"Me? Hello," Vincent asked. Cid had entirely forgotten that Vincent was awake now. The bandage around Vincent’s eye had been removed, as well as a few other smaller ones.
"No, I don’t think he means you," Daren said. "Here, let me help you with your shirt."
"Didn’t you used to be shorter?" Vincent asked Daren.
"What the fuck is this?" Cid asked.
"Oh, he’s just a bit groggy. It happens. The first thing I did when I woke up was rattle off my history homework from two grades ago. All jumbled up. My… father slapped me across the face. I kicked him in the shin and it him. Buggering bastard deserved it. There."
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at the Daren’s stutter.
"Hey, you keep your hands off of him!"
"I didn’t touch him," Vincent said. "I’m hungry. I want French fries. Where’s my wallet?"
"He’ll be fine in about five minutes," Daren said.
"Did someone take my wallet?"
"No, no, here. Nice Mr. Sephiroth will help fill you in," Daren said, gently shoving Vincent and Sephiroth out the door.
"I think I’m late for work," Vincent said.
"Look, you—"
"Mr. Highwind, I’ve been very nice throughout this whole ordeal, but if I get one more death threat, I’m sending you a bill."
"I don’t give a rat’s ass about your bill. You leave Shera alone! You hear me?"
"Mr. Highwind… I don’t think you understand…"
"Bull! I’m not stupid; I know damn well what a fucking diamond ring means."
"You…She lost it?"
"And you’re about to lose some teeth!" Cid yelled, pulling back for a punch.
"I don’t…" Daren said, ducking Cid’s punch. "I… I think it’s up to her—"
"She doesn’t know any better. You’re hiding something. You’re up to something and I don’t like it."
"I… I can’t breathe…" Daren said, as Cid hoisted him off his feet by his tie. Daren quickly undid the knot and took off to the other end of the room.
"Nice try. Get the fuck over here so I can kill ya!"
"Mr. Highwind… this isn’t… any of your business. This… This is between her and me…we’re both consenting adults… we know what we’re doing… we both agreed to this."
Cid’s hand was on Daren’s neck, his other arm pulled back to break Daren’s nose with his fist. Cid stopped. He just blinked at Daren and dropped his arm. Despite his actions, he seemed angrier.
Cid slapped Daren across the face so hard blood trickled out from between Daren’s lips.
"Congratulations. Vincent’s not gonna kill you for acting like Hojo. I am." Cid suddenly dropped Daren when he felt a kneecap collide with his groin.
Daren ran across the room.
Cid spun around, only to have to dodge a large bottle Daren had thrown at him.
"Don’t… you EVER call me that! …Don’t….Don’t you ever compare me to… to… Nicodemus again! I’m nothing like my fath—"
There was a long pause, during which neither of them moved.
"I’m dead, aren’t I?" Daren squeaked.
"What did you just say?" Cid asked.
"Um… nothing…?"
"You have two seconds to talk before I kill you."
Daren suddenly rattled off what seemed like a very long version of his entire life story, condensing the while thing into one long word. Daren took a deep breath.
"I didn’t mean tell me entire goddamn thing in two seconds! Just spit it out, but with spaces and commas and all that shit!"
"…" Daren tried. He cleared his throat and started again. "Bye."
"B—That doesn’t explain shit!"
"You’re a smart man, Mr. Highwind, you figure it out," Daren said, and walked past Cid. "You heard correctly, in case that’s what you’re wondering. Now, I’m going to go upstairs to my bedroom and pack and then see if there’s a city I haven’t been driven out of yet. I wonder if there’s enough of Icicle Inn left to work there."
"THAT’S his first name?" Cid asked, grabbing Daren’s arm.
"Why did think he never used it?" Daren asked, blandly.
"Look, as much as I want you outta my sight and outta my town, you’re two things I need right now."
"What, a punching bag and a scapegoat?"
"A doctor and someone Vincent’s not gonna kill. Now start talking and explain this whole mess or I will kill you after all."
"What’s the point?" Daren asked. "If you kill me it’ll save me the work of having to find another job."
"Fine. Fucking fine. You can stay here. Would you just talk already?"
"I… uh…"
"Not this again."
"Could you please let go of my arm, first? You’re cutting off circulation and… thanks. Now, what did you want to talk about?"
"Oh for—bloodygoddamnfucking…"
"I just don’t see what there is to talk about," Daren shrugged. "It’s not like I liked the cocksucking bastard!"
Cid had the most confused expression Daren had ever seen.
"What?"
"Fucking hell, you must’ve really hated him."
"I hardly met him," Daren said.
"So, then why are you a doctor?"
"My dad… technically my uncle…made me. He was the one who raised me.
"Bloody fucking breaking comdoms…! My father decides to go celebrate getting a promotion and nine months later my mom tracks him down, dumps me in his lap and leaves. So he dumps me on my dad’s porch and pretends nothing happens.
"My dad said the money was in being a doctor and somehow I find myself twenty-two and majoring in medicine."
"So, what’d your ‘dad’ do? Work at a burger joint or something?"
"Oh, no. He was a lawyer. He worked for my father until Shinra hired the TURKS to take care of the sexual harassment cases."
"The what cases?"
"My father seemed to have as much of a grasp on ethics as he did parenting. Someone was leaking that he was molesting patients… experiments… ‘assistants’ whatever you called whoever he had under the knife. Shinra figured it was easier if the witnesses couldn’t talk than hiring someone to cover it up. There was still the occasional person who managed to slip it to the media, but my dad took care of them before it became an actual story."
"Wow. No wonder you want to thank Vince for saving your life," Cid said, making a face as if he’d taken a bite of someone’s dirty underwear.
"Wha—No, nothing like that… If there’s anything good about… Hojo…I’ve called him my father twice as much as I have the entire rest of my life today…he wasn’t incestuous."
"That’s not much of a compliment."
"I collapsed in gym class one day out of the blue. Turned out I had hemophilia, from my mother’s side. Hojo wanted to see if it could be cured with mako and genetic experiments. Didn’t work and I had mako poisoning from it. Not to mention the whole thing cost me a lot of blood in the end. And the beginning. And probably somewhere in the middle. Vincent donated blood for me throughout the whole thing."
"Hojo didn’t like you enough to do it himself or something?"
"Oh no. I mean, I doubt it if he would have in the first place, but that wasn’t the reason. Damn genetics getting around. Everyone else was the wrong type, one way or the other. Even Hojo. The only person who could donate blood to me was Vincent and he even volunteered. I lied, I didn’t need to take a blood test.
"That was why I had to go to Mideel. I couldn’t donate to him or I’d bleed to death."
"So why didn’t you just bust him outta the coffin?"
"I didn’t know he was in there. I didn’t want anything to do with Hojo and it’s not like he’d tell me something like that."
"So when you heard he joined AVALANCHE you started asking if anyone had seen him so you could meet him, right?"
"Well, I waited until there wasn’t a gigantic ball of fire hurtling toward the planet, but essentially, yes."
"Well, I feel like a prick," Cid commented. "Holy crap, no wonder you looked familiar, you know, in that creepy sorta way."
"Oh, don’t think it isn’t a lot of work."
"You look like crap."
"Well, it was either look like crap, or look like Hojo. That’s how I lost my job. Someone found out and the whole town ran me out."
"Damn, am I glad I wound up gay," Cid said.