Worth It

If I find my peace of mind
Torture me
If I seem too serene
Torture me

Torture Me – Metric

(Author's Note: Okay, so…yeah. Confession time. In case no one's clued in, despite some evidence to the fact in a few of my fics, I like tickling. Yup. Why am I confessing this on the internet, you ask? I guess I just wanted to explain why I've written such a ridiculous one-shot. If it offends you, please feel free not to read any further – though I will say this fic contains no swearing and no sexual content. Just Tifa and Jordan and stubborn, stubborn Vincent.)

"So, what do you say, Dad? Doesn't it sound like a great idea?"

His father was frowning – never a good sign. It would take more than words to convince him to forget his fears for one tiny, insignificant week, Jordan was realizing. A lot more. He licked his lips and tried not to let his father's show of reluctance deter him from his objective: a trip for his parents to Cosmo Canyon in celebration of their anniversary. Well, the anniversary of their coming together anyway, since they'd never been officially married.

"C'mon. Don't you think Mom deserves it?"

"It's not about what your mother deserves." Here Jordan witnessed a meaningful glance between his parents, and belatedly recognized how much his father wanted to give her whatever she wanted. "But this is impossible. I have to hunt, and it's dangerous to hunt in a place so populated with tourists. I could seriously harm, or kill, someone."

"But it's summer. It's the off-season for the Canyon. There wouldn't be that many people."

"There would be enough."

"But what if you went outside the Canyon, to an unpopulated area like you do around Kalm?"

His father sighed heavily and shifted his weight on the couch. "I don't know the area well; anything could happen. All it would take is one stray hiker. There's no guarantee I'd be able to stop any of them from going after human blood."

Jordan blew his breath out in frustration. "I think you're overestimating the danger."

"I assure you, I am not."

"What about that day I followed you out, when you were hunting with Chaos? He didn't come after me."

"Because you were upwind. You were very lucky."

"So maybe we could go to the Canyon and scout around for a secluded place upwind from the regular traveling paths…"

But his father was already shaking his head. "No, Jordan. I know you've put a lot of thought into this and I'm sorry to disappoint you; but I can't go."

His stubborn refusal was starting to make Jordan angry. What was wrong with just going to take a look around Cosmo Canyon? Was he afraid it might change his mind? It was time, he decided, to start hitting below the belt. "It's not me you're disappointing, Dad. Mom was really excited by the idea."

Something about the subtle twitch in his father's shoulders told Jordan that, though he wanted to know what his wife was thinking, he was reluctant to look and find out that his son was telling the truth.

His mother, however, appeared less than pleased about her son's tactics. "Vincent, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm not that disappointed. I just thought it would be nice to get back there, to see the Canyon again, but it isn't a big deal."

The pained look on his father's face told Jordan he wasn't buying it. "Tifa, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay. I understand."

Jordan decided it was time to try his case again. "C'mon, Dad. Isn't Mom's happiness worth a little risk?"

His mother was glaring at him now and he knew he'd stepped over the line; but he couldn't really feel too guilty about it. If this worked, he knew she would eventually forgive him, and probably sooner than later.

His father's expression, though, was not the expression of a converted man. In fact, Jordan was starting to think he might've been laying it on a little thick.

"Nothing is worth the risk to someone's life, Jordan."

His father was right, of course. But he and his mother had been talking about this for almost three weeks, and both of them had decided that the risk was reasonable, even manageable. How his father could be so pessimistic…but he supposed that years of living with those creatures inside of him – an uncontrolled factor in any situation – had made him compulsively cautious, even to the point of denying himself small human pleasures such as vacations.

That needed to change.

"Mom?"

His mother glanced at him and, after a moment, gave an aggrieved, apologetic shrug. She was giving up, he realized. She thought there was no hope. Jordan set his jaw and silently promised her the trip to Cosmo Canyon – even if they had to tie his father up and drag him there.

"What do you think? Time for plan 'B'?"

She frowned for a second in confusion before her expression changed to one of amused incredulity. They had briefly discussed what they would do if Vincent said no – an eventuality neither of them had really expected. And, after a few unrealistically violent suggestions, his mother had recommended they simply hold his father down and tickle him until he said yes. Hence, plan 'B'. Sort of.

"I don't know, Jordan…"

"How much do you want this trip, Mom?"

He saw the resolve in her eyes grow as she presumably recalled the photos Jordan had shown her on the computer. It made him wonder if he'd ever before considered what his mother, a long-time student of the martial arts, was truly capable of when prodded into action.

Seconds later, he was being given a first-hand demonstration as she unexpectedly pushed his father forward onto his hands and knees on the floor with a thump. Jordan barely had time to share a stunned glance with him before she was pulling him back against her, kicking his legs out in front of him with a move of her socked feet almost too fast to see, and shoving his elbows up so that her own arms were pinioning his hands – one flesh, one metal – securely in place behind his head. It was a moment before he even tried to struggle – too shocked, Jordan expected, to immediately process what had happened.

Struggle though he might, however, Jordan quickly realized that he wasn't going anywhere. He, apparently, had also misjudged the well-honed aggression of his wife's past.

"What are you doing?" he asked, and it was to his credit, Jordan thought, that he didn't sound the least bit threatened. "Are you planning to beat me into acquiescence?"

Jordan couldn't help a faint smirk. "Not exactly. Can you move?"

His father spent another few seconds trying to break his wife's hold on him before recognizing the futility of his actions. "What is this?" he asked again, and this time there was a certain quality to his voice that told Jordan he wasn't quite as sure of the situation as he wanted them to believe.

"Oh, you'll see."

He was nearly grinning, he realized as he glanced at his mother before seating himself on his father's legs, half way up his thighs. Even Tifa, he noticed, wasn't immune to the surreal hilarity of what they were about to do. His father rarely laughed, and even when he did it was hardly more than a huff of breath; so the idea of making him writhe around in a ticklish frenzy was a strangely satisfying one.

No doubt he would pay for this later; but, for now, it was necessary – for his mother, for Cosmo Canyon, he began to dig his fingertips into his father's unprotected ribs.

Vincent stiffened immediately and Jordan felt the muscles in the legs beneath him start to roil in discomfort. He dared a glimpse into his father's face and was not disappointed. His expression was locked into a pained grimace that, considering his usual unaffected façade, spoke volumes about what he was feeling.

"This…is plan 'B'? To tickle me until…I consent?' His arms trembled under the strain of pulling against Tifa's hold, his breath hitching irregularly through his teeth as he fought the natural impulse to laugh.

Jordan chuckled. It did sound pretty ridiculous. "Well, we had some other ideas, like clonking you on the head and throwing you into the trunk of a car. But we decided that was cruel and unusual. This, at least, is just unusual."

"You may have to get a little more up close and personal with those ribs," his mother observed quietly, a tremor of laughter in her voice.

Jordan stopped tickling his father long enough to unbutton his black, long-sleeved shirt.

"I won't be coerced," Vincent insisted, though his eyes followed each button as it came free of its hole.

Jordan smiled, not believing him for a second. If he was even half as ticklish as he seemed, he wouldn't last two minutes. "If you say so."

His father was thin, but not without definition. His abdominals didn't ripple so much as flow into each other – a vista of long, corded muscles Jordan had probably only seen half a dozen times since he was a boy. He glanced into his father's face and instantly recognized the cool challenge there; it made him check himself momentarily. This was the famously indestructible Vincent Valentine. Did he really think he was going to tickle him into submission?

But then he began to think: what if the display of unshakable composure was no more than that – a display? The notion made him feel a sudden rush of power. With an insolent grin he could hardly contain, he darted a hand forward toward his father's defenseless ribs without actually making contact, wanting to test his theory.

His father visibly quivered as his muscles convulsed, instinctively working to avoid the tickling touch that didn't come. He even winced in anticipation.

Jordan's grin widened, enlightened. "Two for flinching," he announced, and viciously dug in with both hands.

His father's answering shout of surprised laughter was almost a shock; Jordan belatedly realized he had sort of expected him to somehow reign in his reaction. The triumph of having successfully generated a response, however, urged Jordan further, until he was ruthlessly exploring his father's unprotected sides, chest and stomach, determined to search out his most sensitive spots.

Within moments, his father was practically thrashing against his wife's unrelenting hold, his head alternately curling in toward his chest and falling back as he clenched his teeth, grunting and laughing as Jordan's fingers skimmed over particularly susceptible places again and again.

Jordan couldn't help laughing himself; his father wasn't just ticklish – he was excruciatingly ticklish. He decided this was probably as good a time as any to remind him why he was in this situation. "What do you think, Dad? Reconsidering anything?"

"I…can't…"

"Sure you can."

"The risk…"

"We'll deal with it. We'll go up and look around. If you decide the risk is still too great after that, then I…" He hated even considering backing down, especially now; but if he was going to get his father to agree to anything, he knew he was going to have to give a little ground. "I won't bring it up again."

"It would ju-hust…raise hopes…"

"Then raise our hopes. We can handle it. Please, just one look around…"

"It w…won't cha-hange…any…thing…"

He wasn't going to budge. Jordan scowled and released his frustration across the hypersensitive abdomen in front of him, interchanging wriggling fingertips with feathery touches until his father was practically hyperventilating. Then, without warning, he switched his attention back to his father's heaving sides.

Vincent gave a hoarse cry at the unexpected change in tactics, as ten malicious fingers renewed the assault to his ribs with terrible intent. The small victory made Jordan grin. This wasn't over yet.

"Under his arms." His mother was practically puffing. Though her gleaming smile said she wasn't nearly ready to give up. "He hates that."

The new avenue gave Jordan additional hope. With inspired swiftness, he plunged his hands upward, under the edges of his father's unbuttoned shirt, and began to brutally punish the vulnerable armpits within.

His father arched suddenly in a futile attempt to escape the torment of his son's touch, his bellow of agonized laughter a testament to exactly how much he hated it. Privately delighted by the tortured peals of laughter he was eliciting, Jordan mercilessly searched out new and even more susceptible places to besiege.

"You sure you don't want to change your answer, Dad?"

His father tried to speak a couple of times before Jordan realized he was going to have to ease off for a minute if he wanted to hear what he had to say. And once he had, it took his father a few seconds to catch his breath enough to say anything.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to change my mind."

It was at that moment Jordan noticed, to his chagrin, that although his father appeared winded and disheveled, he remained immovably resolved.

"Your mother's arms are going to cramp up long before I give in."

A quick glance at his mother made him ruefully recognize the truth of his father's words. Pinning her husband while he struggled was visibly tiring her.

But his mother was quick to flash him a reassuring smile. "Oh, Vincent, I don't think you realize exactly how much I want to go to the Canyon. I'm willing to overexert a muscle or two for the cause."

His father appeared unconcerned by how far Tifa was willing to go. Jordan decided another change in tactics was in order.

"Well, Dad; I guess you've asked for this."

He didn't know how ticklish the soles of his father's feet might be; he only knew his own feet were extremely sensitive. And though this wasn't a trait he could've inherited from Vincent, since he wasn't his biological son, he hoped ticklish feet were something that had also run in the Valentine family.

Quickly, he swiveled around until he was sitting astride his father's hard, unyielding shins and, with a restraining hand to each ankle, one after the other, he removed his father's socks. Then, ignoring the impulse to glance over his shoulder, he began to run scrabbling fingertips over his father's exposed soles.

At first, there was no reaction – no laughter, no squirming, no anything. Jordan started to suspect after a second that his father's feet simply weren't ticklish. As another second passed, he was almost ready to give up…

Until his mother spoke. "Jordan, I think we've got him."

Now he did look behind him, and was encouraged by what he saw. Maybe he wasn't laughing, and maybe he wasn't squirming, but he was tensed up tighter than a coiled spring, head thrown back, the muscles in his neck straining as he fought not to…

Not to…

An instant later, his father exploded into motion, helplessly bucking against the restraining weight on his legs as he sputtered through his teeth. In the next moment, he'd broken into a round of terrible, tortured laughter.

Oh yes, he though. His father's feet were marvelously ticklish.

Jordan could almost taste the approaching victory. "You sure you don't want to go up to Cosmo Canyon for a day and look around?"

His father didn't – or couldn't – reply. Jordan figured it wouldn't be much longer. Soon, he would be willing to do or say just about anything to get them to stop.

But as the first minute passed, his father didn't even attempt to call a halt, and Jordan began to realize what he'd been trying to tell them. He had suffered so many terrible things in the course of his life; he'd been experimented on, locked away in a coffin, shot and slashed and stitched up. In fact, compared with the transformations he weathered several times a month, a few minutes of tickling was probably nothing – less than nothing. He had known from the beginning that he would endure.

They had lost, Jordan finally understood. He sighed and stopped his assault. His father, he noticed, sagged behind him in relief.

"All right, Dad; you win. I give up." He pushed himself off of his father's legs and sat on the floor, feeling dejected and foolish. "I'm sorry we tried to force you. I was just trying to do something nice for you and Mom. I thought…" It embarrassed him to realize how close to tears he felt. Resolutely he blinked the urge away, not wanting to be caught crying. "I thought you would like it."

His mother had moved to sit beside his father as he quietly panted for breath. Jordan glanced up in time to catch the look they were sharing – his mother silently pleading, his father wearily refusing.

Then his mother sighed. "Jordan…"

"It's okay, Mom. You don't have to explain."

"The backs of his thighs. Be ruthless."

It seemed to take he and his father the same amount of time to process what his mother had said, and then they were both staring at her in surprise. No more than a second after that, Jordan was gaping as his mother lay his father flat out on his stomach on the carpet until he was pinioned again in what Jordan guessed was some kind of martial arts move – his arms were twisted up behind him while she sat on the nape of his neck.

"Tifa, you promised you wouldn't…" his father was protesting.

"I promised I would never tickle you there. I never promised Jordan wouldn't."

"That's just semantics. You're still breaking your promise."

"Well, it's for a good cause. Go ahead, Jordan. Get him."

His father was suddenly struggling for all he was worth, grunting and straining against his wife's hold until it was more than obvious there was no way out – not before she chose to release him.

Jordan couldn't help grinning. Oh, this was going to be fun.

"Any last words, Dad?"

"It isn't worth the risk, Jordan."

"You might change your mind if we go there."

"Nothing is going to change my mind."

Oh, really? Jordan slid into position across the backs of his father's knees and, with an audible crack of his fingers, mostly to make his father cringe, started his terrible work.

Vincent's response was instantaneous – with something that was nearly a scream of tortured despair, he began to fight in earnest against the immobilizing weight of his son and his wife. And then he began to laugh, a wildly unwilling sound that had Jordan practically wincing in sympathetic distress.

Though he still had to chuckle. He'd hardly started. His father was going to be very sorry in a minute.

"Nothing will change your mind? Are you sure?"

His father's writhing had all but turned into convulsions as his paroxysms of howling laughter continued.

Jordan couldn't help staring in surprise. "Wow. You'd almost think we were skewering him."

"I think he'd actually prefer the skewering," his mother observed.

He thought she was probably right. He appeared to be in ticklish hell. "Should I give him a chance to give up, do you think?"

"I don't know. He said that nothing would change his mind. Another ten minutes might convince him."

"…agh…s-stop…"

"Did he just say 'stop'?"

"I don't know. It was kind of garbled."

"…plea...se…"

"That almost sounded like a 'please'."

"It couldn't have been. You know how stubborn your father is. He certainly wouldn't reduce himself to begging."

"…Ti…fa…"

His mother laughed suddenly. "All right, I guess that's enough. I think we might be killing him."

Jordan obediently withdrew his hands. His father almost seemed to liquefy into the floor. Seconds later, however, he was struggling again.

"Let me up."

"Why?" Jordan smirked. "Afraid we're going to start agai…"

"Don't! Please – don't!"

The desperation in his father's voice startled Jordan. He'd never heard him sound quite so frantic before.

"Vincent, we're not letting you up until you've promised to go to Cosmo Canyon, if only to look around. So you might as well get it over with. Unless you're feeling ready for round two?"

On cue, Jordan returned his fingers to the backs of his father's thighs, ready to start wiggling at any answer different than the one they wanted to hear.

His father fidgeted uncomfortably at the touch. Finally, he gave a heavy sigh. "All right; fine. I will go to look around, but that's all I'm promising. If I can't be sure it will be safe enough to hunt there, I can't agree to vacation there."

"What do you think, Jordan? Do we accept?"

Jordan was tempted for a split-second to say no – to start tickling his father once more just to hear him laugh and watch him squirm, because he would probably never get the chance again. But that would be cruel and unusual, not to mention pointless. He had his victory. It was time to revel in it.

"We accept. As long as I can go with you."

His father gave another sigh. "I suppose I have no choice."

Jordan smiled. "No, you don't." And he got to his feet.

Three days later, he was accompanying his father to the Canyon. When they reached the area around the scholars' city, he dismounted his own chocobo beside his father's and wandered after him into the surrounding trees.

It was perfect, Jordan thought; it looked just like Kalm. His father, however, remained skeptical.

Until they actually entered the town and tripped across its magnificent weapons shop. After that, he seemed to warm up to the place. He spent nearly half an hour inspecting rifles, and eventually spotted one nearly as long as he was, oddly named the Death Penalty. In fact, he couldn't seem to stop staring at it.

"Do you think," he finally asked, "your mother would be upset if I brought this home with us?"

Jordan rolled his eyes. "Dad…" And then he couldn't help a smile. "It isn't worth the risk."