A/N: I've been inactive for awhile, and got back into the FF fandom after randomly listening to the DoC soundtrack (debates of the quality of the game aside, the soundtrack is really excellent). Anyways, I felt like writing something, so this might be a serialisation or a series of one-shots, I haven't decided yet. It's Vincrecia, the angsty semi one-sided kind, but Hojo will feature too, hopefully as less of the flat villain he was in DoC.

In the Dark of the Manor

Probably everyone who had picked up a gun wondered at one point what it was like to get shot. Vincent was grateful when Hojo took him off guard that he didn't really feel it himself – there was the moment Hojo raised the gun, a cold look in his eyes, the flash of him firing, the odd pause where Vincent knew something was terribly wrong and he couldn't figure out what, then the moment when he was on the floor.

He could just make out Hojo's shoes as his vision faded and the last thought he had wasn't off the pain, but a vague notion about how the floor here was even colder than he though it would be…

Everything in Shinra manor was cold. Everything, maybe everyone too…

He was being moved

head and back hitting something hard and cold beneath him.

A voice

from somewhere

...Hojo's constant grumbling to himself. Something about a mess, and no doubt he'd expect the Turk to clean it up…

The tang of mako, so thick he could almost taste it. He'd never liked how harsh and artificial it was. Something was pinching at his arm and the harsh chemical smell came again. Vincent managed to turn his head, coughing, the hard surface still pressing against his skull. The pinching at his arm stopped momentarily. Awareness started to filter back, first in the twitches of his fingers, and then-

Burning. A burning hollow right in the centre of his body. Something was missing, or something was – there? Buried, needing to be dug out. Instinctively his arm raised, trying to do something, anything, to ease the feeling.

A cold touch on his arm, holding it down with irresistible force. "Stop."

That voice. He knew that voice, but it was too quiet for his muddled mind to place it. He tried to ask what they meant, what was going on, but couldn't seem to get any coherent words out. Another sensation became obvious on top of the burning hollow: he was just burning. Heat hung on his skin, clinging to the back of his neck, his forehead, his suit sticking to him.

His suit. He was still at work.

His work when Hojo had shot him.

Vincent inhaled harshly, the entire situation crashing back down on him with sickening weight. Hojo had shothim. Hojo, the spindly scientist who he'd thought had never so much as lifted a gun in his life. He had been so, so wrong. The situation was never going to work itself out. He'd left Lucrecia to get sick, hurting all alone by herself, and the best he could do was getting himself shot…

He tried to move again, more panicked this time, but again something held him down.

And the voice nearby, harsher this time. "Enough. Don't you know when to stop, Vincent?"

The use of his first name almost threw him off for a second time as he finally placed the voice: Hojo. Usually it was his surname if Hojo addressed him directly at all, rather than his usual trick of saying something vague and expecting Vincent to know he was using his 'underling, do something' voice.

It threw him off enough that it stilled the panic, if only for a second. But he couldn't get his breath back from the pain, couldn't get air to talk well enough from lying on his back, except to gasp, "What - what'd you do…"

"Nothing," Hojo said. "Yet."

Despite the pain dominating everything, something in his tone made Vincent's stomach drop. But he couldn't speak again, in too much pain to say anything else.

He didn't need to, though, because Hojo chuckled suddenly. Vincent managed to force his eyes open just enough to see the scientist looming above him, looking at something glowing in a beaker with a smile on his face, the green glow of mako picking out shadows on his features. His eyes shifted and he noticed Vincent watching, then smiled almost sympathetically.

"You never did get it, did you, Valentine?" He put the beaker down, trading it for a needle...and a small capsule. Vincent watched, confusion turning to dread as Hojo stuck the needle in, drawing it back. "Your 'morality', your...regard for Dr. Crescent…" He chuckled sadly, looking at Vincent with the most skin-crawling look of pity. "None of it mattered. None of it has a place here, in my manor..."

Vincent tried to shake his head, but Hojo's expression suddenly hardened and he grabbed hold of Vincent's jaw, yanking his face to one side. "And I tire of putting up with your delusions." He jabbed the needle into Vincent's neck, injecting all the substance in one go. "Everything in this manor is either under my control, or of my creation. I think it's about time I teach you that you're both."