Cloud had waited until he was sure Denzel and Marlene were both sound asleep before he broached the subject of their travel plans. They weren't stupid, he knew both of them would figure out the details of what was going on sooner rather than later, but there was no need to get them more upset than they had to be at the moment. That, and he didn't want them to see how concerned he was. If they saw him worry, they would be scared. He wanted to avoid that for as long as possible.
"So," he began, settling onto the edge of one of the room's three beds. The room was fairly spacious; he had requested one without an iron maiden, for the kids' sake. Thoughtful of the staff at the Gold Saucer's Ghost Hotel to provide family-friendly rooms as well as themed ones. "How are you feeling about all of this?"
Tifa, who had already been occupying the other side of said bed, though her sit was more of a perch, for all intents and purposes, flattened her lips in pensive thought, eyes still on the far wall.
"It's going to get ugly again, isn't it." She said after a moment.
"It is," he agreed, swinging his legs up over the edge of the mattress to stretch them out along the length of the bed. "We've stopped him before. I don't doubt we can do it again. But it already feels different this time, doesn't it," the blond mused aloud. Cid had explained everything to them at length. The three of them had left Wonder Square together and settled on the relative quiet of the hotel bar, where Cid had been able to tell the tale so far undisturbed. From the sounds of it, things were...
"Messier," he finished aloud, frowning. "There's a lot of variables this time. If it was just Sephiroth, I wouldn't be worried. No matter how many times he pulls himself back together, I'll stop him every time. But we're up against more than that. A guy who could be worse than Hojo, another would-be Sephiroth that's following him around, and then we've got the wild cards. That woman they brought with them, and that Kaiun guy Cid mentioned."
The brunette ran a hand through her hair, imitating Cloud's stretch to lie on her back. Turning her thoughtful eyes onto the ceiling. After a moment she rolled over, fixing her companion with a lopsided smile. "At least," she said, "Life is never boring." Touching her lips with the fingertips of her free hand. "But I'm worried. About the kids and..."
Well, 'about you' didn't seem exactly fair, did it. Things were different now. Not just because the world had changed, but because Cloud had, too. Since the remnant incident, he had steadily seemed to regain his feet. Regain -himself.- And there was no reason this fight might take it all away.
Was there?
She hadn't needed to voice her concern. Cloud turned his head to give her a wry smile over his shoulder, leaning back and putting his weight on one gloved hand. "And about me, right?" he asked gently, raising an eyebrow. "Don't worry. I'll be fine." He turned his gaze towards the ceiling, briefly replaying scenes from his last two encounters with the former general.
"I know who I am. He can never take that away from me. I have too much to live for."
Tifa smiled at him, reaching out to set the hand playing about her lips over the one supporting his weight. "I know." She agreed.
And the truth was, that if there was thing in the world she could believe in, it was that. He had told her once that she had saved him, just by remembering his name. By knowing he'd been alive. But if that was true, then how many times had he returned the favor? And even so... last time, she had almost lost him to more than sorrow.
"Do you think... the kids are safer with us, or with Shelke?"
A thoughtful frown turned Cloud's lips as he considered their options. "With us, I think. More people to look after them. The way I see it, Sephiroth doesn't know about Shelke. She's safe watching the bar, he won't go after her. He'd go right for Denzel and Marlene to get to us." To get to me, he silently corrected himself. Just to be cruel. "I'd rather have them where I can watch them. ... it's my job to protect them."
The look on Tifa's face said she had considered this as well. She leaned up a bit, watching the children over Cloud's shoulder. Three beds really had been unnecessary, since they seemed to want to stay right on top of one another this trip. She smiled, seeing Marlene's small fingers curled into Denzel's sleeve. "We'll just have to ask them to stay on the ship." She decided, nodding.
Cloud nodded in agreement, lightly flexing his fingers beneath the comfortable warmth of her hand. "They'll be safest onboard the Shera, and if we're busy, there are plenty of watchful eyes. Besides, if they get restless about staying put, we can always have Vincent remind them how important it is. They like him better than me, almost," he added with a lopsided half-smile. "They might be a little disappointed to hear he'll be too busy to play most of the trip, though. Sounds like it, anyway."
The smaller woman laughed, tightening her fingers affectionately. "I don't know about that, dad." she said, a certain inflection on the word that was as playful as it was warm. "Denzel's been pretty glued to your hip all week. Even if you -didn't- do anything but that one game."
"He understands the importance of conquering it," Cloud told her, adopting a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "I'm not even bad at it anymore, you know. Just can't beat that high score, but we're working on it."
Tifa had no more control over the smile that broke her lips apart than she did the coming tide. "Would it really be so awful if there were one game you didn't have the extreme ultimate high score at?"
Cloud attempted to give her what he hoped was a very serious look, but wound up smiling instead. "Yes. That's the only game stopping me from a hat trick, you know. And someone keeps bumping me out of first place at Battle Square, but I always get it back pretty easily. Just a pain."
"Someone's still winning you out at Battle Square?" She blinked. "Hasn't that been going on for years now?"
Not... that the vendetta against the snowboard machine hadn't, mind you.
"Yeah, same guy every time," the blond confirmed, "But I secured first place this morning before breakfast. I should be all set for this trip. ... it's just a game, anyway, but you know." He paused, offering her a sheepish smile as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "It's special to me."
Tifa tapped the side of her nose with one finger, closing her eye. "Even you get sentimental?" she teased gently. "It's okay. Your secret's safe."
He grinned in reply, holding his index finger to his lips. "I trust you."
It was late in the evening by the time President Shinra and Doctor Caraway finally rejoined the group. They entered the hotel bar together, Rufus stepping aside to let the older gentleman through the door ahead of him before they chose a pair of stools near the center. At the far end, Cid raised his head and gave a lazy salute as a greeting, looking extremely put-upon by the very talkative ninja to his right. Oh, Vincent was going to hear it for sending her in his direction. Hear it good.
On the bar itself sat Cait Sith, who had resurfaced from whatever it was he'd been doing long about midnight. He seemed to be busy trying to stuff a pair of fuzzy, oversized dice into his fuzzy, oversized ears.
"Oi, Lassie! Shutcher yar, will ye?" he moaned. Not that it was paid much heed.
Yuffie huffed at the robotic cat, leaning around Cid to get a better look at him, irate. "You know, nobody around here ever wants to let me TALK, it doesn't matter what I say," she pointed out sharply, directing her index finger at him for emphasis.
"That's because you've got such a bad track record of bein' a crazy schemer who talks outta her butt," Cid murmured into his beer.
"An yer voice is hard on th'ears." Cait Sith offered, giving the impression of squinting at her, somehow.
Not that he had any footing on which to safely point fingers, one could suppose. Accent aside, he wasn't the most musical of tones, himself.
"Oh? Company approaches!" He announced, albeit belatedly, spinning to his feet. "Eh, now, blokes. Where ya been t'night?"
Yuffie let out a sound 'hmph' as she crossed her arms, slumping against the bar and feigning injury as Cait Sith turned his attention to the new arrivals.
"We were discussing business," Rufus replied calmly, offering the robot that carefully guarded smile of his. Cid snorted to himself a few stools down before tilting his glass back, downing most of its contents in one go.
"At the chocobo track," Dr. Caraway supplied, congenial as he had been since his arrival, proof that his injury was well on the mend.
Rufus' smile hitched just a bit higher. "Discussing the business of chocobos."
"Aye?" The cat tipped his head- and moreover, most of his shoulders- to consider this one. "Heard there was a fair bit of business going on with chocobos, today." he agreed.
"WARK." came a wark, distinctly too close to the assembled group's collective eardrums.
"Mother Mercy!" Cait Sith jumped, grabbing at his small, robotic heart.
"Who the fuck let onna those things in here?" Cid demanded gruffly, looking over his shoulder with his empty beer glass in hand, only to find Clarise standing there holding the reins of an overlarge black chocobo. "... oh. It was -you.-"
Rufus cleared his throat, arching a fine, pale brow in question. "New acquisition, Miss Kaht?"
"I had some free time." She agreed brightly.
Cait Sith, for his part, leaned over the bar and pointed a wholly accusatory, puffily gloved finger in her direction. "How's a wee lass like you go sneakin' such a monster in here like it were a lap-dog, eh?"
Clarise tapped a finger to her lips, seeming to give it honest thought. "Element of the unexpected?" she guessed after a moment.
"It smells," Yuffie sighed heavily, resting her chin in her hand and rolling her eyes in the bird's direction. "Grossness."
"Another poker game?" Rufus asked with a smirk, leaning slightly to his right to get a better look at the chocobo. He looked incredibly familiar. In fact, he could have sworn it was-
"Wasn't that the beast you were betting on for the first hour or so?" Dr. Caraway cut in with a smile, pausing to take a long sip of his darkly amber-colored drink.
"I believe so," the young president confirmed. "Teioh, isn't it?"
"I guess so?" She offered, resting a hand on the bird's saddle and tapping out an absent tune. "Won him off a jockey with a big black hat and a weird accent? -No offense," she added wryly, eyeing half the current assembly. "It wasn't one of yours, either."
"You implyin' that ammurnae weird, lassie?" Cait Sith snorted.
"I... don't know what you just said." She admitted after a moment, before startling stark straight. "Hey!" she jabbed a finger in his direction. "You were dead!"
"Y'just noticed?" Cid asked her, disbelieving. He let out a snort of a laugh as the barkeep passed him another foam-topped mug. "He's been back for days. Even came with when y'hit the good doctor with the bazooka."
"I- I think I repressed it." She frowned, eyeing Cait Sith suspiciously. "Or... did I mention this before?"
The cat grinned at her.
"Creepy." She remarked, reaching out to give his tiny crown a pat. "Well. Uhm. Anyway." The blonde cleared her throat, holding out the reins in the general direction of the president and his elder companion. "For you."
"A white chocobo or none at all," Rufus corrected her with a firm shake of his head. "It has to match the ensemble."
"Your vest is black," Yuffie corrected him from her place at the end of the bar.
"Yes, and will be remarkably less effective if I'm accompanied by a black chocobo. Besides, I have no use for one," he went on. "They're fun to place bets on, but the care of one is an entirely different matter."
Dutifully, Clarise set the reins into Dr. Caraway's hand. If she was at all off-put by the president's lecture, she didn't show it.
The retired scientist blinked several times in rapid succession as he looked down at the reins in his hand, fingers slack beneath them and not entirely sure if he was pleased with this supposed gift, or just confused. "Ah, don't you want it?"
"Nope." She chirped. "Seriously. What am I going to do with a chocobo on a secretary's salary?"
"You're Rufus Shinra's secretary," Dr. Caraway countered, "Your pay can't be that low."
"To be fair, she hasn't seen her first check yet," Rufus reminded him coolly, turning to gratefully accept his drink from the bartender. "Thank you."
"Will you accept 'I might break a nail.'?" She offered, arching a brow.
"Wark." Teioh agreed, inspecting the scientist's jacket with an experimental nibble.
"Cannae say th'animal doesn' seem tae suitcha, lassie." Cait Sith pointed out.
Dr. Caraway lifted a hand and tentatively reached out to scratch the chocobo behind where he assumed its ears were. "Well then. You're not so bad, are you?"
"Acceptable," Rufus agreed with a single nod. "So how did you go about winning it?"
The strawberry blonde offered him a toothy sort of smile that might have been sly, or might have been unnerved. As much as she did like to brag, bragging about beer pong was kind of ridiculous, wasn't it?
"I have pretty good aim when I'm pretending to be drunker than I am."
"Welp," Cid cut in, stretching as he slid off of his stool, now more than suitably warm for anyone who might be brave enough to claim it, "As stimulating as alla this bird talk is, think it's about time I called my wife back," he went on, omitting the follow-up of 'before she comes here herself to murder me for making her worry.'
"You're married?" The secretary asked pleasantly, shifting her weight to one foot. "Wow! That's good."
Cid gave her a questioning look halfway to the door, as though he wasn't quite sure how to take the remark. It wasn't quite like any he had ever heard concerning the situation before. "Uh. Thanks, I s'pose," he said almost sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Miracle that he is," Yuffie interjected with a grin, "Considering he spent like six years of his life yellin' at her at the top of his lungs. Can't believe she said yes. She's gettin' you back now, though, you're totally whipped."
The small woman laughed, patting the chocobo. "Well, it's less competition for Lyla, too, isn't it?" she added brightly.
Cait Sith, from his position on the bar, burst into laughter.
Cid coughed in reply, growing red in the face, not quite as gifted as shrugging off such remarks as Vincent seemed to be. "Hey now, that ain't funny!"
"Yes it is," Yuffie corrected him. "Vincent is okay with you cheating on him with your wife, though, I think. He's come to terms with it."
"It's like Reno and Rude, only more unsettling," Rufus commented to his drink.
"Is one of them married?" the blonde quipped, tapping at her lips again.
"Wark?"
"No. I don't -think- they're really gay." She informed the chocobo.
Cait Sith cocked his head. "Are ye talkin' tae th'chocobo, lassie?"
"Well. Yes."
Cid opened his mouth to interject, but was interrupted by the angry, insistent beep of his cell phone telling him he had a message for the sixth or seventh time that evening. Shaking his head, he pulled his phone from his pocket and headed towards the lobby. "I'm outta here, back in awhile," he told those assembled, spurring Yuffie to jump up out of her seat.
"Hey, wait for me, old man! I'm not finished with you!" She proceeded to follow him with her with both hands on her hips, absolutely determined to convince him that he was glad to have her radiant presence on this trip.
Lyla had pressed herself against the side of the doorway as both pilot and ninja passed, clearing her throat once they were gone and entering properly. "Why is Krazie Yuffie tormenting Cid?"
"Oh! Hi, hunny." Clarise waved cheerfully. "I gave the bird to your pop."
"Yae alrigh' there, lassie?" Cait Sith squinted- or, seemed to, at least- up at the brunette. "Ye look a bi' down in'the bogs."
"Cat has a point," the small woman folded her arms. "So. Wait now. Is her first name 'Krazie'? -Do I detect a 'k' in the spelling of that?"
Dr. Caraway merely waved pleasantly, holding up the chocobo's reins in his left hand as if to demonstrate. Lyla blinked a few times before tilting her head in Clarise and Cait's direction. "I'm okay," she said quickly, in a manner that suggested she distinctly was not. "I think it's more like a title, really. It's on all of the signs at her store. Indeed, you do detect a 'k.'"
"Keep those powers of observation sharp, Clarise," Rufus half-teased after draining the contents of his glass. "Catching details like that usually leads to a pay raise."
"Supernatural powers of detecting the abuse of language." She smirked. "I guess it's a valid skill for working with keyboards and post-it notes." Clarise stole a glance over her shoulder at the president.
Really, he was something like arrogance incarnate. All floppy hair and daddy's money and ruthless, self-satisfied loop-holes.
God, was he attractive.
Rufus looked over his shoulder and offered her a winning smile in reply. "Every little detail counts," he assured her, "Just file that away for everyday use for when we actually have an office to run again."
Behind him, Lyla had made her way to the end of the bar, where she leaned over the counter and spoke to the bartender in a low, conspiratory sort of manner. Dr. Caraway had leaned a bit to get a better look at her around Rufus' figure, frowning slightly until his newly acquired chocobo affectionately pecked at his shoulder.
Clarise was tempted to ask if he meant the 'k' in Krazie Yuffie, but kept it to herself, for the moment. Instead, she leaned way up over the bar to try and see what Lyla was after. Nearly crushing Cait Sith in the process.
So much as one could be crushed merely by copious application of breasts.
The robot, however, didn't complain.
"Whatcha up to, over there?"
Lyla looked up at the question, looking very much like a rabbit caught in the high-beams of an oncoming vehicle. Even as she opened her mouth to reply, the bartender set what was very clearly eight large bottles of vodka in front of her. She smiled sheepishly. "Uh, this?"
"That's enough to make Reno's liver tremble in fear," Rufus remarked coolly.
"Well. Room service will only bring two bottles at a time, which is, you know, really not fair considering they're being paid an exorbitant amount of money for it, but I thought I would save them a few trips."
"Soooo... are you trying to get Dracula drunk so he'll jump you?" Clarise asked curiously, with way more honest interest than was at all appropriate.
"No!" Lyla replied vehemently, causing Rufus to let out a brief snicker before pretending to be more interested in his fresh drink than he really was, with Dr. Caraway following suit, Teioh pecking at his shoulder in the meantime.
"Well, maybe a little. Not primarily! I just really, really, really need to drink, like you wouldn't believe," Lyla went on to clarify, looking worse for the wear as she began to collect the first round of bottles. "Also - hey! Are you implying I would have to get someone drunk to seduce them?" She sounded more surprised than injured, with a note of hysteria that was clearly helped along by the alcohol she had already imbibed.
Clarise shook her head, holding up her well manicured hands. "Nooo." She said evenly. "I said, did you need to get -Dracula- drunk. That's not the same as normal people."
She paused though, leaning down a bit further to squint at her friend. "But seriously. Are you already drunk, yourself, hunny?"
"Oh yes. I'm drunk. I am all kinds of drunk," Lyla confirmed, and after a brief pause, sighed. "Actually, I'm not nearly as drunk as I would like to be. I can hold my liquor really well."
"She can," Dr. Caraway confirmed. If he had any other remarks about the situation, he wisely kept them to himself.
"It's really kind of a pain at times like these," she explained.
"I feel this is the place I should say something about balancing the right level of drunk with blood poisoning," Clarise frowned, pointing at the woman's armload in a gesture typically reserved for gay men in satire.
"I know my limits!" Lyla assured her, gathering another pair of bottles into her arms. "Besides, it's not all for me. And it's not like I'm going to drink it all in the next hour."
"How many hours have you got there, abouts, would you say?" Clarise asked, eyeing it suspiciously.
"I don't know. Maybe a little under three? But I hope to be doing something other than drinking all night," Lyla pointed out, taking up the last two bottles by the neck in her right hand.
"It is wrong to take pleasure in the sad comedy of someone else's misery?" Rufus mused aloud, tipping his glass back against his lips. He glanced towards both women and smiled. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Oh, not at all," Lyla told him all at once, "I'm perfectly well-aware of the ridiculous bit."
Clarise pointed over her shoulder at the good doctor. "I don't think I'm the one who needs to give any clearance. I'm pretty much not a nice person, you know?" She paused, looking back at Lyla speculatively. Then sighed. "Well, shoo, then. Do you need a wheelbarrow to get it up stairs?"
"I'm good!" Lyla assured her as she turned towards the exit, "Apparently super strong and all, may as well put it to good use. Hey, why is that chocobo eating my dad?" she asked, truly noticing the chocobo's proximity to her father for the first time, no longer distracted by mounting hysterics and her quest for alcohol.
Dr. Caraway smiled again as the bird gently pecked at the side of his head. "Clarise decided to bestow this most generous gift upon me. ... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I think he likes me."
"Oh!" the younger Caraway remarked. "That's nice."
"You're in a rush." The smaller woman observed. "You got him half naked and chained up already or something?"
"Not quite, but with any luck, that good old combination of shared misery and Absolut will get us there before the night is out," came the reply, mostly in jest, though Lyla paled a moment later. "And I just said that in front of my father. Oh my god."
"Well. Sort of behind and to the left of your father, really." the secretary offered helpfully.
"Good sense of direction," Rufus murmured thoughtfully, pretending to take a mental note.
Dr. Caraway drew in a deep breath, but offered both women a dismissive wave. "Come now, hardly the worst thing I've ever heard." Regardless, Lyla stared at him for a few moments, horrified.
"This is totally killing you both, isn't it."
"Expec'so, lassie." Cait Sith offered helpfully, though it was somewhat muffled by his proximity to her breasts.
The secretary jumped. "Oh! Hello, little undead kitty."
"Oh yes, absolutely yes," came Dr. Caraway's reserved reply, which he followed up with a long swig of his drink. Lyla took the opportunity of Cait Sith seizing Clarise's attention to make another break for the door, two bottles of vodka tucked beneath each arm and another pair in each hand.
"Well, you just stay distracted by the robot cat, and I'll just go upstairs and kill myself," she said with a very manic sort of cheer. Well, maybe she would save that until after that other thing Clarise had mentioned. That thing that she felt needed to happen about five times worse than it did before. "Have fun!" she added as a parting shot, disappearing through the door to the lobby and briskly heading for the stairs.
Clarise glanced after her as she detached Cait Sith's crown from the lacey edge of her dress collar. "Life's just an adventure around here." She quipped.
"Though a bit more like the sitcom variety of adventure the past couple of days, I think," Rufus supplied, peering curiously at Cait Sith as he set himself to rights.
"Well. He's not Reno," Dr. Caraway was saying to himself, finishing off the last of his drink. Teioh warked loudly in agreement.
"Amazing what one bad boyfriend can do to a father's Bar to Reach." Clarise murmured thoughtfully, tapping a knuckle against her chin. "Maybe you could market him as Reno: the Great Equalizer."
"I think you could profit," Rufus remarked, "Pitch him to women who want their fathers to get off their backs about the men they date. After Reno, they'll all seem like Prince Charming." He smiled knowingly.
"Let's be fair, I don't have anything against him -personally-, we were both just playing our roles as directed by social norms," Dr. Caraway said evenly. "Though I did wake up to find him in my kitchen just a few too many times. And he did eat all of my cereal."
"So, Dracula's better because he doesn't eat? ...Er. Cereal?" Clarise thought about that for a moment. "Oh, hey. Wait. Isn't he dead, too? And like... very old?"
Dr. Caraway closed his eyes and let out a very terse, "Yes."
Clarise put a hand to her mouth. "He really -is- dead, then? I wasn't sure if everyone was joking or not!"
"Well," the doctor corrected himself, "'Dead' isn't really correct, either, but he was, for a brief time." He coughed, downing the last of his drink. "I was there. We go back. It's very weird."
"So he really is a vampire, then?" Clarise blinked owlishly.
"No," Dr. Caraway declined with a shake of his head. "Something else entirely. We'll simply say he's been reanimated, for now. I'm not entirely sure there's a word for what was done to him, to be completely honest."
She squinted. "Your daughter's trying to jump a zombie?"
For a moment, Caraway wasn't exactly sure which part of that question he wanted to object to first. He sighed, pressing his middle and index fingers against his temple as he leaned against the bar. "No," he began, "I'm fairly certain his heart beats. And no, because no."
"I think you broke him, Miss Kaht," Rufus interjected.
"Oops." She murmured, looking honestly remorseful for a very brief moment.
Rufus offered the older man a very reserved, condescending pat on the shoulder. "There there. There."
Dr. Caraway turned a critical eye on him. "I'm fine, don't strain yourself."
"I guess it really would be terrible if you were hurt again, Mr. President." Clarise offered, chewing at her lip.
"Don't be ridiculous. It's not as though I'm going to go into cardiac arrest because I took a moment to pretend to care," Rufus said plainly.
"I don't know. The shock may very well be a blow to it."
"I'm young," Rufus reasoned, "I think I'll survive."
She chuckled, setting Cait Sith back on the bar and stealing the stool nearest her- which happened to be Yuffie's currently abandoned seat.
"Well," the robot offered, tipping back his crown. "One thing's fer sure. Vin's in for a hell of a night."
Dr. Caraway merely allowed his head to drop forward and come to rest on the bar, with Teioh giving the back of it an experimental poke afterwards. Rufus cleared his throat and glance to the cat, saying, "Now that was just cruel, Cait."
The cat looked around at the assembled company, baffled. "Aye? Well would you wannae babysit her drunk? Specially with ol'mealy mouth an' the one winged pain in th'arse aboot?"
"Reasonable," Rufus offered with a nod. "Do you think he'll be putting in another appearance soon, speaking of?"
"Couldnae say." He frowned, looking upward as if for some inspiration. "Fortunes have all been grim tonight."
"Perhaps best if we all remain on alert," was Rufus' solemn reply, all teasing set aside for the time being.
"There's been a storm coming in since early evening." Clarise offered, turning her eyes towards the windows. "Last time that happened, it was bad news."
"I'll place a call to Reno and Rude, then," Rufus told her, reaching to produce his phone from somewhere within the depths of his white suit jacket. "Just in case."
"Just in case." the secretary repeated. But somehow, didn't feel very comforted at all.
Lyla considered it a great feat of skill that she managed to make it all the way back to the room without dropping any of the bottles she had initially stepped out to get. She carefully set them on the floor in order to let herself in, quickly moving the first four inside before taking up the rest, two in each hand, and shut the door behind her, setting two bottles beside the bed, holding one out to the gunman, and keeping one for herself.
"That should give room service a reasonable break, don't you think?"
Vincent, for his part, accepted the bottle with a glance off to their left at what empty bottles had already accumulated.
Really, finishing a singular bottle of vodka by one's self was not so much a feat of strength as an exercise in stupidity. It -should- have lead to having one's stomach pumped.
The gunman, however, for better or worse, was anything but ordinary. The amound of liquor he could imbibe, or food he could consume as a human being had been literally dwarfed since his awakening. It was a mystery he had yet to truly unravel- but it made getting drunk exponentially more expensive.
Lyla's excuse, however, he could not say he knew.
The scientist helped herself to a seat on the edge of the bed and proceeded to open the bottle without ceremony, giving it a thoughtful look before tipping it back for the first swallow. She had always been privately impressed with her own remarkably high tolerance for alcohol, but never questioned it much. Now, since having her origins revealed to her, she simply wrote it off as another fringe benefit - the same as so many other details that would have nagged at her endlessly if she hadn't simply dismissed them.
"My father met Clarise," she said after a moment, lips pursing slightly. "And her mouth."
Vincent considered this while removing the top from his own bottle. "How's his heart?"
"Pretty good, but that may not help much in this situation," Lyla mused aloud, then looked grimly into the contents of her bottle. "She asked if I was going to have you half-naked and chained up in front of him. ... it went downhill from there. I'd like to end my life."
To his credit, Mr. Valentine made a valiant effort not to sound as though he choked on his drink as hard as he did. "That-" he swallowed a cough. "I see. I'm sure it wasn't that bad."
"It was bad," she corrected him, tipping her bottle back for another drink. "Very, very bad. I may not have disagreed with her as vehemently as I likely should have."
"If they were in the bar, maybe he was drunk, too." He arched an eyebrow. "I'm sure it will be okay."
The burning in his throat endured, though it distracted him from the topic of conversation less acutely than he would have liked.
"That would be great," Lyla said decidedly. "I did see brandy." She wondered, if the awkward of that conversation never fully evaporated, if her father might date again someday so she could enlist Clarise in ruining his life in a similar fashion.
Privately, Vincent was horrified with himself for wanting to ask if chaining people to beds was in Lyla's typical repertoire.
Lyla closed her eyes very briefly, reliving the scene in the bar and feeling the sharp, mortifying sort of pain one often feels thanks to hindsight being 20/20. "Someday. Selective mute. It's happening. Putting that right on my to-do list after 'survive.'"
Monstrous discoveries, homicide-related depression. Basic explanations of the world and it's abominations, tactical advice. None of these things were beyond him.
...This, however, was a whole different kettle of fish.
Vincent cleared his throat again, hoping to free it of the last vestiges of vodka, and shook his head.
Not really his area of expertise, one could say.
The brunette withheld a small sigh as she opened her eyes again, tipping her own bottle of vodka back against her lips for another liberal swallow. The burn of it was pleasant, a distraction from the irritating noise in her head, though she had been making a valiant effort to ignore it. "I'm sorry. Clarise was kidding, and so was I, really, though it was still inopportune timing, nonetheless."
"It's not that." Vincent assured her, sitting with one leg against his chest, leaning so that the bottle hung from the fingers perched above his knee. "If Cid's jokes never bothered me, yours don't. It's just..." He fell quiet a moment, trying to decide how to explain. "...humanity and I have been strangers... longer than it seems."
"I know," she said with a careful nod, glancing to her left to get a better look at him. "That's why I don't want to be too pushy. You need a lot of time, and space." If she were being honest with herself, if he had been anyone else, she would have progressed past half-teasing innuendos and pushed harder in search of some kind of comfort, anything to serve as even a brief distraction from the mess she had found herself so much a part of. But that wouldn't do here. That was fine. The vodka was helpful, too.
Vincent felt compelled to answer her sincerity. It frustrated him immensely to be at a loss for how. He looked down at the bottle, and then over at her, through the lens of cloak and hair. He sighed, then, turning his red gaze back out the window.
"It'd be a shame, if you went mute."
"I don't think you have anything to worry about," she said gently, kindly averting her eyes to avoid staring at him as he turned his own gaze towards the window. "I may wish for it often, but I have too many opinions to keep it all to myself, and my day wouldn't be complete if I didn't stick my foot in my mouth at least once." She paused, the gravity of his statement not lost on her. "But that's sweet of you to say."
Sweet was not a word Vincent was accustomed to hearing applied to himself. He gave a soft huff of acknowledgement, watching the clouds as they rolled in ever thicker. "Not a lot of people have much worth saying."
"I don't always, either," she reasoned aloud, helping herself to another generous swallow of vodka. "But now and then, I get lucky."
"Even if that's true..." The gunman told the hazy moon, "The sound of your voice, isn't bad."
She smiled, quickly turning her head to hide it behind the arm she had propped up against her knee, almost embarrassed at just how wide it spread. "O-oh. ... neither is yours."
"If I was someone who deserved happiness, I wouldn't make you wait." He said after a moment, frowning. "Even if I was a sinner, seeking redemption. But... this is all I am. ...Maybe it's all I can be, anymore. I don't know."
"I think there's more than you'll allow yourself to see," Lyla said evenly, catching a glimpse of his thoughtful frown out of the corner of her eye. It was going to take a lot of time and effort to convince him, she thought to herself. "... and I don't mind at all. Slow can be a good thing. Maybe give me some time to prove that I won't be tired of you when things are better. ... everyone deserves a little happiness."
"Not everyone." he rasped, frown deepening before it slipped away beneath cloth and shadow. "But... maybe. I can be one again."
"I hope you decide you are, someday," she told her bottle of vodka, thoughtfully biting at her lower lip for a moment, tucking her hair behind her ear as she took another drink. "Until then, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. That's just not how I see you."
Vincent ducked his head, smile lopsided and largely devoid of humor.
"Just this once," he murmured, "When I said that... I didn't mean me."
The seriousness of the moment broke and she grinned to herself, stifling a laugh that almost managed to escape. "Okay. You're right, point for you."
He flashed her a brief, entirely too calm pump of his fist in reply.
Stifled laughter became a lost cause then, and it broke free, though it was brief. "So I'll amend my statement, considering we've both come into contact with people who decidedly do not deserve it. All I've said about -you-, however, still stands. I'm sticking to the first draft, awkward and occasionally embarrassing as it's been."
"I suppose I can live with that." he told her wryly, considering things carefully before taking a swig of vodka from his own bottle.
A comfortable silence settled over them for a few moments, and Lyla was content to enjoy the quiet company as she steadily worked at the contents of the bottle in her hand. "So," she mused aloud after another minute or two, "That time when alcohol didn't effect me much? I think that's over now. I don't usually get this far, I always forget that it hits like a sack of hammers," she observed, squinting one eye closed as she set her mostly-empty bottle on the floor. "That's enough outta you, Absolut. For now."
"If you want to sleep, I'll keep watch." Vincent offered quietly, tapping out a quiet rhythm along the glass neck with his clawed hand.
"I don't usually manage it very easily," the scientist confessed, even as she carefully swung her legs up onto the bed, neatly tucking them beneath herself. "Even when I want to. But I may take you up on that offer, the need to be horizontal gets a little overwhelming sometimes despite the inability to sleep."
At last the gunman unfolded himself, rising easily to his feet without the sound of metal to accompany. He paused, turning to look back at her before heading across the way to the straight backed arm chair that stood like a sentinel beside the window.
Without ceremony, he lay a human hand atop her head. "Try." he said simply. "I'll be here."
She smiled, glancing upwards even as his hand pulled away to follow the rest of him towards the window. It took effort, if only a little bit, to conceal the mild panic attack that struck her as he crossed the room. It wasn't a conscious objection, but even that short distance was enough to make something deep down decidedly uncomfortable. She said nothing, but reached for the nearest pillow and carefully eased herself onto it, tucking a hand beneath it as she straightened out. "Thank you."
"You deserve a rest." He countered, glancing out at the fading light of the waxing moon, clouds choking it steadily out of the sky. "But for now, this will have to do."
"When this mess is all over," she began, forcing her eyelids to half-mast as she made herself comfortable, "I'm thinking of treating myself to an extended vacation for that very reason."
"Sounds like a plan." he agreed, watching the half light as it danced down her face and throat, pooling in the corners of her being where the shadows should have lingered.
"Maybe Costa del Sol," she mused idly, stifling a yawn as she studied him from across the room, his painfully thin figure sharp and very effective against the dim, blue-colored light that filtered in from outside. "... though it kind of leaves a bitter taste at the moment. Mideel is nice..."
"Kalm." Vincent suggested, "They hold a summer festival in the streets, but otherwise... very quiet."
"That sounds nice," she agreed, exhaling soundly. "Quiet sounds perfect right about now."
The gunman nodded, but didn't say any more. If she could sleep, she should.
She closed her eyes fully then, silently constructing a mantra she hoped would shove some of the noise out long enough to rest. Even if it was only a little, it was better than no help at all. "Wake me up if anything exciting happens?"
"Promise." Vincent murmured.
"Good."
Something happened to the gunman's face as he returned his eyes to the window. Something small that flickered fast and faded faster. It might have been a smile. But if it was, only he and the moon would ever know.