Zack and Sephiroth…..M.D…….!

Disclaimer: Square Enix owns the characters, I just play with them.

Warning: Language, some gross medical stuff as they get "edumacated". Enter Surgery Hell, Part I.

AN: What if Zack had been able to save his General from falling off the deep end at Nibelheim? The great war with Wutai was over, so now what? The powers that be decide these two merit a special education…off to Shinra Medical School!

Chapter 7 - SURGERY

At 04:30, Sephiroth waited impatiently in hospital scrubs. His scrub pants were too short; they had run out of extra-large, again. Pulling them lower over his hips didn't work, either – the seat of his pants almost dangled on the floor. He couldn't decide whether wearing socks had been a good idea or not, and his big, sneakered feet stuck out. The General was used to intimidating dress; today he looked like a dork.

Zack stumbled down the hall to meet him, yawning all the way. "Hey. Nice pants." Sephiroth growled. "Who the fuck gets up at 4 a.m.? How late are we gonna stay here? I'm definitely going to need some scrotal support if I'm going to be standing all day; those suckers are just too big to…."

"Who the hell are you?" Startled, both snapped to attention. The man that stood before them was short, wiry and dripped with arrogance.

"Uh, I think we're your students, sir. I'm Zack, and this is Seph."

"I care so little, I almost fell over. Well then, Crack and Steph, I'm Dr. Poon." Zack mercifully had enough common sense not to giggle. "Do you know what time it is? You probably haven't even seen all of the inpatients, yet."

"Well, it's only our first day, so we don't exactly…"

"What did I just say? DON'T. CARE. You're a medical student. You could be at home watching the Moogle Pop marathon or replace yourself with an inflatable sex doll in a lab coat, for all you're worth around here. I'd prefer the latter, if I had to choose. Remember this: your job is to stay out of everyone's way." He pushed a cart loaded with patient charts towards them.

"In that case, if there's a Moogle Pop marathon, I think I'll just…."

"You don't think until I tell you to. Medicine sucks. ObsGyne swallows. Surgery will take whatever miserable excuse you have for balls and shove them up your shitter while biting the tip off your dick. Assuming either of you has balls, that is."

Sephiroth wondered how this man's genitals would look skewered on the Masamune. He was discovering that the hospital environment typically selected for assholes. This little man was no exception. He would have been eaten alive at SOLDIER.

"You," he pointed at Zack without looking, "take your girlfriend here and go see the patients in C wing. It's too early for any of them to be awake, which is the perfect time to start asking questions. Give them a good night's sleep, and they'll start thinking this is a hotel and we'll never get rid of them. The only people that sleep in this hospital are dead or so close it makes no difference. You don't have to deal with all the touchy-feely shit. Just check their vitals, find out if they're having any pain, and ask them whether or not they've passed gas overnight."

"You want us to ask them if they farted in their sleep? How are they supposed to remember that?" Zack was able to keep a straight face only because he was genuinely curious.

"I am not a girl!" Sephiroth snarled.

Dr. Poon was already disappearing down the dark hall, hand raised and twirling his index finger. "Be ready in the OR at 07:00!" He vanished around a corner a second later.

"Do you know where C wing is?"

"No." Sephiroth eyes were glowing. His fists were clenched. If he were armed, every living creature within a 5-mile radius should have been running for their lives. Instead, he was stuck in this miserable shit-hole of a hospital, taking orders from some asshole surgeon with gender-identification issues.

"Hey Seph – you got that artery pulsing on the side of your head again. And your eye is doing that twitchy thing." Zack spoke in the same soothing tones he used at Niebelheim. It wasn't working. Sephiroth was reaching critical mass.

Zack switched gears. He remembered the Chocobo boxers. He decided on the unthinkable, knowing full well that what he was about to do might be the end of him. He could come up with no other way of distracting his friend. Keeping his eyes fixed on Sephiroth's face, Zack reached behind the General, grabbed his boxers and pulled. Hard.

Zack Fair ran for his life. He flew down the dark halls at a full-out sprint. His heart was doing flip-flops in his chest – the young SOLDIER was about to die. He could hear the deadly whisper of silver hair whipping down the halls after him. Sephiroth made no other sound.

At this point, Zack's psyche had partially unhinged with exhilaration and terror. He couldn't help himself; he began to cackle wildly. He stole a glance back – what he saw made him run all the harder. A split second later, he ran full tilt into Dr. Poon.

Zack went flying. Charts went flying. Donuts fluttered through the air. Dr. Poon was surprisingly agile – he landed in a crouch on his feet, one hand on the floor. The deadly glare in his eyes rivaled that of the General.

With Zack stunned and sprawled on the floor between them, the General and the surgeon faced off in a battle of wills. Sephiroth's green eyes blazed, his black wing extended, his lips curled back in a trade-marked snarl. Dr. Poon gave him a withering stare, with enough derision and venom to vaporize the average medical student in to a cloud of abject humiliation. The surgeon's voice was unnaturally controlled; his words were clipped with fury.

"This is not a costume party. We are surgeons, and it's about time you learned to act like one. What the….?" Suddenly, Dr. Poon's demeanor changed. His forehead wrinkled with obvious concern. Some of the fire went out of the General's gaze. "Let me have a look at that." Dr. Poon gestured at the large black wing. Sephiroth narrowed his eyes, but didn't move. Deftly, carefully, those expert surgeon hands examined the area where the wing emerged from the General's shoulder.

"Is it painful?" Sephiroth tensed, closed his eyes for a second, and nodded almost imperceptibly. It was the first time anyone had ever asked him. "We can take care of that, if you like. I have a colleague in plastic surgery who owes me a favor."

Zack, meanwhile, had recovered some of his mental faculties. "I thought we were nothing but blow-up dolls in lab coats, sir."

"You are. For now. Someday you'll pull your own weight around here. Don't think for a second that any one of us is too arrogant to realize that." Dr. Poon glanced at the General, who had tucked his mutant wing back in to hiding. "We are doctors first. And we take care of our own. Now get back to work."

"So….does your friend do, uh,….any other kind of 'enhancing?'" Zack's eyes were hopeful.

With a roar, Dr. Poon launched an entire box of donuts at Zack's head. Apparently, there was an endless supply of those things. The surgeon stormed off towards the operating suites without another word.

Sephiroth's expression was unreadable. Such simple acts of kindness, however rough, were always unexpected. The Silver General was bred to anticipate of even the remotest possible attack, but generosity always caught him off-guard. He gave his head a sharp shake, and looked down at his friend. Zack had chocolate frosting in his hair, which was dusted with powdered sugar and sprinkles. Despite this, he was nonchalant about munching on the pastries that had landed on his chest.

With a deep laugh, the General plucked one of the donuts from Zack's hand, before he was able to shove it in his mouth. Sephiroth had a particular weakness for sweets; after finishing, he scanned the room for another box. One of the nurses rolled her eyes, and produced a fresh dozen donuts from under the counter. Sephiroth helped himself, and plopped down on the floor in the middle of the hall next to his friend. Soon, the Silver General was contentedly nibbling at the last of the treats. He grinned at Zack as he licked his fingers clean.

"So, shall we do as the good doctor says?"

Zack sighed, and nodded. The pair wandered off to see their first patient of the day.

"Seph? We're cool, right? So we can have an honest moment?" The General didn't like the look on Zack's face. The raven-haired SOLDIER carried on, nonetheless. "Just so you know, I think I might have ripped off your boxers….." Zack pointed to a fragment of Chocobo-patterned fabric on the floor.

"What…?"

"Uh, so you'll have to go commando today. We're still cool right?" Zack glanced at the nursing station. Several pairs of eyes and ears were carefully absorbing the conversation. Zack's eyes took on a wildly mischievous glint. "'Cause, I just have to do this…" Before Sephiroth could react, Zack had yanked his General's scrub pants to his ankles, and took off again down the hall, shrieking with laughter. The nurses erupted in to a chorus of giggles. Third year was so much fun…..

AN - Sorry this took so long; travelling across country is rather exhausting. Stay tuned for another Surgery chapter in the works (won't be too long a wait), and perhaps (as suggested!), a certain Mercy General character makes an appearance....