"I don't know what he thinks he wants from me," Nero grumbled. It had been an oft repeated phrase that evening, and no amount of tea or banana pudding seemed to be able to soften his mood. Shelke rubbed her shoulder against his forearm consolingly.
"He likes you," she insisted. "Vincent's just trying to get to know you. The problem is, he's not any better at people than you are. He just hides it better."
"Thanks," Nero rolled his eyes.
Shelke elbowed him playfully. "You know what I mean."
Nero sighed. "I really do suck at shooting, though. He really took that personally."
"Well, can you blame him?" Max plopped another spoonful of banana pudding into Nero's bowl. "It's his thing. There's never been a better shot in the Turks. He must have figured you'd inherit his talent for it."
She added a huge dollop of whipped cream to the pudding. "Veld taught me how to shoot, and Vincent gave me some advanced training. He really could help you with that. It's something you could do together. Would that be a bad thing?"
Nero shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think it's going to endear me to him much. I may have accidentally warped two pistols into small bodies of water my first week of training. One into a toilet, the other inside a water cooler tank. I'm not used to holding them with my bare hands. I always had the rig before- not that it was much better."
Shelke bit her lip and tried to sip some tea in order to drown the giggle struggling to escape. It was funny, but Nero wouldn't see it that way.
"Well," she began once she'd recovered enough to keep a straight face, "is it the pressure of potentially losing the guns, or hitting the mark that's stressing you out?"
"Both?" Nero sighed. "I get that I have to at least pass the basic qualifier, but I'm starting to think even that's impossible." With a groan, he flopped backwards, head hanging over the back of the sofa. "I am never going to get this surface thing down."
Max exchanged a look with Shelke, glad to have the other girl for backup. She'd made the transition back to surface life, not without some difficulty, but successfully. There was hope for Nero.
She patted his shoulder. "Nero, you don't have to 'get it' all at once. There's no test. You're not going to be written up for not being perfect. It's not like in Deepground. Nobody's going to hang you by your thumbs if you mess up."
Sitting down next to him, she nudged him with her shoulder. It wasn't exactly the Deepground version of a hug, but she knew it was familiar, and comforting. "Look, when I started with a gun, I was terrible. I never got near the target at first. My hands shook, and the recoil scared me. It took weeks for me to feel comfortable with it.
"Veld is really patient. And once I got good at it, Vincent gave me some pointers. He was very calm, just as patient as Veld. I learned a lot from both of them. I guess what I'm saying is, it's a lot of work, and practice, and the right instructor makes a big difference. But you'll get it. You're smart, and talented. You'll be okay."
Having never heard such words in conjunction with his name before, Nero just looked at her funny.
"It's called encouragement," Shelke supplied. "Max and I believe you have potential to master guns. It's going to take some work, but we think you can do it."
"Uh, okay," Nero said, bewildered, and focused on his dessert for a minute.
"Maybe if you practiced with something low stakes," Shelke suggested. "Like a slingshot, or the paint ball guns for the simulator. You know, you didn't seem to have any trouble with those."
Nero thought about that for a minute. "Well, they're just toys."
"So they're not as valuable and therefore you're not as worried about losing them?"
He shrugged. "I guess?"
Max turned to Shelke. "I wonder if they'd let us use the simulator? We could have a game, just you, me and Nero! It's practice, sort of. Right?"
"I'm only allowed in by myself," Nero reminded her. "After two stabbings, I'm lucky to still have access at all."
"Well, might be less pressure than the actual shooting range," Shelke mused. "Worth a shot."
"Har har," Nero said, and tossed one of the couch cushions at her. Shelke caught it, laughing.
"You won't be using shadows," said Max, waving a hand. "It'll be fine. I'll talk to Tseng. Or Reeve. Or both of 'em. Or I could ask Veld to ask them. It's really hard for him to say 'no' to me," she finished with a smug grin.
A flicker of pure terror flashed across Nero's face. "No, that's okay. Please don't. I'll...I'll ask Tseng. He'll probably be okay with it."
Learning to shoot straight might bring him slightly more esteem in Vincent's eyes, but he got the feeling neither of them were entirely over the Ned incident. Maybe he'd been too rude. However, all three of them under the same roof hadn't been working. Max didn't live with her parents anymore. Weren't people their age supposed to be moving out of their family homes and into living quarters of their own?
"Was it just the shooting?" asked Max. "Or were you guys fighting about other stuff too? It doesn't sound like Vincent. I know he has a temper, 'cause I've seen him spark off with Veld now and then, but he doesn't get angry very often."
Nero shook his head. "He keeps… I don't know. It's weird. He was asking me all this stuff. He even asked about you." There was a haunted look in his eyes as Nero looked up at her. "I know… I know in my head they wouldn't hurt you or me for...for…" He had no word for it and so trailed off. "I don't talk about my friends because I want to keep them safe. It's hard to get around that."
"Giving you the third degree?" Max smiled. "That's what parents do. How's school, how're your friends, where are you going, don't be home late….All that stuff is normal. Vin's just being a nosy dad. Like Shelke said, he's trying to get to know you.
"As for Veld…" Max paused, and when she went on, her tone had grown serious. "Veld is the same way you are. Protective of his friends. When my mom left Shinra, he kept his mouth shut and looked the other way, because he cared about her. Turks are dangerous people, but there's no one better to have on your side. And you have two of them on your side."
She squeezed his hand. "Don't let Vincent or Veld scare you. I've known 'em both for years. They won't hurt you."
"I know that," Nero said, hesitating a moment before squeezing back. "My head knows it. It's just hard to get the rest of me to agree."
Veld arrived home to find Vincent rearranging the living room.
He'd pushed the sofa closer to the center of the room and moved a lamp from one corner to another. In the space vacated by the lamp, he'd set up a small table, and on it now stood a square cabinet made of dark wood.
Vincent himself knelt on the floor in front of the table, his back to the door while he set various objects on shelves inside of the cabinet.
"Vince?" Veld tossed his jacket on to the sofa, coming up behind Vincent. "What're you doing?"
Vincent looked over his shoulder at Veld. "I'm setting up a shrine."
"A what now?"
"An ancestor shrine. It's kind of traditional, but I've never had one of my own, I hope I'm doing this right, it's been decades since I saw one of these, and...um."
He shook his head and rose, turning to face Veld. "I'm sorry. I should've asked you first."
"I don't care. Mind telling me what brought this on, though?"
Vincent sat down on the arm of the sofa. "Well. Nero, I guess."
Veld blinked. "What's a potentially long-lost son got to do with a shrine?"
"It's...kinda hard to explain."
"Take your time," said Veld, rubbing Vincent's arm gently. When it came to explanations, Valentine couldn't be hurried. He had to search for the right words; fortunately, Veld was a patient man.
"When I was a kid," said Vincent, picking his way through whatever was going on in his head, "we had one at home. My mother cared for it, and she taught me about it-how the ancestors are part of your daily life, to be acknowledged and respected."
He leaned over to an open box on the floor, and pulled out a small ceremonial tea cup made of pale blue glazed porcelain.
"This is for ritual offerings of tea," he said, setting the cup on the table. Next he pulled out a matching bowl. "This is for rice."
"There are rituals for the dead, on the anniversary of their death and at other times of the year. I should have family pictures here, too, but I...haven't got any."
"Okay." Veld waited, watching thoughts flicker in the red depths of Vincent's eyes.
"My mother used to pray and meditate at the family shrine," Vincent said very quietly. "She said we should look to the past for guidance, and to the future for opportunity. She prayed to our ancestors for blessings: Prosperity, wisdom...good health."
He gave a wry smile. "I guess that last one didn't work so well. Anyway...She always said our family was like a chain, stretching back into the past and forward into the future. Braced by ancestors on one side, and children on the other.
"I always thought I'd broken the chain, since I never planned on having kids of my own. I thought, in my line of work I'd probably die young, and I didn't want to leave my kids without their father. And then...without knowing it...I had a son. Well, two actually. And I wasn't there for either of them."
"Vince, you know that's not your fault."
"I know." Vincent shrugged. "But does that matter to Nero? I wasn't there. If I'd known, I'd have gotten him out of there sooner, but that didn't happen. And he's not open to my being his father. I'll never be the guy he looks up to, comes to for advice, or tells about his hopes and dreams. I'm just a stranger who shares his DNA."
"Hey." Veld slipped an arm around Vincent's shoulders. "You're more than that. You're part of his history, and so is this." He nodded at the shrine. "He might not understand right now, but you're family. That has value. It will take time for both of you to figure out your place in each other's life, that's all."
Vincent leaned his head against Veld's. "By myself I don't have much to offer a son, but I can at least give him his ancestors. They're there, whether he knows them or not. And they're there for me, too, if I need them."
Veld tightened his arm around Vincent, and he was not getting teary-eyed, nope, not at all. "Let me know if I can help, okay?"
"Sure. After all, you're Nero's step-dad, y'know."
Veld snorted. "That's a conversation for another time, Valentine. I'm gonna go start dinner."