Summary: Think about it. What was Seph like prior to Nibelheim? Did he ever have sick days, hangovers, telemarketers that would not leave him alone? Well, you can bet your ugly f-king boots he did! And so this fic, which will eventually become a series of oneshots/drabbles, has come into being. Proof that Sephiroth is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, as human as you and I!

Disclaimer: Lemme check real quick. Hmmm... Nope. I still don't own Final Fantasy VII or Sephiroth. He visits me from time to time, but I don't own him. Truth be told, I don't think Square Enix really does either. They just say they do

Queen's Quornor: I had a request to put something in that related to blood or scars from zoomboom. So, just for you, I put this in. And there will be a bloody one following posthaste. Yeah, I'll do requests if you all give them to me! Just normal, everyday stuff, like a visit to the dentist or getting sick or something. Nothing too wild and crazy. As for this chapter, all I can say is post-traumatic stress disorder. Watching AC, I always can't help but wonder "What happened to his other wing?" Here is my theory.

Scars

Sephiroth pushed open his bedroom door with a heavy sigh, more than ready to shower and flop down on his bed. He was tired, really tired. It had been a long week, out on a training mission with the new recruits on the Midgar plains. He just wanted to relax beneath the showerhead and go to sleep.

At least he hadn't been the only one to suffer. Zack had been sent out with him. Some of the clueless recruits had driven him bug-nut insane over the course of the mission. Right now, the black-haired man was out with one of the other COs at a bar somewhere, trying to forget how crazy the cadets had made him.

Shower. Need shower, Sephiroth thought, heading for the bathroom. He kicked off his boots and undid his coat, hanging it on its hook before entering the tile-clad sanctuary. Shirtless, he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror.

Odd, how his scars never seemed to hurt when he was outside the Shinra building…

His entire past could be read upon his body. His many admirers would never guess it, but his torso and arms were a patchwork quilt of pale scars, leftovers from a time when he was unable to protect himself from those who desired to harm him in the name of science. There was a multitude of thick, white lines trailing over several major arteries and veins, all of which had originated from Hojo's repeated injections of nameless chemicals and weird, glowing sludge into his body. These were side-by-side with shorter scars, pinker and wider than the injection leavings. He despised those. All of the shorter ones had come from the times Hojo and his esteemed collegues had strapped him down on stainless steel tables and sliced into him, trying to see what their latest tests and injections were doing to him.

Very few of the scars had come from an enemy's blade. Almost all of them had been incurred during his nightmarish childhood.

The scars hurt whenever he was in the building, but they ached worse than ever when Hojo was around him.

Sephiroth closed his eyes and turned away from the mirror to start his shower, revealing a long, blackened scar over his left shoulder-blade. He used to dream of flight, when he was little. He sometimes thought he could remember a pair of coal-black wings fanning slowly upon his back, the feathers long and unbelievably soft. Night-fancies of wrapping himself in those wings sometimes haunted his sleep, offering comfort when he needed it the most.

But there was always that nightmare that followed. A horrific dream of Hojo discovering his wings, and extracting tissue samples from the left. Of his precious left wing becoming infected, and of himself being held down while the Wutaian scientist sawed the decaying, disease-ridden appendage from his back, ripping it from him and mumbling about studying the specimen's reaction.

He always awoke with a terrible sense of loss, as if he had truly lost the ability to fly.

Sephiroth had no idea where the scar on his back had come from.

But it always ached the worst when he had that dream.