All Parties Involved

Written for my good friend Aidan.
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“Vincent, please, just think about it!”

“Why? Why do you want this?” I clenched a fist and barely resisted slamming it onto her kitchen table. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me, Lucrecia! What you’d be asking of him!”

“He’s not the way you think he is!” she insisted, leaning over me. Her hands dropped to my shoulders and began to knead at the tension gathering there. “He’s a lot like me. He’s able to give his heart to more than one person. If you’d talk to him for five minutes you’d see that.” She pressed her breasts against my back, and I wanted to turn and make her forget all this craziness.

“You mean, he’s able to give his body to more than one person,” I retorted.

Lucrecia sighed. “So, if he doesn’t have your respect, then I don’t either.” She stepped back, and I acutely missed the warmth of her body. “All right, Vincent. Just forget it.”

I stood and faced her. “Lucrecia, surely you understand how hard it is for a normal man to share the woman he loves? I’m already sharing you, and so is he. What you want from us isn’t…” I trailed off, temporarily losing myself in the green of her eyes. She looked so hurt. I hated hurting her.

“Isn’t ordinary?” she finished for me. “I don’t want ordinary, and I never have. It’s why I married him, and why I took you for a lover. Neither one of you could ever be ordinary.”

I granted she was correct. I’d never been what anyone would call normal, and Hojo just broke the mold on extraordinary. But, why did she always want more? Did I not satisfy her? I made sure she always climaxed, paid more attention to her than any other part of my life.

“I…” I tore my eyes from her to look at the clock. I didn’t know which of them, she or her husband, had decided to get a clock that ran backward, but it seemed to mock me. I wished it really did run backward, and that we were still sitting at this table, freshly fucked and about to have our coffee. “I have to go to work now. You’re off today, right?”

“Yes.” Lucrecia began picking up our dirty coffee cups and carrying them to the sink. “Kanaye insisted I take today for rest. He’s concerned I won’t conceive if I’m stressed.” She started running water, her slim, elegant hands testing the water temperature.

If she could have mentioned anything more distressing in my presence, I didn’t know what it could be.

“You’re both still determined to further this project with your own child?” I asked, having to fight to keep my voice stable. “I don’t understand, Lucrecia. Why is this so important? Why must your own child become an experiment?”

Lucrecia’s eyes lifted to mine, and I knew I’d gone too far. This was an old argument, and we’d already said far too much on this topic.

“I’ll see you after work,” she said, turning her back to me.

I stomped all the way up the hill to the mansion, and let myself in. I let the door slam behind me, and it echoed off every corner of the foyer before the rotting wallpaper and velvet window hangings absorbed the noise. Taking the stairs three at a time, I took the right hand path, the last door at the end of the hall, and let myself descend the crumbling spiral stairs.

I hated this house, hated the smell of it. It reeked of decay, and mold, and strong sterilizers. Every room seemed damp, and that dampness only magnified the odors. When I left the house I always had to bathe and change clothes, but the pong seemed to permanently inhabit my nose.

I had to assist him today, had to make sure nothing happened to him and his precious work.

I entered the lab like a storm, sweeping in and letting this door slam behind me, too. Hojo jumped about a foot as the reverberating ‘clang’ retorted. He swung his head around to look at me, and his eyes took in my appearance neutrally. Still, I saw something in those black orbs, something I’d never noticed before.

He measured me.

“What?” I snapped, putting my back to a slimy wall and crossing my arms.

The smallest of smiles moved his thin lips. “I thought morning pussy made just about every man agreeable,” he commented before turning back to whatever he was doing.

I couldn’t help it; I blushed. He knew. He knew and he wasn’t angry.

Hojo took a tray from a refrigerated containment, and placed it on his work table. I watched him put on a pair of latex gloves. He had hands just like hers, all length and bone and grace. He peeled back some sort of paper to reveal a bluish-green piece of tentacle, and picked up a scalpel. “What was it today?” he asked. “Did she get in a mood because I bought a hearty roast when she wanted Gongagan Blend?”

I blushed harder. “No. I’m not talking about her with you.”

“Suit yourself if you don’t want the camaraderie,” he murmured, neatly bisecting the tentacle. “But, I’m your most likely source for any sort of understanding. I sleep with her too, you know.”

“If I were you,” I blurted out, “I’d want to kill me.” He was unnatural to not care if his wife slept with another man. He had to be as cold as ice in bed. Why Lucrecia thought she wanted to see us together, I didn’t fathom.

“If I were you,” Hojo returned evenly, “I’d worry about what I could do without resorting to murder.” He turned his head just in time to avoid a spurt of blue fluid from hitting his face. “You worry too much. I’d say you have an ulcer by now. How old are you, twenty? Thirty?”

“Twenty-five,” I answered, gritting my teeth afterward. He had the sort of voice to instantly either put you on your guard, or to soothe you, depending upon how much you knew about him.

“So young,” he mused, holding a vial underneath the tentacle to collect more of that blue fluid. “I remember when you entered the Turks. You blasted through your training missions, didn’t you? You’re a fast-rising star, Valentine.”

“I’m just a Turk.” I hated it when he tried to draw me into conversation. I always revealed more than I intended, sometimes merely by NOT answering his nosey questions.

“Right,” Hojo said dryly. “And I’m just a scientist.” He collected another vial full, then put both bottles in the deep freeze. “You have as much control with a firearm as I have with medical instruments. I’ll bet you fuck the same way.” He covered the tentacle and slid it back in the refrigerator, flicking his gloves into the trash. His eyes slid to mine. “Strict heterosexual, aren’t you?”

What was he getting at? “Yes,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice.

Hojo made a tsk-tsk sound. “You’re too young to limit yourself like that. Such rigid thinking will eventually break you.”

I felt my temper rising to dangerous levels. “We can stop the personal discussion at any time, now,” I told him.

“But, you’re so interesting,” Hojo argued softly, shedding his lab coat. “Lucrecia would agree with me, I know. She doesn’t talk about you much, but I suppose that’s because she respects your privacy.”

Unbidden, I got a terrible idea that I wasn’t the first person to borrow his wife. My mouth went dry and I closed my eyes to limit sensory input. “I’m not the first,” I said flatly.

Hojo chuckled. “Yes, you are, actually. She made an exception for you.”

My eyes snapped open. Hojo was standing right in front of me, and I’d not heard him come so close. We were of equal height, nearly the same build, so I looked him eye to eye. His slight smile unnerved me.

“Make her happy,” he cautioned, stepping back a little. “I can’t bear to see her upset.”

There was a threat in that. I heard it plainly.

“I can’t do what she wants me to do,” I said. I hadn’t intended to even go down this road, but felt abandoned to the moment. “She wants me to fuck you, Hojo.”

Hojo’s smile never faltered. “Does she?”

“Yes.” I uncrossed my arms only to cross them again. I felt restless, agitated. “She wants me to fuck you right in front of her.”

He chuckled again. “I’m sorry,” he said after a long moment of hilarity. “It surely isn’t funny to you. I, however, find her wishes most amusing. She does come up with some unusual ideas.”

“Then you understand.” For some reason, I felt better to imagine Hojo was against his wife’s wishes.

“Is the idea of another man’s cock so threatening?” Hojo removed his glasses and wiped them with a pristine handkerchief. “Answer truthfully, please.”

“I…” I felt my blush returning. “No more so than the next man,” I defended.

“I AM the next man, and I don’t find the idea of you fucking me at all repugnant.” Hojo shrugged. “But, I’m bisexual. So is Lu, actually. When I met her, she had a lovely girlfriend.”

I felt like I might faint. Too much information at once! “What… happened to her?” I asked, my mouth dry. Thinking of Lucrecia with another woman actually interested me. Women were so beautiful…

“She went on vacation and got eaten by an Adamantaimai.” Hojo shook his head. “Such a waste. Poor Lu was inconsolable for six months.”

I felt a need to sit down. Almost stumbling, I found a stool and fell onto it. Hojo came up behind me, and it took everything I had not to betray how nervous that made me. I didn’t move, didn’t turn, but I began to sweat.

“Are you certain you don’t have an ulcer?” Hojo asked quietly. I felt his cool, strong fingers press lightly against the pulse point at my neck. “Your heart rate is too high,” he murmured. A meal replacement power bar dropped into my lap. “Eat that.”

Like a machine, I ripped open the foil and obeyed, though I hardly knew why I did it.

“The world you live in must be very pleasant,” Hojo remarked, still behind me, and I heard nothing mocking in his tone. “You have an orderly way of approaching everything, even love. When you get to be my age, you’ll see love is as messy as anything gets.”

I felt like a schoolboy getting a lecture. It was uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Hojo spun the stool I sat on, and leaned over me. Like he had no care for how that made me briefly quit breathing, he started examining my eyes. His thumb applied only the minimal pressure to lift my eyelids out of the way. I smelled something spicy and pleasant, and realized it was his aftershave.

“I’ve never seen anyone else with eyes like yours, except for your father,” Hojo observed. “I met him at a conference once, and was impressed by his intellect.”

“I don’t talk about him,” I said, working hard to get the dry, crumbly bite of power bar down my throat.

“I’ll respect that,” Hojo said easily. “I don’t talk about my father, either.” He stuck a scope in my ear. “When was the last time you had your ears cleaned?” he asked.

“I use swabs.” This was surreal. I’d never been close enough for him to touch me. This could be any medical exam and any doctor.

“Those just shove the wax further in.” He looked in my other ear. “You seem to be one of those fortunate few who make the good, non-clogging sort of ear wax.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t respond. Hojo tugged my arm free of my Turk issue jacket, then the other. Like an animal paralyzed by automobile headlights, I just watched him unbutton my shirt. He tossed that over a chair, then grabbed a tourniquet and strapped it around my bicep. “Arm down,” he commanded absently, unwrapping a lancet.

He drew a vial of blood, and quickly, with little pain. “I should have looked over your medical records before now,” he said in a tone that betrayed how far away his mind was. “I can’t have you giving Lu a disease.”

“I’m not diseased!” I swallowed the rest of the horrible power bar. “If I have something, she gave it to me!”

Oh my god. Was that my voice that just alluded to the fact Lucrecia could be diseased?

Oh my god, I’d just told him his wife was my first sexual partner.

“Mmm,” Hojo said noncommittally, already looking at my blood under a scope. Without that lab coat in the way, I could see the lean angles that made his build so quick-moving. He had broader shoulders than I did, and slightly longer arms. “Yes, you’re a paragon of health, Valentine,” he said, throwing the slide into the biohazard. “How does your stomach feel?”

“Fine.”

“Good, you’ve avoided an ulcer. I’ve yet to see anyone with an ulcer who could eat a boysenberry power bar. I could do further testing, if you like.”

“No,” I said, standing up. “No, that’s fine.” I felt the ridiculous urge to thank him, even though I hadn’t asked for a mini-physical.

He nodded. “Well, I’m taking the rest of the day off for a conference at headquarters. Veld should be here to get me soon, so I suppose you can go.” He picked up his lab coat and slung it over his shoulder. Covering his mouth, he yawned. “Would you kindly inform Lu that I’m taking her reports? She didn’t want to bother with them anyway, and I think she’d rather stay here with you than go back to Shin-Ra HQ.”

“A-all right,” I said.

“Good man.” He strode for the door, pausing just inside the threshold. “By the way, make sure you’re really the proper gentleman and use condoms and spermicidal cream. The Sephiroth Project isn’t set up for you to be the sperm donor.” His black eyes coasted over me just once. “Maybe we can set you up for the next child?”

And with that, he vanished into the dank darkness of the Shinra Mansion.