Cid had thought-given the fact that he survived in one piece and his house and helper were still where he’d left them—that everything would return to normal after his job in Avalanche was done.
As things usually do, they changed. A big change was the new member of the house, but Cid and Shera didn’t complain about Vincent living with them—well, Shera would when he left the toilet seat up in the bathroom, but apart form that everyone was happy. In fact, Cid had been the one to invite him to stay for as long as he wanted and Shera, once she knew Cid felt that way about Vincent, was the one to suggest it.
Even with the rocket gone Cid was still happy. Vincent’s moving in had replaced it as the indicator that Cid was gay, but with it so obvious all the humor had left and Cid was even left alone from the jeers. Shera appreciated it too, having had to work on the phallic object and not caring for the insinuations people made about it.
No, the one thing that had changed for the worse was the publicity. Being famous had caused people to show up on his doorstep asking for everything from autographs to money to scandals and offering nothing more than religion or to partake in a pyramid scheme.
Thusly, the day had started out perfectly normal, even though the three wished things would return to the previous version of it.
The doorbell rang and it was hardly the first time today. It was one of the lucky people who had managed not to interrupt breakfast but merely annoy those cleaning up after it.
"My turn," Vincent said and went to the doorway and grabbed the gun that lay right next to it, along with Cid’s spear and Shera’s heaviest frying pan.
As the usual door-answering routine went he opened it and aimed his gun right at whoever was right there.
That was when things weren’t so normal. Instead of the person fleeing, or asking why there was a gun pointed at them, and instead of Vincent standing in the doorway, he fled—which was hardly the correct term for what he did. He performed the action, whatever it is, of being somewhere, and then suddenly not being there at all and the closet door slamming, being so fast that the change was not noticeable by the naked eye.
Cid didn’t have to see it to know it meant something apocalyptic was at the door. Vincent was a person who causally yawned while shooting down monsters one-handed. He was the guy who’d seen Hojo’s weird Jenova tricks so many times he forgot to mention that the psycho would turn into something that looked like it had been scraped off a gigantic shoe. Anything that could make Vincent dive for the closet faster than Yuffie could steal Materia was bad news.
"It’s not his fault he was claimed as dead," Cid said. "Go bug some Shinra guy about his taxes. Not his fucking fault he didn’t pay ‘em." Cid said.
As usual—which was unusual for such a situation—the person at the door ignored him. Returning to unusualness, she slammed the door open and started yelling Vincent’s full name—including his middle name. That, in and of itself made Shera and Cid swear there had to be a bad planetary alignment today—as if space hadn’t been mad enough at them already.
"You need somethin’ or you just wanna make us all go deaf?" Cid yelled.
"Vincent Valentine you get out of that closet right now!" she yelled, making it rhetorical by yanking the door off its hinges and the bolts from the wall.
"Too late for that," Cid remarked.
"In any aspect," Shera commented.
"You are in big trouble mister!" she yelled. "You have no idea the mess you caused! The shame you brought on us!"
"Who the hell are you, his mom?" Cid asked.
If looks could kill, Sephiroth wouldn’t have needed to go to all that trouble to summon meteor, he’s just have to find this woman and make her mad—and survive.
Cid would have commented that she had started it, but decided not to, as this woman looked like someone Midgar Zoloms ran screaming from.
"Mom, I was officially dead for several decades, don’t you read the papers?" Vincent said. "That’s why I couldn’t go to the wedding."
"You were dead? That’s the best excuse you could come up with?"
"Well, before that the experiments hadn’t been perfected and I was a mental wreck, so I’d probably have eaten the guests or pissed my pants. Maybe both."
"You had better as hell not mean you were on drugs!"
"Not voluntarily," Vincent said. "You can’t have waited thirty years for me to show up to a wedding. The bride’s sixty years old now."
"We did have to call it off after we heard you were thought to be dead. But now that you’re alive we found a girl for you and this time you’re not running off to get killed."
"Waitaminute," Cid said. "Since when the hell was he gonna get married? He never said nothing about that. Hell, you said Lucrecia was your first love."
"It’s arranged. I never even met the girl. Or this one," Vincent said.
"And exactly who is Lucrecia?" his mother asked.
"You should learn to keep your big mouth shut, Cid," Shera said.
"I should learn to keep my damn door shut," Cid replied.
"Drugs, death, women, what else?" Vincent’s mom said in the same way Shinra interrogates it’s more expendable victims. "Tattoos? Something pierced?"
"Hey, none of that was his fault! ‘Sides, he didn’t even touch the chick…I think," Cid said.
"YOU are not helping," Vincent said, pointing at Cid. He was about to tell Cid he was just going to get him into more trouble, but he already managed to do that to himself in reveling his prosthetic arm.
His mother grabbed it and pulled it back towards her, twisting his arm into a very unnatural and painful position. "And exactly WHAT is this?" she asked.
"A broken clavicle," Vincent answered, falling to his knees.
"This comes off, right?" she asked, violently shaking and pulling on it.
"Only with a bone saw," Vincent answered. "But I think the blood would ruin her dress. And I wouldn’t be able to hold the ring."
"Well, fine. I hope you learned to clean up your act. Just think of what everyone’s going to think of our family with our son having done such horrible things!"
"Yeah, like saving the world. Such a stupid, stupid thing ya did there, Vince," Cid said. "See if you can get me an’ Shera an invitation, will ya?"
"And who just who are you?" His mother asked, finally dropping Vincent’s arm, his entirety landing on the floor, praying for another coffin, this one to land on her.
"I saved his ass and he saved yours."
"I think he means that it’d be a lot more prestigious to use this as an opportunity to invite a few famous people to the wedding. I mean, only an extremely prestigious, well-to-do, family with good connections could manage to get someone from the famous Avalanche to attend a petty family wedding, right?"
"Shera, did you just make sense or am I going fucking nuts?"
"He also says he won’t say anything," she said, keeping her simple, meek tone. Cid would have snapped at her, but he was pretty sure she knew this wasn’t just another excuse to buy shoes. There was a reason he hated her when he blamed her for the rocket, and there was a reason she stuck around. She’d be cute and meek and harmless, and then go off and do the exact opposite. She used it to sneak onto the rocket and he was only thankful for it after the second time. It also kept him on his toes. He needed her around to cook and clean or he’d kill himself with his slobbishness in less than a week. But she be meek and demure and he’d find her exacting her revenge for being mean after it was too late.
"Yeah, gimme a few beers and I’ll be a dam gen’leman," Cid said.
"Well, I guess. If anyone complains, though, tell them you’re the ushers," Vincent’s mom said, and started looking through her purse. She scribbled on a piece of paper and tossed it on the table. "And please, try to look…well…not like yourselves," she said in a way that was more of a threat than a suggestion. "YOU are getting a haircut," she said and grabbed Vincent’s arm and stormed out the door.
"I couldn’t help notice she used a plural in that last sentence and that you didn’t object, Shera," Cid said. "Now I know you’re up to something. You’ve signed me up for girly catalogs, sent my lunch C.O.D. through the mail, switched the signs on the bathrooms in my favorite bar and taped my porno magazine pages together. Before you decided to enact whatever plot you have in mind and no doubt do something at my expense I have one question."
"What’s that?" Shera asked innocently. At least Cid thought it was innocent this time.
"What’s an usher?"