice, Shera paused, and turned.
Cid also turned, slowly, still holding onto some delusion that what he would see might be nothing but a talking cat. But no. There Vincent was, in all his humanoid, half-naked glory, standing behind him – with nothing but a pair of Cid's pants hanging off of his narrow hips.
"I wholeheartedly agree, master." a somewhat deeper voice sounded from somewhere off to the side, and Cid turned his head to see Sephiroth gracefully swing himself onto the front lawn from the side window...dressed only with one of Cid's bedsheets wrapped around his waist.
Slowly, very slowly, the doomed pilot turned back to the small, frozen woman before him. Shera's eyes darted between the three men – all scantly clad – and Cid's still-aching back, and still hoarse voice, her face flashing between deathly white and bright red.
"Shera, wait," Cid started desperately, "I can explai-"
11:00am
"In a lab? How awful! Is that why you can turn into humans? Because of what they did to you?" Shera's tea cup made a forceful "thud" against the kitchen table.
She's taking this whole... animals-that-turn-into-naked-men thing in stride. A lot better than a certain pilot had, most definitely. Took an injured back to immobilize him long enough to make him listen to the cats' explanations. Took the better part of 4 hours for his brain to wrap around it all. Cid Highwind gingerly shifted on the living room couch, trying to get into a more comfortable position around two ice packs. One was placed at his lower back. He had hurt it this morning when he tried to scramble out of his bed while trying to avoid touching the strange naked men as best he could. ...His years and inactivity over said years were really starting to catch up on him... That was a most embarrassingly ungraceful fall from the bed to the floor... He most certainly will have to work on that.
And the other ice pack was pressed against his groin. He had almost forgotten how much of a punch...or kick...that Shera packed. Almost. A fond smile tugged at his lips as he recalled the first time they met. It wasn't common to see a woman on a team of rocket scientists and engineers. Heck, Cid's team had been a proper sausage fest for as long as it existed before Shera came on. Cid himself had been completely devoted to his work, his dream, and so when he first saw Shera, tiny and hunching over a prototype oxygen tank in her white lab coat, it was probably the first time in years that he had properly talked to a woman who wasn't of his family or family friends. And he of course, wasn't wearing any uniform or anything else that might have hinted that he was a part of this team, and she of course, had no idea who this unshaven loudmouth who was waving his arms about and brazenly invading her personal space was. Needless to say their first meeting didn't go over well. And when she — red-faced and horrified, having been finally informed of who Cid was by the other engineers — stammered horribly as she tried to apologize, he, with an ice back firmly pressed to his groin, hunched over in a quite undignified heap under the worried eyes of his team, could only think about how adorable she looked. And how strong her kick was.
"No. The ability to take human form is a part of us. It is what we are. The...people in the lab were simply trying to force us to use our gifts for their own benefit." Vincent's soft voice floated in from the kitchen.
"But we wouldn't. They were not our masters. They had no right." said Sephiroth, old anger simmering in his voice.
"I'm so sorry..." Shera said softly.
"It's alright now," said Vincent, equally softly, "we escaped, the Count took us in, and now we have a kind master who has accepted us as his. No matter the past, we are happy where we are now."
"Does he...does he treat you well? I mean, he is a kind man...and...and he means well..." Shera stammered, and Cid's chest ached.
"He has been very kind to us," said Vincent as something soft scraped across the kitchen table — perhaps he has reached over to take one of Shera's pale hands in his, "and I think he means to be kind to you too."
"He has the temper of a boar and the words of a drunkard," snorted Sephiroth, "...but he means better."
"...He most definitely means better than what he can put into words..." admitted Vincent, and Shera's timid chuckle blossomed in Cid's heart.
"And you mean more to him than what he can manage to say to you," continued Vincent, "if you'll let us, we will show you."
"But I..." Shera started uncertainly.
"Come."
And with that gentle prompt, came the sound of wood scraping against wood as the kitchen chairs were pushed back on the floorboards, and footsteps walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Cid held his breath. He was lying with his back to the kitchen door, but he did not try to turn his head to look. He really didn't know what to say or how to face them. Heck, he did not at all trust what might come out of his mouth were he to open them.
"Master, we request permission to enter your workshop." came Vincent's voice.
Workshop? What could these damned cats possibly want in his workshop? Cid hesitated in confusion.
"You can punish us later if you wish," silver hair slid almost seductively into Cid's field of vision as Sephiroth leaned onto the couch, "deny us access to your bedchamber, as you had last night."
Now Cid was blushing furiously. He desperately cussed the cats away, with his permission scrambled somewhere in his tirade, and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally heard their footsteps walking away.
A thin, colourfully wrapped packaged dropped onto him, and he looked up in confusion to see that Sephiroth had not yet followed the other two away.
"It would be shameful to reject such a carefully prepared present," said the silver man-shaped cat, "and if you so happens to have some time, master, perhaps you should take another look at the oxygen tanks in that rocket of yours." And with that, he left for the workshop to join the others, leaving Cid alone with his thoughts.
Cid's brows furrowed. Oxygen tanks? Did he mean the one that Shera was checking that fateful day, the one that she was so concerned with, that she stayed behind checking it, not even minding her own possible fiery death, until Cid was forced to abort the launch? How could Sephiroth have known about that? But if he did — with some hocus pocus cat magic that Cid's brain was too tired to think about — then could he be implying that Shera's concerns had been right all along? If she had been right, then...a malfunctioning oxygen tank could have cost Cid his life, had he made the launch...
Cid abruptly sat up, but was instantly halted by the warnings that his still tender back and groin gave out. And by the "plop" sound Shera's present made when it fell to the ground. Cid carefully inched his body down to pick it up. Inside was just an envelope containing some official-looking papers. Cid scanned through them, his eyes growing wider the more he read. They were papers confirming Shinra's renewed interest in the space program, and papers detailing fundings that he would be soon to receive! And they were signed..."Rufus Shinra". Of course! Cid almost smacked himself for his own stupidity. It had been on the news that President Shinra had been of ill health of late...or so they say...and his son Rufus Shinra had taken over his position in the company. Cid had seen the junior Shinra here and there in his dealings with the company. "A handsome young man dressed in a flawless, expensive-looking white suit and sporting perfectly coiffed blond hair"... How could he have been so STUPID! And blind! And STUPID! To let the idle chattering of nosy neighbours get to him like that! Shera hadn't been courting a new beau behind his back! She had been negotiating with the new President Shinra since his own idiotic ass had been too busy wallowing in self pity in that gods-be-damned moth-eaten rocket!
And the thing in his workshop that the cats wanted to show Shera...Cid suddenly remembered...the earrings! The ones he had bought for her even though he thought he might never see her again. He'd put them there, along with all the other things that he wanted to keep safe... And as if right on cue, Shera's surprised gasp sounded from the workshop.
Cid resolutely put his feet under him, grabbed the couch for support, and lifted himself up. He had been a pathetic mess, holing up in the past even as it rotted away around him. But he was Cid Highwind! Airship captain extraordinaire, future first man in space, and the best damn mechanic on this bloody continent! He'd be damned if he just lay around like some good-for-nothing slouch while women and cats busied about fixing his screw-ups for him!
"SHERA!" Cid Highwind grabbed the doorframe to his workshop, and pulled himself across those last few inches to the doorway.
The petite woman looked up, surprise in her eyes, and the little box with the earrings in her hand. The two cats...men...cats...turned to the grizzled pilot also.
"So," Cid waved the papers from Shinra as he entered the workshop, "looks like Shinra wants ta start up the space program again."
"...Looks like it." Shera answered quietly, uncertainly.
"Well, getting something ta fly inta space ain't simple, ya know, I'll be needing a team, people ta help me check things over, ta watch my back," continued Cid.
Shera blinked in confusion, but she didn't move from her spot as Cid slowly made his way closer, "Your old team never gave up on you, captain, they've always been checking up on you, from time to time. I'm sure they'll all come back if you call on them."
"And what about you, Shera?" Cid asked as he stopped in front of Shera, "Have ya given up on this rotten ol' ass of a captain yet?"
Shera's eyes widened, "I..."
"I'll be needin' da best engineers this planet has ta offer. Ones with a meticulous eye fer detail, ones who will not accept unsatisfactory results, no matter how much their over-eager captain wants ta just get it over with and fly."
Shera sucked in a breath and held it there as she began to understand where Cid was going with this. Seeing that, Cid moved in and laid out his cards.
"I'll be needin' someone ta check those oxygen tanks fer me. Someone I can trust, someone with the guts ta fight me if necessary, ta stop me from launching a #$%# rocket when it is not safe. Shera, I..." Cid took a step forward and wrapped his hands around Shera's, along with the little box with the earrings that she held, "...I...I want ya ta stay. Ya think...ya think you can put up with me, just a little bit longer?"
Now it was his turn to hold his breath. And Shera...Shera looked like she might pass out if she didn't breathe soon...
"Yes..." The small woman finally breathed out, slowly, "yes...I think I can."
Inside, Cid wanted to whoop like a teenager on a roller coaster, but of course he was much too old and too dignified for that, as his back had been telling him all morning. Instead, he gently squeezed Shera's hand and muttered a somewhat embarrassed "Thanks."
"And uh...Shera..."
"Yes Cid?"
"...Sorry."
Shera froze for a moment in surprise, her eyes searching Cid's to make sure she heard it right. Then, she lowered her face, and the reflections on her huge spectacles hid her expression from Cid. She said not a word, but she put her other hand on top of Cid's, and returned his little squeeze.
Suddenly, a small mouse squeaked as it dashed across the workshop. Both Cid and Shera jumped, startled, and suddenly remembered that they were not alone in the room. They quickly broke away from each other in embarrassment, and looked around to find Vincent and Sephiroth attempting to slip out of the room to give them some privacy. They would have succeeded too — the silent-footed cats that they were, even when in human form — if they hadn't accidentally startled one of the mice that loitered around the house.
Feeling his face heat up at the thought of what the cats had just witnessed, Cid scratched the back of his head awkwardly, while Shera turned away and adjusted her huge glasses even though they needed no adjusting.
"Our apologies, master." sighed Sephiroth.
"We will catch that one later." promised Vincent.
"Ah it's fine." Cid waved a rough hand in their general direction, "Come ta think of it, I owe you two damned felines some thanks too. Fer bringing Shera back... So, err...ahem! ...Thanks."
"I too," Shera gave a little shy smile as she came up beside Cid, "thank you Vincent, thank you Sephiroth."
At that, Sephiroth visibly preened, but Vincent shook his head humbly, "There's no need. Master, you are our master, you have whatever help we can give."
"So...how does this work, exactly?" Cid's brows furrowed, "That Count sells ya ta whoever, and they become yer 'master'?" Because if it was a slave contract that he had signed, then he wanted no part of it. Not that he was going to ever abandon the two cats...men...whatever, but Hell can go ahead and freeze before he became some sort of slave owner.
As if reading Cid's thoughts, Vincent shook his head again, "No, Count D simply acts as a matchmaker. He tries his best to match us to a human that might be suitable, but it is up to us whether we choose to accept the human, no one can force our choice."
"Hn, they can try." snorted Sephiroth.
"An...and you chose me?" Cid ran an embarrassed hand through his hair and down to rub at the back of his neck, "Well I ain't nothing special..."
"You are our master, Cid Highwind. You are special to us." Vincent said in a soft tone that sharply contrasted with the intensity in his ruby eyes. Cid fidgeted under his gaze, this was all VERY flattering and all, but dammit! He was NOT going to blush from head to toe like some ^&%# school girl. Mercifully for Cid, Vincent soon turned his gaze away — to somewhere immediately next to him.
"And...our mistress is special to us too."
"Eh?" Shera jumped a little, surprised to be addressed, and especially not in that way.
"That is...if you will accept us as yours." Vincent gracefully sank to one knee before her. Beside him, Sephiroth did the same.
And now Shera really was blushing beet red from head to toe. She looked to Cid for help, but Cid too, could only offer a helpless shrug back.
"You don't have to answer right away, mistress," said Sephiroth, his voice unusually quiet, "Count D's shop does offer a trial period. If you don't find us suitable, there is still time to return us if you so wish-"
Sephiroth's voice remained stoic through the whole speech...too stoic. Cid moved to stop him, but Shera was faster. In a flash, she had knelt down and crushed the two men to her shoulders before Sephiroth could finish.
"Stop it." she said, her face hidden between Vincent's midnight mane and Sephiroth's silver strands, "Stop talking like you're some sort of...some sort of thing that can just be tossed away."
"Yeah," said Cid as he sat down on his butt pointedly beside the three of them, and crossed his legs as if daring somebody to try to move him — including that gods-be-damned pain in his back, "I said I was gonna take care of the two of ya, and I ain't no $%#& liar."
"Then...you accept us?" Vincent asked tentatively.
"...We can stay?" asked Sephiroth softly.
Shera drew back, looked the two in the eyes, sighed, then ruffled their hair as if they weren't 6-foot tall half-naked men, "Yes, of course you silly!"
The two men blinked a slow cat-blink, then they nuzzled the petite engineer and purred loudly in happiness.
As happy as Cid felt about the whole thing — having Shera and Vincent and Sephiroth there with him, and prospectively staying with him long into the foreseeable future — watching them, he still couldn't help but wonder if his life had taken a sudden turn into the weird... The very very weird. Especially when the two purring, half-naked young men came over and nuzzled him too.
Well, the chattering neighbours for one, would sure be having a lot more things to chatter about after this morning when Sephiroth, dressed in nothing but Cid's bed sheet, dashed out to catch a tearful, running Shera. He did catch her though, and together with Vincent, brought her back and persuaded her to stay. And it was only because of that that they were able to be here, together, right now. So if the neighbours wanted to talk, let them talk, Cid decided. The four of them would figure it all out somehow. He is just too bloody happy right now, exactly where he is.
11:00pm
He is happy right now, exactly where he is. Cid repeated to himself, trying to convince himself. He and Shera were in bed together, happily made up after having suffered a huge fight. And so by rights, some spectacular make-up sex should be happening right now. And yet it wasn't.
Instead, they were both reclining on fluffed up pillows, while Shera read "The Night Before Christmas" to the black and silver cats that were blissfully dozing on the bed covers, snuggling in the small space between Cid and Shera's legs.
Why wasn't spectacular make-up sex happening? Because, well, Cid wasn't up to it. Not because he didn't want it. He did, very very much. But because his back and groin still ached from all that mayhem in the morning.
The cats did offer to help. They had offered to help early in the morning too, when Cid hurt his back. But Cid had refused, just as he had refused again when they offered again after making up with Shera.
It figured that this magical pair of transforming cats would happen to have the power to speed up healing, no side-effects whatsoever apparently. But it also figured that there would be a catch to this no-side-effects-attached healing power: it resides in the two cats' saliva. And of course they can't be in cat form while they...heal you, since cat tongues are like sandpaper, designed to clean dirt and stuff from their fur, and to scrape the meat off the bones of their prey...
All things considered though, Cid wasn't sure if it would be less or more awkward for the cats to heal him in cat form instead of human form. The...specific body parts that needed healing...there was just NO way it wouldn't be awkward.
And so Cid Highwind had resolutely refused the cats' offer to help, and decided instead, to try to convince himself that he was happy exactly where he was, and that he was fine with skipping the spectacular make-up sex...
Cid Highwind fidgeted slightly, miserably.
The cats slightly adjusted their bodies to his fidgeting, but otherwise ignored him and continued to doze. They with their soft, relaxed, furry bodies, and Shera's soft voice reciting a Christmas poem, and the soft lighting cast on the bedroom by the light on the nightstand, all made the very picture of peace on Gaia.
So then why was Cid's stomach nagging him with the feeling that something was...off?
Somehow, this all just felt a bit too peaceful... Kind of like the calm, windless sky right before a storm.
Maybe it was just him. Maybe it was just the pent up sexual frustration. Maybe he should have just accepted the cats' offer of help, took the...the healing like a man. They were just cats, right? Cat that turn into gorgeous, naked men...healing him... Cid felt his face heat up, and he quickly sneaked a glance at Shera. Fortunately, the petite woman was focused on her book and seemed to have noticed nothing.
He was happy dammit! And not just because of denial. He truly was. With Shera and the cats, together with him this Christmas night. And he meant all his promises, truly and deeply, every one of them.
Cid sighed inwardly. He'll figure out all this...this...whatever this is... Somehow...
"But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight — "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" finished with the poem, Shera gently closed the book and sat it on the nightstand. She then leaned to give Cid a small peck on the lips.
"Good night, captain."
"...Yeah, g'night."
"Good night, Vincent. Good night, Sephiroth."
"Mrrrw."
"Mao."
And so Cid watched as Shera, with a gentle, sweet smile on her lips, reached for the light switch.
*Click*
~~
The chattering neighbours had a lot to chatter about indeed. The strange, barely-clad men chasing and then comforting a tearful Shera was one thing, but the sounds that came out of the Captain's house that Christmas night...that was something else. Not that they were new to hearing loud cussing coming out of that house. But the loud cussing that night...well at first they were of the surprised and outraged variety that everyone was familiar with, but then they soon turned into...something else entirely.
Perhaps Cid should have considered whether Shera was as willing to give up on the spectacular make-up sex as he.
And so Cid, Shera, Vincent, and Sephiroth — and their chattering neighbours — all lived happily, and noisily, ever after.
~The End~