The first time he'd ever heard Genesis' voice it was in passing. He'd been saying something about the cafeteria apple juice to Angeal, and Sephiroth watched them go, thought it was a strange thing to talk about when they were on the brink of war. He was seventeen then, went back to his lonely quarters and prepared some tepid rations. He looked out of the window, and realized for the first time they didn't taste like anything. But it was as good as anything he'd had before, and so he finished, washed his one bowl out.
Genesis hadn't actually seen Sephiroth up close until the second February of the war. He dismissed a lot of the gossip because he knew hyperbole when he heard it; it was as much a part of his language as the Banoran twang he was still actively suppressing, even after a year or so of practice. But when he saw him up close, Genesis was aghast to find that actuality somewhere along the line had found fantasy. His mouth was dry, he must've had some dumb look, and there was nothing fantastic about what his heart was doing, because his heart it...actually fluttered.
The redheaded Lieutenant seemed all of a sudden to be more prominent. Sephiroth thought it was odd, but didn't pay too much attention to things having nothing to with keeping himself and his men alive. From his observations, he could tell that Rhapsodos was at least well spoken, if not a little frivolous. Sephiroth could sometimes hear him laughing in the camp, and he didn't know why it irritated him as much as it did, but mostly he was perplexed. He found he didn't know what to say in the rare times Rhapsodos talked to him directly, in that light curious tenor, smiling even though nothing around them warranted it. Nights he laid on his cot, and thought of things to say.
He laughed. He laughed because Sephiroth had so long been unresponsive and the first thing he ever said back was an obviously premeditated comment about the weather. The General only looked back at him, one silver eyebrow raised. It was funny how he could be made to feel like the fool, when it was Sephiroth who'd just resorted to the tritest of small talk. Genesis raised his head, looked straight into those green eyes.
"Actually, I've always enjoyed the rain."
Sephiroth felt that he was letting himself get distracted. He pulled his hair over his shoulder and leaned across his desk to look into the small, rather dusty book Genesis had brought out from his coat. The Lieutenant had been eager to show it to him though there was nothing special about it that he could see, but Genesis' hands were shaking when he read out the verse. Sephiroth wasn't interested in the print, but thinking about Genesis' friend Angeal, who was sent out two days prior towards the border around Yngen Xte. He had a suspicion that this was that it was about. He pressed his hand over the open pages and Genesis looked up at him, their foreheads almost bumping.
"He is an excellent soldier." Sephiroth said, and Genesis nodded, told him to move his hand.
The day he was promoted, the war was very nearly over. He and Angeal barely celebrated, they were both so tired. They just lied on their cots, talked about home until sleep came around to take them. They dreamt silently on a cold, foggy afternoon, and counted that as part of their celebration. Genesis was too exhausted himself to argue. He promised to buy Angeal some good wine when (if) they made it back. But at oh one hundred hours, his eyes just opened. He turned over on his shoulder, and thought about Sephiroth, who was sleeping some tents away. His thoughts carried him to the opening of Sephiroth's tent, and he supposed it was really presumptuous of him, but,
"You're not the only General around here now." he said, and Sephiroth looked up from his spot on his own cot, could've smiled but maybe it was a trick of the light.
"No, I suppose I'm not." he said, and paused over the papers on his lap. He seemed to consider him for a while before looking back to his papers.
"Did you know?" Genesis asked, forcing his words as he always did to extend their minimal conversation.
"Of course I did." Sephiroth said, looking back at him now. His eyes were two shades of green, one from the lamplight, two from the darkness seeping into the tent.
He went closer, and knelt in front of the General. Sephiroth seemed wary, but didn't move away.
"A pleasant surprise." Genesis said, and Sephiroth looked at him, unsure of whether or not there was a point to be gotten to in all of it. He wondered why Genesis had gotten so close to him.
"What are you doing?" he asked a little sternly, and Genesis shook his head.
"Does it matter?" he asked, and Sephiroth found that old irritation.
"Go then, get some sleep."
"I did that already, I'm wide awake now." Sephiroth heard the insinuation in it, didn't know what to make of it.
"Find someone else to amuse you, if that's what you need." he said and Genesis blinked.
"That's not it. In fact, you're not very amusing at all, Sephiroth." he said. "What I want is..." Genesis had never been short on words before. He dug one of his hands into the dirt of the floor, locked in his fingers and bit the bullet. "What I want, is simply to say your name over and over, without any of the titles that have for too long kept us distanced." Sephiroth stared, wanted to say that their distance had very little to do with rank, but his mouth was covered by a kiss, and it was warm, foreign, wet. His lips trembled when he wiped them with the back of his hand. He stood, jaw set.
"Get out."
His reaction was automatic, and he turned his back, fingers curling. He didn't know why it was, but he didn't want it. Any of it. He was relieved to find that Genesis was gone when he turned around. In his empty tent, he thought of Genesis' closeness again, the slick feeling of their mouths moving together. Together, because of his mindless response, just as automatic as his recoil. He was disgusted at his own lack of control, haunted hours deep into the morning by the heat of his own blood.
The war had been fifteen days from the end on the day they set up in DaChao. Genesis could hear the quiet around the camp from so many soldiers gone, and there was something else. The quiet didn't sound natural at all, and he wondered if he could trust the keen perception lent to him by enhancements, or if wasn't simply paranoid. He hadn't a day of rest before it all nearly came apart. He had never seen so much blood, and what was more never seen so much blood wrought by one man. In the nighttime Genesis waded in a shallow river and thought about Sephiroth, covered in blood. Nightmarish, and grotesquely beautiful in all his power. He thought it might've made an appropriate recruitment poster.
He tried not to think about Sephiroth, the things he wanted more now that he had been denied. Deeper within himself, he knew he had lost what could've been a friend. But anger always felt better than sadness, and so he chose to be angry, stuffed everything else deeper than maybe even the Goddess could see. But there wasn't anything the Goddess couldn't see.
She at least, would know his loss.
Sephiroth went to the showers that night to find them empty. His mind was euphorically blank, and before the stall he calmly picked red brown crust from his hair and armor. He thought of all the dying, the screaming, he leaned his head into the wall and felt as if he were rising up on a particularly wild bird. There didn't seem to be a ground under his feet, just air all around him. He buried his face in his bloodied gloves and breathed, smiled even as he felt the ground returning, a vicious weight deep within his chest. He might've been falling, but all he could hear was the screaming, the sound of Masamune sliding through flesh.
"What have I done?" He said to himself. He felt disgusting, more disgusting than even that night he'd responded in kind to Genesis' advances, surrendered for mere seconds to the breath and lips over his. He had heard Genesis' heartbeat in his kiss, something that struck Sephiroth as a more intimate thing, and he tried to put that aside. He was an animal, thinking impossible things. Genesis couldn't understand it. Sephiroth could see in his eyes the anticipation of pleasure, and there was some part of him desperate to meet it, only with pain. He again was lost for the correct response. He didn't know why he bothered, especially when his ignorance was as clear as he was sure it was. He remembered the afternoon Genesis had laughed at him.
Sephiroth realized that his own heart was thundering in his ears, that he felt some kind of ecstasy edging in on his thoughts and he grit his teeth, looked down to find his hand working violently, jerking almost painfully towards release. Silently, he sagged against the wall, felt the warmth settle between his fingers and stepped into the shower with his armor on.
The morning marking the end of the war, Genesis climbed into the transport and found his seat next to Angeal. He leaned back into the seat and crossed his arms, counted the hours until he would be able to lie in a real bed of his own. He planned out a day of meals, tried to recall a few of Angeal's mother's recipes.
"You should talk to him." Angeal said, and Genesis didn't even look at him. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
"Why on the planet would I do that?" he said quietly, already making up his mind that the answer didn't actually matter.
"Because you can't go on holding grudges, Gen, the war just ended. You can make a few concessions." Angeal said, and Genesis yawned.
"What does it matter anyway?"
"Well, for one, we'll all be working very close together." Angeal said and Genesis looked ahead. That was true. He sighed.
"Later then. I'm tired now." he said and Angeal gave him a look but just went to look out of the window. Genesis closed his eyes again, pretended not to know the exact location of where Sephiroth was standing outside. He blamed it on the enhancements, but couldn't stop his skin from raising when he glanced out of Angeal's window just once, to see Sephiroth standing in the spot he knew he'd be in, looking as if his feet were rooted to the ground. And then-he wasn't certain, maybe he felt him too-but Sephiroth was looking at him, and Genesis thought, beautiful, he thought he could do monstrous things just to have a little bit of that, terrible things just for a taste.
But he didn't want to, looking through the glass, he realized he could never turn such an ugly face on that man. They were both born in blood, newly out of boyhood and it was all too clear as he watched. Clearer when Sephiroth stepped onto the transport and all the Firsts clapped their tired hands, and he suddenly seemed younger than he ever had. He didn't seem to want any of the recognition, he just went over to his own seat alone, a young demon General.
Three hours in when just about everyone had fallen asleep, Genesis woke up. He glanced out of the window to the dark road going by, down the duffel lined aisle and then to Angeal. Bumps in the road made him uneasy, made him think of a million irrational things that could happen before they reached the aircrafts, but he put it all out of his mind swiftly, tried to close his eyes again. Seconds later he opened his eyes again, irritated by the lingering suspicion that he was being watched.
He turned his head and saw Sephiroth watching him from his seat across the aisle, green eyes bright in the dark.
Sephiroth watched as Genesis got up and started moving towards him. He couldn't turn his gaze away fast enough to dissuade the redheaded General or even pretend as if he hadn't been looking, and he clenched his teeth as Genesis settled in next to him. Genesis' gaze was still sleepy, but sharp as a razor's edge.
"Do you need something?" he asked quietly, and Sephiroth frowned.
"I was going to ask you the same."
"Because I felt you watching me, and it's making it rather difficult to sleep." Genesis said, and Sephiroth gave a short, quiet, joyless, laugh. He had to admit that he missed certain things about General Rhapsodos.
"And you thought you would come over here to let me know."
"Yes, just in case you intended on doing that all night."
"I apologize then, I didn't mean to disturb you." Sephiroth said and took a shameful amount of pleasure out of Genesis' temporary lack of words. Genesis blinked in the silence.
"Good." he said, with the intention of going back to his seat. But then Sephiroth turned away to the window and spoke.
"How do you suppose it will be when we return?" he asked and Genesis stilled.
"I think it will be better than these last years at least." he said and Sephiroth turned to look at him again.
"Do you think so?" he said, voice carrying low but still well enough so that Genesis felt it in his skin.
"I...well, of course it will be." He said, holding Sephiroth dark gaze. Sephiroth's face was contorted by shadow for a few moments they passed through a lit tunnel. His hair shone, looked like mercury dripping a slow trail down his shoulder and chest.
"I don't think it will be." he said, crossing his arms. "I think I would have rathered to stay." Genesis was silent, wondered how any of them could want to stay another day in Wutai. That was madness. He didn't say anything of doubt, he could see the conviction in Sephiroth's eyes all to clearly.
"Why would you want that?" he asked quietly. Sephiroth tilted his head away and smiled. Genesis didn't know what to make of it.
"I only wonder what is left me outside of war." Sephiroth looked his hands. "If I have done all that I was made to do, what else is there?" he said, and Genesis thought it was sad, though there was no such emotion of Sephiroth's face. Genesis leaned back into the seat.
"That's a little shortsighted, don't you think?" he said, and Sephiroth frowned. "There is an overabundance of trouble to be gotten into, romance to be found, reading to do, fights to be fought and love to be made to be saying things like that."
"What fights?" Sephiroth said and Genesis scoffed, figures he would have picked that one.
"Not literally. I simply mean that there is a lot to do, and for a long time we have been doing one thing, so there is so much more than we can even think of." He said, but Sephiroth didn't seem any less dour.
"I'm not certain that I want more." Sephiroth said. Genesis raised an eyebrow, rolled his eyes before he closed them.
"Always want more." he said, "Never let yourself become sated, want even more."
Sephiroth thought it was a dangerous rationale. If he was always reaching for more, when would he find satisfaction? When he voiced that, Genesis looked him in the eye. In the moment, he said. Sephiroth thought, in the moment, could he forget for an instant who he was, and what would come after, and take what he desired on an impulse? Could he forget that the city they travelled towards lay open with nothing in it for him? Maybe he could determine what he was made for, maybe there was more than war and death to be had.
Genesis felt Sephiroth's rough kiss as if it were the dream he was already half immersed in. He returned it immediately, opened his eyes to see that Sephiroth hadn't bothered to close his. There was nothing really behind it, just slippery mechanics, but it was enough for Genesis, who smiled with his teeth when a bump in the road tore them apart.
Rocked to the edge of his seat, he saw morning coming through the silver of Sephiroth's hair.
A month into being back in the city was the first time they ever fucked. Genesis was surprised because of Sephiroth's initial reluctance, but he was learning quickly that whatever revulsion he saw on the man's face that one night had very little to do with actual physicality. Sephiroth was familiar with physical things, good at them even. That was fine, Genesis wasn't keen on becoming too attached just yet, there were others he still wanted.
But he liked the way they talked, he liked that he didn't have to worry about accidentally breaking Sephiroth's neck or hips when he pushed him down and pushed into him. They were two of the best soldiers in ShinRa. That was almost as good as coming, knowing that they were the elite, doing things to each other that no one else would be able to duplicate.
The status between them turned him on more than when Sephiroth would go down on him, splay his hand right there on his thigh, and just watch him through the whole thing.
Sephiroth enjoyed it too, enjoyed the way Genesis's face contorted when he came, the noise he made when he was close, and the force of their bodies moving together. But there was something missing. Something he'd had once in warfare that he wasn't getting now, and when he laid back and let Genesis fuck him, some nights he didn't feel anything at all. Some nights, he watched Genesis moving above him and couldn't have cared less. Some nights he let his legs be forced up and wide and, turned his head into to pillow so that he wouldn't have to waste any effort on bad acting. He listened to the slick, hungry sounds they made together and felt like a voyeur.
Maybe he was bored, though it seemed mad to be when Genesis was as beautiful as he was, when they were apparently as compatible as they were.
Months later, Sephiroth saw the new recruitment posters. Though he thought they were ridiculous, it was evidently not the popular opinion. He was famous almost overnight, and it didn't mean anything to him other than board meetings about PR and funds for more of Hojo's pet projects, and he wanted to tell them all that he was a General, and war wasn't appropriate fodder on which to build celebrity. He wanted to break all of their necks and be done with it.
But that wasn't really appropriate either. Genesis' response to his fame was quite a bit more favorable than his own. He thought it was a great thing, and Sephiroth didn't argue with him about it. He liked how easy their relationship was, he liked that Genesis didn't expect anything more of him than he was willing to give. That the depths were fairly shallow, undemanding.
Sephiroth might've been content like that forever. Then one night Genesis was looking at him from his bed, naked, hair tousled. Sephiroth glanced over as he pulled on his pants.
"Why don't you stay?" Genesis said, and Sephiroth looked around for his other glove.
"For what?" he said, locating the glove on the floor near the foot of the bed. Genesis stilled, looked out of the window.
"Because I want to be near you tonight." he said, and Sephiroth combed a hand through his own hair.
"There's work to be done, Genesis." He said, thinking it odd that he would even have to say that.
"It can be done in the morning." he said and Sephiroth turned, stopped just as he'd fastened his belt. He raised an eyebrow.
"Is something the matter?"
"Ramuh, no Sephiroth, go then. If it's so important-"
Genesis looked away, it was a mistake to ask something like that. He wasn't even certain himself why he wanted it, but he did. He'd lie awake some nights, often in the arms of another, feeling as if Sephiroth was slipping away from him. It was funny, all he ever heard about was Sephiroth, everywhere he went. But times he'd look into the man's eyes and feel as if he wasn't present at all, like none of it mattered. Genesis wondered if he mattered. Angeal didn't care that Sephiroth had been deemed the hero, but-
"Goodnight." Sephiroth said before he walked silently out of his bedroom.
-he was a hero too.
He started see someone else. In the large shadow Sephiroth always cast over lovers he took, the boy was entirely mediocre. But the sex was so much better for it. He was pretty too and admired him with large impossibly blue eyes.
He started taking more time with the cadet, pushed Sephiroth out of his head as far as he could. He hoped Sephiroth might be jealous, but as he suspected, the General could've cared less. Genesis didn't know why it hurt as much as it did, he didn't need Sephiroth.
In fact, he was better. He proclaimed it one day in a Junon simulation, and was promptly struck down. Sephiroth was more powerful than he remembered, and when their swords clashed he looked into Sephiroth's eyes and felt his dreams crashing down all around him.
Sephiroth hadn't meant to hurt him, but it was almost as if he had wanted it. He looked to Angeal when Genesis clutched his shoulder and fell to his knee. He thought of the time Genesis had tried to kiss him, he thought that this was reason enough to have turned his back that first night.
He felt irritation with himself and with Genesis for pushing him. Genesis was always pushing him, and he knew deep down that was why he had responded in the first place. He was made to push back, harder and better. His violent push back was always going to be the destination, and he had always known as much. The core of it was something no one needed to be close to.
Sephiroth thought it might be better just to end it.
"Sephiroth, you can't leave."
"We were never actually together Genesis." he said, dressing again on a late night. He thought what he was doing was for the best. Genesis didn't think so. Genesis got up, livid, naked.
"You need me." Genesis bit out, and even to him it tasted like a lie. Sephiroth looked over his shoulder as he secured his harness.
"I don't need anyone." he said coolly. Genesis picked up his coat, and held it to his body so that Sephiroth couldn't put it on. Sephiroth narrowed his eyes.
"Right. Because you're the Demon General of Wutai?" It rang loud and clear to Sephiroth for the first time. He stilled. That was it, wasn't it?
"You're...jealous." Sephiroth couldn't understand it, why anyone would be jealous of him. Genesis seemed the biggest idiot he had ever seen. He clenched his teeth, glanced at the wound on Genesis' shoulder, he apparently refused to go get it the proper attention it needed. Sephiroth wasn't sure why it wasn't already healed in the first place.
Genesis paled. Looked away.
"You don't deserve it. Any of it." he said. And Sephiroth tensed, shocked. He heard a long silence after the words, as if they hadn't been uttered. He felt like he'd been run through, or struck across the face. It was something he had never felt before.
He turned to a more comfortable alternative. Anger.
"But you do." he said, feeling as if he was again a spectator. "What would the world do with a hero so pathetic, so petty and weak?" Sephiroth said, and epiphany after epiphany washed over him like an especially intense orgasm. And it did feel just as good when he stepped in deeper toward Genesis, thinking that he was a fool. He hadn't become attached and yet he had allowed himself to trust Genesis, to feel shock and...something else, when he said ugly things like that.
Genesis was the one to instigate the fight, he remembers that much, but he knows that he is the one who took up the challenge, drew it out until Genesis' neck was in his hand, and he was swallowing a mouthful of blood. He'd forgotten that Genesis was as quick as he was, and a click in his jaw reminded him as he dragged Genesis to his own bedroom, threw him down.
And there it was. He was fully present, Genesis could see the heat in Sephiroth eyes when he pushed him down into the bed, yanked his head back by the hair. Sephiroth had never topped, but he intended to now and the position didn't matter so much as the fear in Genesis' eyes as he struggled beneath him, spat profanities edged with just the slightest bit of panic. Sephiroth had never wanted Genesis more. He laughed.
"Look at you." he said, digging his fingers deep into Genesis' thigh, forcing it up. "Do you feel heroic Genesis?" Genesis was humiliated, determined not to be scared. "I think...that you need me." Sephiroth said as he pushed inside and Genesis screamed, and he wondered if he had ever been taken in such a way. "Don't you." he said, riding harder as the body beneath him tried to push him out. The screaming calmed him down, made him think of cherry blossoms. He thought of Wutai, of his Masamune.
He set a relentless pace and realized sex with Genesis had never felt so good. He could feel and see everything so vibrantly, he needed more. And more, and he would not be sated.
It was only when he came that he realized Genesis had stopped moving. He almost felt sorry for it, but imagined Genesis had only asked for it with his persistence. He felt nothing, and cast cure on his way out only so that Genesis might hear him shut the door.
Some weeks later Genesis went out to dinner with Angeal. Over a plate of cold fish and a glass of cold wine, he looked forward into his friend's eyes and realized he hadn't been listening at all to what he was saying. But he was laughing about something, and Genesis laughed too, just to make it seem as if he'd heard.
"Gen, looks like you've got a grey hair there." Angeal said, but Genesis didn't really hear that either. He drank some more wine, thought he might pay Hollander another visit. He was tired of getting no answers. He was just...tired.
"Ang," he said, tuning in finally to Angeal's voice and the white noise of the restaurant. The world opened wide and intensely loud around him and for a moment, he could see the grey specs in Angeal's eyes. "I think I should leave." he said, and Angeal laughed. He seemed so much happier now that he had that pupil of his.
"Really. But it's so early. And you call me an old man." Angeal said, and Genesis smiled.
Standing on the soldier floor after they'd taxied back to the complex, Angeal hugged him close. It was warm and good and Genesis returned the embrace with no less conviction. Why hadn't he ever wanted this? When Angeal stepped away, his gaze was sharp.
"You were always enough for me," he said, brow furrowed, "never wanted anything more." Angeal said, and Genesis just stared, didn't understand how that could be true.
"Don't be foolish." he said, and he turned away so he didn't have to see Angeal's face, walked off into the long corridor towards his place. But where he ended up was instead Director Lazard's office.
He had never been able to quite figure out the Director, their hungers were the same, but satisfied (or not) with different weapons. He wasn't sure what face he would see when, and thought it was the right face that looked at him now. Still he wasn't sure he wasn't the one being manipulated when Lazard lifted his pale face, and hard, pale eyes, asked him,
"You've had enough time to think it over then?"
Genesis could've ended his life that moment, if he wanted to.
"Yes."
Sephiroth wasn't entirely surprised that Angeal had gone to follow his mad friend. He put so much of it out his mind he was surprised to find how it made his skin raise to hear Zackary Fair denying what should've been clear to anyone in their right mind, parroting his teacher's principles as if he understood anything about it. Sephiroth had put it so far out of his mind he was surprised to find that when he encountered a copy deeper into the forest, his skin prickled with the memory of fingers around him, on his face and in his hair.
He struck it down, and in each vicious cut found he could hear Angeal's laughter, Genesis' hitched breaths and low moans. He didn't stop until it was unrecognizable, he didn't stop until it not only didn't look like Genesis but anything human. He stood over the remains and set them on fire. And then, he realized the solace he usually found in blood wasn't working anymore.
He needed more.
And then, Genesis gave him more. Standing in the reactor, Sephiroth listened to him wax poetic and in the same breath rip away whatever remnants of humanity he may have had left. But he'd known, he'd always known. He looked passed Genesis, to the sealed door of the reactor and felt something pulling from inside his chest. It felt like Genesis' jealous words, like his touches, Angeal's reassurance, all of the things he hadn't been aware he was accostomed to until they were gone. He looked to the door, and felt his vision tunnel in to perfect focus. There were sweet words now, telling him that none of it mattered.
Later when he came to stand at the foot of the stairs leading to the basement, he felt a fleeting bit of empathy for Genesis. He descended the stairs, and spoke to into the dark rising above him. He had made up his mind,
"Neither of us will be the hero."
Author's Note: Was supposed to be a much shorter piece on the ending of a relationship, but then it just grew. But it was fun experimenting with Genesis, and returning to a topic I love to write about: Sephiroth's way down. XD Hope you enjoyed!