Learning curves
General Sephiroth was the first person to admit that he had difficulty understanding people and emotions.
That was not to say that he did not have any emotions. That concept was just silly, and he found it rather tiresome that some people did not expect him to have emotions. Of course he had emotions; he was a human being! Emotions were built in.
But this by no means meant that he completely understood emotions, and why people felt and did what they did. Especially the more complex situations and emotions. He would be aware that a situation was complex, but he would often be unable to really explain why, and explain the underlying feelings.
Sephiroth, however, thought of this as ignorance. And he thought that ignorance was a weakness. Therefore, he wanted to stamp it out.
So he was taking lessons. No one knew of course, including his 'teachers'.
His unknowing teachers were his Second in Command, Zackary Fair, and the little blond recruit that Zack had taken a great liking to, and loved to pull around everywhere with him. Zack carried him around everywhere like a pretty doll. Sephiroth believed his name was Cloud. Cloud Strife, was it? Yes, he thought that was the right name.
They turned out to be very good unwitting teachers.
Lesson one: Happiness
Zack was the type of person that was, insofar as Sephiroth could tell, pretty much always happy. The eternal optimist, at least. Always smiling, looking on the bright side, offering encouraging advice. He was very cheerful, and fairly loud, as Sephiroth knew only too well.
But from what Sephiroth could tell, Cloud Strife was really the opposite. He seemed to be a very quiet, shy boy, who was somewhat reluctant to trust.
He was reserved with his smiles, because according to Zack, if too many things went well, Cloud simply thought, 'it's too good to be true, what's the catch?'
And Sephiroth had always got the impression that Cloud was not completely happy.
However, whenever Zack approached the recruit, this always seemed to change. His face did not seem to be able to help lighting up in a smile, and his eyes seemed to become a little brighter.
Zack would grin back at the boy, and would then most likely either ruffle his hair, or give him a big bear hug. Or both. Then their little routine would begin; Zack would tease Cloud about anything that he could get his hands on, and the young cadet would splutter indignantly while being pulled along by Zack, who would invariably be laughing at the younger man's discomfort.
If the boy was particularly tense, Zack would go over to him and gently hug him from behind. His arms would wrap around Cloud's chest, and his thumb would take up a rhythmic stroking of the blonde's hand. And every single time that Sephiroth witnessed this, the boy would, without fail, relax into Zack's embrace. True, sometimes the boy would be a little reluctant, and would sometimes remain stiff and unyielding in the older man's arms.
But after a while of stroking and warmth, the boy's muscles would visibly start to relax until he was completely pliant in Zack's arms.
Sephiroth also found that it was very informative to watch how Zack would cheer up his companion.
Sephiroth did not have a lot of contact with Cloud when Zack was not around, so he did not really witness any private moments, but there had been one instance that stuck in his mind.
The boy had returned from a mission that had gone horribly wrong. The boy and his unit had been sent, along with a two SOLDIER's and a small number of other senior military personnel, to negotiate with a band of rebels. But the negotiations had failed, and the team had been ambushed in the dead of night.
Heavy losses were sustained.
According to Zack, some of Cloud's few friends had been killed that day.
Zack had immediately gone to the infirmary, where all the survivors had been taken, wanting to see Cloud as soon as he possibly could.
Sephiroth had followed, as was his custom; he always checked on his men. He gained satisfaction from the knowledge that his men were safe.
And that was where he had found Cloud; on the verge of hysteria, being held by several doctors who were trying to examine him. But Cloud, it seemed, was not in the right mood for an examination; he was yelling himself hoarse, his limbs flailed wildly, and tears could be seen streaking down his face.
Zack had practically charged at the doctors, telling them in no uncertain terms to get away from the blond cadet.
Cloud looked up at the sound of Zack's voice, and Sephiroth saw that the boy's face was lined with distress.
"Zack!" He had yelled, his voice cracking and his form trembling as he recognised a friendly face amidst the horror.
His second in command had reached the blond, and had wrapped him in tight hug.
The boy leant his face into Zack's chest, and Sephiroth could see his shoulders shaking, and knew that he was still crying, even though he could not hear the sobs.
What Zack did next puzzled Sephiroth slightly. He began stroking Cloud's head soothingly (which was not that unusual), and whispered to Cloud 'It's okay, it's okay,' over and over again.
And those words were what puzzled Sephiroth. The boy was crying. That meant he was sad. And Cloud was Zack's friend. So surely Zack would not want him to be sad. And so it followed logically that Zack should tell Cloud to stop crying, because Zack should not want him to be sad.
But instead, Zack just held on to the boy while the doctor's fussed over him, and told him that it was all okay.
Later, when Zack had finally managed to soothe the boy off to sleep, and Sephiroth had done his rounds of the ward, speaking to the men, he had pulled Zack aside from his place at Cloud's bed.
"Zack, may I ask you a question?" He had spoken softly, not wanting to wake Cloud.
Zack gave him a funny look, and then grinned.
"Well sure! You don't have to ask for permission to ask a question!" The brunette had laughed. "Go right ahead!"
Sephiroth had hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to phrase the question.
"Well, when you were comforting Strife…why were you not telling him to stop crying?"
Zack's face looked blank for a moment, and then graduated on to puzzled.
"Well…why would I tell him to stop crying?" He asked, as if Sephiroth had asked a very strange question.
This frustrated Sephiroth slightly. Zack was the one whose behaviour was strange.
Sephiroth's reasoning was perfectly logical; Zack should not want Strife to be crying, because crying meant that a person was upset. And people did not want their other friends to be upset. At least, that was how he saw it.
"Zack, Strife is your friend, correct?" Zack gave Sephiroth another strange look and nodded.
"And Strife was crying. When someone is crying, they are upset. You should not want your friend to be upset. So why did you fail to tell him to stop crying? To stop being upset."
Zack took a few second to process this, and then promptly began laughing.
"Oh, Seph." He smiled, a little sadly, but with a hint of amusement. "Your logic is perfect. You're right. It does make sense. Somebody you care for is crying, and that means that they are upset. And you're right; I don't want my friends to be upset. But it doesn't quite work like that. You forgot one thing…human's aren't logical."
Sephiroth frowned. Why did it not work like that?
"Then how does it work, Zackary? Explain it to me."
It was an order, but the confusion in the General's voice toned down any intimidation the tone may have held otherwise.
Zack smiled again.
"It works like this; people don't stop being upset just because you tell them to. Hell, some people can't even stop crying when you tell them to. It's not like the battlefield; you don't just bark orders, and then watch as everyone obeys them." Zack explained slowly, gently, as if to a child.
"If you tell people to stop crying, and to stop being upset, they think that you don't approve of them; that you think that they are weak. And so they bottle up all their feelings, and keep them hidden away. But you should know better than anyone that just because something is hidden, it doesn't mean that it is not there."
Zack took a pause for breath, and looked to Sephiroth, to make sure that the man understood so far.
He was hooked on every word.
"So the feelings are still there. But they are just bottled up." Zack continued. "And when feelings are ignored, they just sit there, in that little bottle in the back of your mind, and they just grow worse and worse, because you are ignoring them. It's like a case of mould. The longer you leave it, the more it grows."
"Like the case of mould behind your bathroom sink?" Sephiroth asked curiously.
Zack jumped on the chance of something that Sephiroth would understand.
"Yeah! Exactly like that! The longer I left it, the more it grew. Until it grew so large that it reached the ceiling." Zack looked rather proud, but quickly went back to the subject at hand when he saw Sephiroth cocking an eyebrow at him.
"And so now go back to the image of the bottle. Imagine trying to fit all the mould – all those feelings – into one small bottle. The mould and the feelings will grow, until they are too big to fit into the bottle, and the bottle will break. And that is when you get the mental break downs. Like in Wutai."
Sephiroth's eye twitched momentarily. But then he seemed to catch on to something.
"And so by letting Strife vent his feelings now, you are getting rid of the mould when it first starts to grow, so there will be nothing to force into a bottle, and so the bottle can't break?"
The silver-haired man's tone was cautious, but sounded a lot more confidant than it had a few minutes ago.
Zack, for his part, sighed with relief.
"Yeah, that's exactly right!" He exclaimed, patting Cloud's head absently, looking rather sheepish when the boy gave a sleepy whine of protest.
Sephiroth watched as Zack lifted his hand until the boy quieted again.
"Zack?"
"Yeah?"
"You're right, humans are not logical."
TBC