Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its compilation. I don't even want to know what I'd do with it if I did.
Sephiroth knew the Shinra Headquarters like the back of his hand, so even in the half daze it was just a matter of allowing his feet to follow the well worn path back towards his room. He was able to get back to his apartment drunk, poisoned, exhausted, drugged from one too many of Hojo's experiments, so this… this was so painfully normal that Sephiroth had to stop himself more than once to rest his hand on the wall to make sure it was real, to feel the hard concrete under his fingertips and know that this was home.
However, there was a problem with all of this, it meant that it was very likely that someone would see him, see his weakness and then... then there would be issues. He knew that things would go south the minute he stumbled across someone he knew, and damn if he wasn't able to be the typical smooth machine that they knew him as. It was hard enough right now to keep himself moving, to pretend like there weren't a million thoughts zooming through his skull, pounding against him like a gong.
This was real.
Every moment he put his hand against the wall, feeling the coolness rushing up his fingers, every slap of his bare feet against the ground, he knew that he was real, solid, whole.
And he wanted Masamune, and then he needed...
He needed...
What did he need?
Sephiroth's mind immediately rushed to Angeal and Genesis, so young and untouched by the mess that was what happened on that cold day in the Nibelheim mountains. Genesis, uncorrupted. Angeal, alive and whole, honor intact.
Zack probably wasn't even in the Shinra SOLIDER program, yet. He couldn't have been older than fourteen. He himself was still young, unblemished. He knew his body and the changes that came with age. Hojo had pretended that the wounds of Wutai had healed perfectly, but it wasn't until Sephiroth was there again, remembering every inch of his body and how it had felt before that he knew what was left of him on that battlefield near Da Chao in late 0000.
He had left everything there, and had come back a newborn baptised in the enemy's blood.
But it was gone, like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Coupled with the missing Jenova, he felt like he had never before. He felt...
Human.
Sephiroth watched the shadows, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He waited for Cloud to come, smirking as he held his sword over his head, swinging it down into his belly. He waited for the lifestream to rise up out of the ground and to swallow him whole, ripping every tender muscle, eating him down to the marrow of his bones, sucking him dry of anything but the memory of pain.
But the shadows were only shadows, and damned if that wasn't a comfort or even more of a tragedy.
By the time his feel had brought him home, he could feel the mako in his stomach begging for release. He had almost forgotten the pain of the mako injections, how even the smallest of traces would come billowing back up his throat, raw like dirt and harsh like a poison.
He knew that there would be no one in his apartment- Angeal and Genesis had a key, but they knew to give him space after the mako treatments. He knew when Sephiroth needed him... If he had needed anything, they knew he would come to them. And they would be there, because at this moment, there was no degradation and there was no death like steel. There was warm friendship, competition, companionship. And Sephiroth knew in his belly that he had craved for it in ways that he had since he was a child, lonely and cold in the bowels of the laboratory. He wanted his friends, he wanted a normal life.
And he was being given the chance at it, wasn't he?
A Sephiroth opened the door and tossed his boots to the ground, he was left with the imposing silence that had him waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It didn't take long for Sephiroth to get past the security for the World Wide Net, knowing his way around like it had been only a few days since he last touched a computer, instead of the years that had flown by with Jenova at the head. He had been able to crack the Turk's special website lock within days of being granted his first computer, and he was able to sneak around with most of the Turks none the wiser.
If they searched his history, all they would find, no doubt, would be the remnants of searches on children's stories that parents told their children to make sure they behaved. No one believed in Bahamut, the internet told him as much. And the deeper he dug, the more frivolous and useless the stories became. It wasn't even possible for there to be so many damn variations, but there they were, and here he was. And he had watched the clock tick the minutes by simply because it was nice to have the principle of time.
He had missed time, like a wayward lover that had finally said its goodbyes. But it was here now, and he could do whatever he wanted, as long as he could.
It was then, sitting in his bedroom, cloaked in the darkness, that Sephiroth truly began to think.
He knew what Shinra was doing to the Planet, what the mako reactors had done, wrecking havoc on the lifestream, stealing and killing it. Shinra always liked to kill beautiful things. He hadn't had the time or energy to learn much of what had happened after the second time Cloud had run him through with a sword, but he knew that the son of the current President had tried to right some of the wrongs.
Still, it was a big undertaking, and it had taken him summoning down a meteor from the skies to get them to do anything in the first place.
But that would definitely be one thing he would need to handle, along with whatever pieces of Jenova were left inside of the Nibelheim reactor. He would have to figure out something, some way of getting there with Hojo none the wiser. He would have to do a stealth mission, figure out a way of burning her body... if that didn't work, he wasn't opposed to putting her in a fucking rocket ship and sending her off into the stars. Let someone else deal with her, or just send her body on a one-way trip into the Sun.
Sephiroth could almost see her, with her hair as soft as satin, skin so pearly and blue like an opal underneath his hands. She must have been beautiful in whatever life she had once had, but it was trusted and gnarled and so dead that Sephiroth couldn't stomach it anymore and closed his eyes again.
It was Cloud who greeted him, the little hungry and scared blue eyed kid with a violent shock of yellow hair. "We will take care of her. You can trust me on that. And we will stop Shinra, but there is something else you will do. You cannot tell anyone of me; they will think you have gone mad and they will lock you up and throw away the key. I can't help you if that happens, and I will consider this a failure. You only get one chance, Sephiroth."
Sephiroth could hear the threat in Bahamut's voice, and he opened his eyes to escape those chilling blue eyes. Of course he couldn't tell. Even if he had wanted to, not even Angeal and Genesis would believe him. In fact, Genesis himself would probably be the one to call down the Shinra doctors to make sure that they were able to detain him. That would be something Genesis would do, he thought spitefully.
Even Sephiroth knew this wasn't true, and he had to swallow back his own shame at himself. He could lash out, attacking anyone within reach, or he could go and see what he could do with this broken hunk of rock he was sworn to now protect.
So, it would be impossible to tell his... friends... of the future. He would have to do this on his own, with only his own mind to plot and plan against this mess of a world. Part of Sephiroth wished, futilely, that it had been Cloud who had been sent backwards in time. Cloud was the hero and would have no issue with finding a way of fixing things, changing the Planet and all of the terrible things that had come with it. But this was penance and perhaps Bahamut was right, he was beginning to sound just a little like Vincent Valentin-
Valentine.
Sephiroth did not know a lot about the ex-Turk, but he knew enough from what he had gathered from Bahamut to know that Valentine had known his real mother. He wasn't sure what Bahamut had meant by Jenova not being his true mother, but he supposed it made sense. Jenova was a beast in a mako chamber. There was no way that something like that could possibly carry his body to term. He knew he wasn't normal, but he knew that he could bleed and die, and that was enough for Sephiroth to understand that he was human, at least in some way.
There was nothing human in Jenova, and he had fallen prey to her without qualm. He had allowed himself to be sucked in by her sweet whispers. But that would not happen again.
Sephiroth felt his lips part and a small smile trace his lips as he pulled up the files on Valentine, but he found himself frowning at the information. The file was pretty empty, emptier than it should have been. Of course this was only the information on the main server, so there was a chance that something more would be on the Turks server... but no, if the Turks had known what Hojo was doing they would have put a bullet in his brain without so much as blinking. There was only one thing more important to Turks than Shinra-themselves. They never would have let Valentine waste away in Nibelheim.
No matter, Sephiroth thought as he looked through the information, noting the way that Valentine's face stared back at him with dark, dead brown eyes. It almost hurt to look at him for too long, and Sephiroth found himself closing out the tab and erasing his computer's cache, then logging out of the secure network he had logged into for his little trapeze through the Shinra files.
Stretching backward, Sephiroth pulled his head back and enjoyed the feeling of his neck and back snapping into place. It was such a simple thing, but the feeling of his bones pushing and popping made him feel good. It was so small, but yet so very normal.
He could almost pretend like this was all a bad dream, a mako trip that had gone wrong, but in his gut he knew it wasn't the case. He could not pretend that this was the case and he knew not to even try.
So, he stood and found his way out of his room, looking for his PHS. He didn't bring his phone with him when he went down to the labs, leaving it on the kitchen table. It was easier since the feeling of the mako baths made his skin scream in pain and wearing pants was painful enough, let along adding the sharp corners of his phone.
Sephiroth licked his lips and stared down at the flip phone, looking at it and reaching out, only to put his hand back down. What would he say? What would he do?
Bracing himself, Sephiroth snatched the phone from the table and quickly opened it, the bright screen flashing with a small message telling him that there were three voicemails and twenty text messages. Hm.
Sephiroth snapped open the first message and stared down at it, realising how much he missed the comfort of his smartphone. Those wouldn't even be created for another two years, though the prototype would be released soon.
The date had surprised him, when he had managed to brace himself and pull up the local Midgar Times on his computer. It was March 5th, 999. That had been a bit of a shock, at first. But then he remembered that of course the glass was 0000, because it was the date it needed to be changed, and Sephroth felt a little part of him drop inside, because it meant that Genesis and Angeal, they wouldn't know about certain things, they wouldn't remember Da Chao or the way Sephiroth had ripped off a General's head with his bare hands. They didn't remember the rage and despair in Sephiroth's eyes, they didn't remember how he had plowed through a thousand warm bodies and left nothing but pink mist behind him.
They hadn't seen the Demon, yet.
And Sephiroth would do his best to make sure they never did.
Sephiroth looked down and felt a small smile pull at his lips at the messages, one after the other, from Genesis complaining about anything from boredom of whatever SOLDIER conference he was unfortunately unable to escape from. There was one from Angeal, inquiring about whether or not Sephiroth would feel up for some company after the long morning of mako, and Sephiroth stared down at the message for a whole minute before clicking to Angeal's name, hitting the call button.
He lifted the phone to his ear and listened as his steady breathing matched with the beeps, waiting for the sound of-
His breath caught in his throat when he heard Angeal's deep voice on the other end.
And of course Angeal would notice, because it was his closest friend, and despite the relatively short fuse Genesis had when it came to showing off in the end, before then they had been like brothers... No... not brothers.
"Sephiroth, are you okay?"
"I am fine. I believe that the mako dosage affected me more than usual." Sephiroth let his words drift on the wind for only a moment before continuing in a short, clipped tone, "However due to my current status I find it best to stay within my apartment. If you so choose, you are more than welcome to show yourself in." It was the closest to an invitation that Angeal was going to get, and he understood.
It only took ten minutes for Angeal to stand in front of his door, and when the man let himself in, Sephiroth caught one look at the Buster sword-of course Angeal would bring the Buster sword- and Sephiroth's stomach finally gave way to the need to vomit, the mako infused contents of bile and whatever had been left from his last meal splattered across the floor. Had he been himself, had there not been a Buster sword so close that Sephiroth could taste the metal in his mouth, he would have felt something. Shame, maybe. But today was just one of those days where it was just not possible to feel any worse.
Angeal had seen Sephiroth wounded, sick like a dog, stabbed and burned and with an assortment of nasty infections and bizarre bug bites, so a little vomit was not a big deal.
But Sephiroth took a step back when Angeal tried to walk closer, his hip hitting into the kitchen table. He laid his hand flat against the table top to keep himself upright and stared at the Buster sword.
"Please put your sword in the guest bedroom." Sephiroth stared down at the sword like it had eyes of its own.
Angeal, whose brow furrowed and his jaw tightened, stared at him for a minute before raising his hand in a peaceful gesture and slowly backed toward the guest bedroom, slipping behind the door. Sephiroth did not relax until Angeal had returned by himself.
"Sephiroth-" Angeal began, but Sephiroth cut him off with a shake of his head. No, now was not a good time to talk about it.
"I'll clean this up. Can you make some coffee?"
Coffee was something of a luxury Sephiroth took every moment to enjoy, from the imported coffee beans from the hills of Mideel and Gongaga, and Angeal knew just how he liked it. It was also the easiest way to let his friend know that yes, this was serious, and no, he did not want anything other than the company.
During the Wutai war, there had been many of these quiet meetings, just cups of coffee and the silence only punctuated by the sound of swallowing and the tinkle of the cup hitting the table.
Angeal didn't remember those days, but Sephiroth did. They had been just as important as the fairytales Genesis had told him in the trenches.
How had he forgotten this and allowed Jenova to take it from him? How could he forget these human encounters, the small things that had made him who he was?
Shame hit the bone as Sephiroth took another gulp of the rich coffee, feeling it slide down his throat. Some took him for a man who could drink his coffee black, but in reality he enjoyed his coffee with cream and two spoons of sugar. Of course no one would have believed him, but it was the truth... And Angeal, his best friend, one of his only friends, had known.
"Angeal... I need to ask you something."
Angeal looked up from his own cup of coffee. He had taken to sitting at the kitchen table across from Sephiroth on these days where they needed the silence, and it was good to see that nothing about Angeal had changed, past or present. It wouldn't be that way for long if he had any say in it.
They had two years before the degradation would set it, maybe three. He would have to figure something out before then.
"What is it, Sephiroth?"
"Do you think I am a good man?"
Angeal put his coffee cup down on the table, and Sephiroth could see the rings the coffee mugs would make later. Not not, but soon they would become part of the table, like little reminders of Angeal.
Sephiroth had taken Masamune to that table when he had gotten the call from Zack. It then took him hours and hours of gluing it back together, trying to hold the pieces of what was lost as it dried. He had sat there on his kitchen floor, stoic and unresponsive, watching the glue on his hands try to fix what he had destroyed.
He always destroyed.
"I think that you are a difficult man," Angeal said eventually, and Sephiroth knew he was choosing his words wisely. "I think that you sometimes forget who you are, and try to be who others tell you to be. But I think, even then, that you are a good man."
Sephiroth hoped Angeal was right.
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