And Sephiroth is from Venus.
Disclaimer: The ownership thing again? I wished I owned Sephiroth, Final Fantasy or Cloud in general, I even clicked my heels together three times, and wouldn't you know it, so far no luck in that field. I could really go for some Wutaian take-out right now.
Warnings: Gender swap in the beginning. Before we continue I thought I should clear something up. Sephiroth is physically a girl, but mentally he refers to himself as a man. And no matter how I looked at it, Cloud was still an uke, because at this point in the game, Cloud couldn't dominate over a puppy really.
To 7thcircleofhell, hope you like it!
Being the mighty General of the ShinRa army was a perilous job; one never really knew what challenges would crop up at a moment's notice. Life was something precious and not a single second of time was taken for granted. In his short but extremely eventful career, Sephiroth had knocked at Death's door many times: Gunfights, swordfights, fallen off a cliff, nearly been eaten by a hungry Behemoth, almost been crushed by a stack of paperwork and fired at by Zack when he was learning how to use the new Fire Materia (he had really liked that leather jacket too). But he had never even once imagined that he would meet his end by lace of all things. Because really, death by lace? You couldn't even put that up on a tombstone.
Sephiroth had always thought he would have a more heroic end, or live to a ripe old age, marry Cloud and start a farm or something. Sure, there were a few incidents that would never be mentioned again, Zack's Gongagan chili that had burnt a hole in his floor and Genesis' "Loveless Attack" phase, but honestly, death by lace?
Never even for a second had he pictured the scenario he was in. As the damnable contraption from hell squeezed the last vestiges of air from his lungs, his eyes watered and his chest and shoulders burned. He was sure that his vision was beginning to blur and he could see the light at the end of the tunnel steadily growing brighter.
Idly, he wondered what he could have possibly done to deserve such a fate. He was a fantastic General, efficient and ruthless, and had always been a wonderful, obedient child.
Alright, so maybe that was a load of Chocobo droppings. In all honesty he had been a terrible child, loving to irritate the lab assistants and at least five of them now had their own wards in the local ShinRa mental therapy facility. But still… he was traumatized himself, look at the sorry excuse of carbon he had for a father figure! Daddy Dearest wasn't really the personification of love and good cheer now was he?
Getting back to the task at hand, he fumbled with the clasp of the accursed article, wincing as it snapped back as if in retaliation, stinging the delicate pale skin in its path. The thing was trying to kill him, he knew it…
Before his hallucinations went any further, a slender pair of hands confidently unhooked the clasp before helping him to slip it off his shoulders. "Hmm... perhaps a size larger?" Sephiroth did his best to fix the abnormally cheerful salesgirl with a death glare, but its effect was somewhat reduced since his eyes were tearing up too much for him to glare properly (He was in pain, most definitely not crying). Instead he summoned up the last few shreds of his dignity and managed to rasp out, "Definitely at least two sizes bigger."
The girl bounced in and out of the room within a matter of a few seconds (yes bounced, she seemed to come with only setting, and Sephiroth was starting to suspect that she and Zack were related to one another). With her help, he tried on the garment and hesitantly looked at the mirror in front of him. Uneasy green eyes stared back at him, unhappily noting what they saw, glancing over the pale skinned, tall lithe figure that stood besides the smiling shop girl. A very female body in a lacy brassiere…
He didn't know what was more embarrassing, Zack holding doors open for him, pulling chairs out for him to sit or carrying all the bags including the lingerie ones(although that might just have been because he was a pervert).
He only knocked off the ridiculous antics (chivalry he had the audacity to call it), when Sephiroth told him he'd soon be using Masamune to cut off a few essential parts here and there, a little weed-whacking he called it. Zack stopped short when he noticed that Sephiroth had that gleam in his eye. It was the same gleam that had appeared right before they had conquered Wutai and crushed the Emperor's regime. Sephiroth had almost jovially told the man, "Take that and put in a fortune cookie then."
He quietly scampered off to get their lunch, which soon ended up being worse for the silver-haired woman. An obnoxious brown haired man plonked himself in Zack's seat only seconds after the man disappeared, before winking at Sephiroth, "Hey there hon. Are you alright?" Sephiroth blinked, wondering what the hell was wrong with the man. "Because Heaven's a long way from here, the fall must have hurt." Oh sweet Ifrit…
The man left quickly getting the hint he had no luck, but there were other morons who decided to try their luck:
There was this horribly geeky looking black haired man: "You make my hardware turn into software. Wanna come see my hard drive?"
Then there was a weird, spaced out blond, who came up with, "Hey babe, I'm a wrestler, why don't you let me take you down?" Huh? He wondered if that was actually a pick-up line or a threat.
But the last straw was when this freak of nature looked him in the eyes and said, "Your eyes are blue, like the ocean. And baby, I'm lost at sea." "Er…my eyes are green."
"Sorry sweetheart, your amazing sexiness must have scrambled my circuits. So how about it? Your place or mine." "How about none? Why don't you take a hike?" "Oh come on sugar, my lips are skittles, wanna taste the rainbow?" Oh that was it!
When Zack returned, he was horrified to see Sephiroth at the table, sitting with his legs crossed, sipping what appeared to be a cup of tea, while above him, a terrified looking man dangled from the ceiling fan.
"Erm, Seph…what..." "The man said he was a rainbow, I thought I'd let be up where he belonged."
Zack wondered if he wanted to know how Sephiroth had gotten the man up on the fan in the first place.
The rest of the meal was spent in companionable silence on a park bench (well, more or less, being kicked out of a mall tends to put a damper on things), until Zack cocked his head up and uncharacteristically serious, asked, "What in Shiva's name happened Seph?"
The silver haired General in question cringed and muttered, "I'd…I'd rather not discuss that right now. It's not really a suitable item for a mealtime discussion." "I'm your best friend Seph! I gave you an entire week, but now I'm serious. What happened? I've been worried sick about you!"
Sephiroth sighed, looked at some birds and a few squirrels, stalling for time, before replying, "I can sum this whole thing up for you in one word if you want: Hojo."
* One week earlier*
"I beg your pardon, you want to what?" Hojo gave the more than slightly disgruntled male a withering look. "I wasn't aware that your hearing was quite so poor my boy. I said I wanted to add some estrogen to your mako dosages. It's simple really; I don't understand where this confusion sprouted from."
"I apologize doctor but I just don't follow. How will turning me into a modern day Victor-Victoria help me?"
Hojo gripped the needle so hard that the glass it cracked, "I do not approve of this show of dramatics. I knew I shouldn't have let you socialize with Hollander's boys; he just had to make sure they were educated in the fine arts. In order to give you an upper hand on the battlefield I merely feel that is necessary to magnify your perception scope and to some extent, your emotional range. Now studies have shown that comparatively speaking, women are more apt in these areas then men, and the causative agent is the sex hormone, estrogen. By halving the amount produced naturally in the female body, I should be able to produce the desired result without the ridiculous mood swings and dependency that females tend to exhibit."
"You should be able to produce?"
"Well, admittedly, this idea is still in its prototype stage… but there was a test subject. Bruno fared quite well in the tests." "Bruno, as in your pet rat, that Bruno?"
"I will have you know, Bruno is a pure-bred mouse," Hojo replied testily, hovering threateningly above Sephiroth. How the man managed to look even the least bit menacing in pink scrubs was beyond him. "I am sure that your education was at least sufficient to inform you that 9/10th of the genome of a mouse is similar to that of a human. Now then, since that's all settled, we'll be starting your treatment as of today." If Sephiroth had been a lesser man, he would have stuck his tongue out at the greasy haired scientist.
*That evening*
"Are you sure you don't want to see the resident doctor?" Sephiroth smiled warmly at his anxious blond boyfriend and gently tugged him back down, guiding his plush rosy lips into a tender kiss. He ignored the flare of pain that raced up his chest, deepening the kiss and was content when Cloud let out a soft mewl. He pulled back and rested his forehead against Cloud's. "I'm sure love. Look, it's probably just a side-effect of the new components in my mako shots. If it doesn't go away by tomorrow, I'll go see Hojo about it." He added reassuringly, "I promise", when he noted the wide blue eyes still were worried, and he pecked Cloud again on the lips to keep him from biting his lip. Finally the cadet nodded, "Alright", yawned sleepily, before adding, "Love you", before snuggling into the man. Sephiroth rested his chin on the silky blond hair, wrapping his arms around him, content to protect him from the evils of the world for at least one more night, before succumbing to sleep himself.
*Back to the present*
"And when I woke up, I was a woman." Zack looked horrified, "Dude…Seriously, are you sure I can't go through with my plan to drop Hojo into a mako reactor? Because honestly man…"
"Zackary, close your mouth would you? You'll catch flies that way. Anyway, Hojo's working on an antidote right now. We'll just have to wait. Hopefully, these changes will not be permanent. They are rather inconvenient." "Yeah, they do kinda ruin the whole I'm-the-evil-spooky-General-fear-me thing, don't they? Now you're just kind of hot, in an intimidating way, which is only hotter. On that note, how's Cloud taking it?"
Sephiroth looked uncomfortable at the direction the conversation had taken and refused to meet his Lieutenant's eyes. "Whoa, Seph…you did tell him right? He deserves to hear it from you."
"I told him Zackary. After all, he was there the morning that my…shall we call it a transition, occurred. However, I'm afraid I do not know how he is handling the situation because, as I'm embarrassed to admit, at this juncture, the hormones took control and I dashed out of the room before he could respond. I haven't seen him since."
"You've been avoiding him? Seph..."
"No, Zack don't. It puts the boy in an incredibly uncomfortable position and I simply would not be able to deal with his rejection at this point of time."
"You love him don't you?" "Of course I do! That's a preposterous question; I would do anything for him."
"I dunno Seph, I gotta say, I'm disappointed in you." Sephiroth jerked his head up, surprise clearly written across his face. "Do you really have so little faith in Cloud? He loves you, I know he does. Just hear what he has to say. I'm pretty sure that he'll be beating himself up, thinking that you dumped him. Because you and I know, that's how Chocobo-head works. Stop looking guilty, because maybe you can't fix all of this, you can't turn back into a guy overnight and make all your problems vanish, but you can talk to Cloud and have him beside you every step of the way. So what'll it be?"
Sephiroth let a small smile slip onto his face, "I'll admit Zack, that I'm suitably impressed. You actually come out with rather knowledgeable propositions. Angeal must be quite proud." Zack beamed, "Aw, thanks Seph. It's my natural level of awesomeness combined with old novels I've been borrowing with Aerith. They're just so addictive."
Sephiroth let his head slam into the table-top, hard.
*One week later*
It had been an exhausting week. While it was true that the large majority of the corporation was not aware of his condition, there were other factors that worked to make his life hell, things that he had taken for granted when he was a man.
He had developed a new, crippling fear of wax and discovered the intricacies of perfumes. In the last week, at least a quarter of each day had been utilized for the coordination of his outfit (his standard uniform was a little too revealing in the chest area) and brushing his long hair. Soon, he would be tying ribbons in his hairs and frolicking among the buttercups with the cheerful woodland critters.
Ah, there were his hormones; they had been a train wreck from start to finish. He had burst into tears when Reno had cracked an off colour joke and had been inconsolable until Rude had run out and bought him a giant bar of chocolate. Then there were the two paperweights and a letter opener he had chucked at a cadet who had irritated him (his hair was silver, why could these simple-minded cretins not comprehend the difference between silver and grey?). Finally to his eternal humiliation, he had cooed over a baby Chocobo in the stables, effectively scaring the living daylights out of Tseng.
Fortunately enough, the Turks were aware of the volatile situation and had actually diverted attention away from several potentially awkward situations. Sephiroth found he had a new level respect for all womankind who dealt with this on a daily basis, and did so with an unparalleled level of finesse.
It was past eleven in the night and the sun had long since set. The cool, crisp night air filled the office. Everything was almost eerily still, most of the cadets and SOLDIERs having turned in for the night. Sephiroth still had a small pile of paperwork left to complete before he could head home for the night. But he planned to stop by the cadets' barracks first in the hopes he would meet Cloud. He missed his blond lover much more than he imagined was possible. Rubbing his temples wearily, he glanced up the clock and promptly let out a startled squeak when a steaming mug of coffee slid towards him. "Sorry, I didn't want to disturb you but I thought you could do with the caffeine, you know, with all the crap that's been happening."
Sephiroth gratefully accepted the coffee, and sipped the warm liquid, letting out a quiet moan of delight. Cloud sat on his desk swinging his legs back and forth idly when Sephiroth broke the silence, "We need to talk about this, don't we?" Cloud looked at his reflection in the glass pensively before replying, "Yeah, we do."
Sephiroth leaned back in his chair, sighed and said, "I don't know where to begin Cloud. And I can only begin to apologize for the situation that this must have put you in. I'm sure that you wouldn't want to be bothered by this nonsense so... Mmph!" Cloud slid onto his lap and slammed their lips together effectively shutting him up. He emerged after a minute or so, flushed and panting. "Don't be stupid! Why would I want to leave you? I love you! So what if you're a girl now, you're still you and that's not ever going to change. Sure, it'll be a little difficult but we'll work around it, and besides, there's no way in Hades' I'm letting you go through something like this alone." Sephiroth was horrified to find that at the end of Cloud's speech, he had tears in his eyes and was even more distraught when they leaked out.
Cloud smiled softly and wiped away the droplets with his thumbs. "It's going to be alright Seph, I know it is. We'll just have to rough it out a bit, but that'll be fine, we're good at that anyway."
Sephiroth wrapped his arms around the blond's waist holding him close. He was pleased to note that even in this form, Cloud fit perfectly in his lap. "I love you," he whispered against the familiar downy mass of spun gold. "Love you too," murmured Cloud, now sleepy after the long day. "Hey Seph, you have to promise me something ok?" "Hmm, what is it?"
"You can't wear heels, 'cause you know, you're already like a head taller than me."
A/N: That's it for the first chapter. Hope everyone liked it! Please do take the time to review, and if you have any ideas or suggestions for the future, tell me. Kudos to anyone who catches the semi-reference to Gilbert from Hetalia.