gold glove [ffvii: ogc, hojo/vincent, pg]
Title: Gold Glove
Author: ellnyx (once was logistika_nyx)
Rating: PG
Word count: ~1200
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII, Hojo/Vincent: Restraints - The price of freedom
Spoilers: Vincent backstory
Warnings: Tentacles. Hojo.
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Solitude and consciousness lay at the core of all human complaint.
Vincent had longed for both solitude and consciousness for so long, he welcomed either with the familiarity of a friend, but to have the two conditions come upon him in unison was rare. Vincent had nearly forgotten why he craved either. Recollection came sluggish, propelled by a cold heartbeat: solitude gave him opportunity to work towards his freedom, and consciousness gave Vincent an especial gift, for he could remember what was at stake, should he fail.
Slowly, with diligence, Vincent worked one hand free of its restraint. The laboratory stayed empty through all his efforts. When the wrist came free, it was blooded and raw, aching with a distant pain that suggested minor dislocation or major strain. It would become an old wound to bother him in years to come, himself grown aged, by the fire while his wife hushed the children and handed him tea; his eldest was a boy, but the youngest would be a girl, she who would never ask the tale behind his propensity to feel pain without injury, but would huddle in his lap and instead offer hugs.
Vincent disregarded the pain. Until Vincent walked free, all he was yet belonged to Hojo, and to that end Vincent would willingly inflict as much pain upon himself as he desired. His ankles and the wide strap about his waist would present no difficulty, for however thick the leather it was only buckled as a belt would be, so Vincent attended first the binding that held his skull to the table, secondly the gag through the centre of which Hojo would feed him. In the process his aching hand discovered the length of his hair, a minor shock that cut through the core of this frenzy for freedom.
How long had he been here?
Vincent could not consider it. He still had time, surely, to save Lucrecia and the unborn child. Vincent could not wonder if the boy was his, but surely the boy was hers, and thus, once born, the child would be theirs. Hojo could not have kept Vincent here longer than a matter of days. Consciousness had been fleeting, hung with strings of sound suspiciously like screaming, but it could not have been for as long as the length of hair suggested. Hojo had flooded Vincent with products the likes of which the Turks used, as fables more than facts, to generate nightmares in their lower ranks: one of those could have resulted in this excessive growth.
But that thought in itself brought to bear the next most significant of issues: the arm through which Hojo had introduced his substances. Vincent performed a contortion to bring his free hand to bear on that one still trapped. Steel encased the entire arm from wrist to shoulder, countless emptied syringes welded into the metal that it resembled an iron maiden, inside and out, each bulb awaiting Hojo's next insertion. Vincent's flesh had seemingly grown accustomed to the invasion of needle-tips: he felt it as a pain so incomprehensible he could disown the entire limb.
Yet Vincent would walk out the laboratory door this day, and behind him, burn it to the ground, and for that he would need all his limbs.
His fingernails were long and clawlike, breaking as he tried to slide the bolts. Some liquid had leaked through the metal seams, rusting the encasement that each bolt released a cry like a tortured child. When Vincent had worked each bolt free he did not yet open the case. Some cold presentiment urged him to withhold. Perhaps he was reluctant for the thought of the syringes, thrust at all angles, the tips of which would surely break off in abused flesh.
Yet Vincent was a Turk, not a lab-born rat with fear of some nameless God.
Vincent clenched his teeth, an expression that could have been mistaken for a madman's grin, and threw open the cage.
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'I do apologise,' Hojo repeated, again, 'but, this latest incident does indeed prove the experiment close to success - if the subject was able to regain consciousness for such a period of time it could do so much damage, well - we are all the closer to final results.
'Well it won't happen again,' Hojo reiterated, 'how could it? I've moved the experiment to a tank now - osmotic introduction of the gene via saturation seems to be working with less rejection than the previous blood-based methods.
'I was doing it through its arm, of course, intravenously, some intra-muscular penetrations, of course, your own method there. It resulted in appalling mutation at the site of the introduction - well, you know Jenova, ahaha, the usual tenticular pseudopodia, some ocular organisms, and some beautiful outcroppings of alien flesh. The experiment did not take too kindly to the mutation of its arm…You've heard the tale of how an animal will chew off a limb to be free of a trap?... not quite with his teeth, but there was rather a lot of broken glass around the lab by the time I arrived, but Jenova treats injury like opportunity to evolve…Vincent was trying with a burner when I found him , can you imagine that?'
'Yes, I am very sorry,' Hojo repeated, quite earnestly, while his eyebrows told the lie; no one could read another's eyebrows through a phone line. 'I'll take better care of him, thank you for the reminder. I'll speak to you soon, love.'
Cradled against his ear for so long, the receiver was faintly sticky. Hojo hung up with an air of bemusement; Lucrecia's illogic always left him so, as though to keep her vagaries calm, Hojo had to derail his own paths of thought and even, think like her.
Vincent had not adapted well to the tank psychologically, regardless of physiological improvement. The tank's soup of mako and Jenova had introduced itself to the self-inflicted wounds on Vincent's mutated arm with a rapidity whole flesh had rejected. Vincent shared that tank with twining tendrils of alien flesh, his inky hair and multi-colored pseudopodia writhing about each other as though rocked on an oceanic tide. The slow motion would have been worthy of poetry, had Hojo those sorts of tendencies.
When Hojo stepped into the laboratory, Vincent sought him out as best he were able from the confines of a tank: his eyes, the press of his palm against the glass. Vincent's lips had been moving in the same pattern for hours, for days, since Hojo had first discovered him trying to eviscerate mutant flesh with any a sharp edge he could find, but despair had at last dulled Vincent's violence (two tanks cracked, too many close calls).
Mutated or no, it was Vincent's own vanity that reached out with a loving multiplicity of Jenova-born limbs to caress Vincent, almost tenderly; coils wound about neck and throat, seeking mouth and ear with the persistence of a lover; Vincent stroked himself, however nightmarish the touch. Vanity demanded Vincent's continued suffering, Hojo assured himself, for had Vincent just borne the mutation with grace, he would have had his opportunity to flee the laboratory long before Hojo had found him.
Cut it off, Vincent continued to beg of his master, silently, lips moving, no air left in his lungs, please cut it off.
It was sight of the mutation that most distressed Vincent, Hojo knew: and the Turk was a simple being, where out of sight was out of mind. Hojo had devised a method that should work to assure Vincent continued psychological improvement to match his physiological increases, while also appeasing Vincent's undeniable vanity. It had taken some argument with the blacksmiths to have them design for permanent welding, without any method of release; almost as long as it had to source a metal that would not react to Jenova's caustic fluids.
Beside the operating table lay a solid gold gauntlet.
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