Sephiroth straightened up and automatically reached for the glass of water that Tifa replenished daily and placed on top of the toilet tank so he could rinse out his mouth and did so. He took out the scarf from his hair that she always put beside his nightstand for when he had to hastily use something to fasten it back for when morning sickness overtook him. Although he did appreciate how smoothly and yet unobtrusively she helped him with this difficult and humiliating chapter of his life, he couldn't help resenting this trap he found himself in and her by extension. His body was now held hostage by yet another aspect of Shinra and his sorrow seemed to know no bounds as silent, angry tears fell unbidden onto his pillow late at night when he was left alone with his own tortured thoughts.
Each night would find him praying for only one thing: To simply not to wake up. Why had he fought his way back to sanity and out of Lifestream for this new hell?
He realized that he was technically a virgin as a male and blushed at the realization and now wished that he had accepted at least one of the sexual offers he had gotten in his life. At least he would have known how it was to have been pleasured and desired by someone. He hadn't even been himself in his one and only sexual encounter and he had been so befuddled from alcohol and it was so weirdly bizarre that he had passed it off as a lucid dream.
He looked into the mirror and noticed his complexion was almost gray and sighed, his hands automatically gravitating to the small, taunt convex curve of his three-month pregnant belly, he was showing more than a woman would as there was no softness on his body to obscure it. He had lost muscle mass and was leaner now, he had more of a swimmers build, but pretty much weighted the same. He took a shower and brushed his hair, allowing it to air dry.
He got into a pair of blue jeans where the waistband rested right beneath his "baby bump" and pulled on a t-shirt and black hoodie that more or less concealed his distasteful bulge.
He missed wearing his uniform as it was like a second skin to him. He had always felt comfortable wearing his custom SOLDIER uniform even if it was a ruse and him little more than a figurehead in his role. For him, military life at least meant the illusion of freedom from the labs and being constantly being monitored. He had risen in ranks because he had been made for it. The SOLDIER Program was built around him- built around Jenova.
He knew he was unmatched by no other living being on the Planet. However, all that had to be temporarily put away when it was proven that pregnant "women" do run higher temperatures and he had almost passed out one day. Then Tifa had put her foot down and then it was comfortable, breathable clothes for him.
He officially looked like he had a small beer belly and couldn't stand the vile stuff. He questioned why anyone would let themselves get so out of shape that they would allow themselves to look like this as he looked at himself in the mirror in profile. He brushed his teeth and went to the kitchen as he did every morning.
Tifa looked up when the silent Sephiroth came in and sat at the table with nothing more than a mumbled "good morning."
"Morning Sephiroth" she said in a sedated voice, knowing how sensitive his hearing was, she could tell from his complexion that he had morning sickness again and wondered when it would abate. There was no way of researching that as male pregnancy was unprecedented and there was certainly no one else to ask.
He took a seat at the table as she put a smoothie in front of him with crackers, knowing they helped with his nausea from experience.
They had lived together for a month now and she was no closer to knowing anything about him then the day they had unlocked the door of the large, isolated house. It had obviously been unoccupied for some time but like all Shinra properties, had been maintained and recently cleaned and the heat and hydro obviously turned on in anticipation of their habitation of the place. She had explored the place with a silent and a reluctant Sephiroth shadowing her while she took stock of the place with a notepad to jot down anything they might require. Everything was immaculate, the kitchen already well stocked with healthy food that was good for a pregnancy and a picky woman who liked to eat a healthy balanced diet.
The master bedroom had a king sized bed and had a firm mattress but pillow topped and Tifa thought it would be perfect for Sephiroth's growing body. It had an adjoining washroom as well as a dressing room and small lounge area where she could see him reading. She suggested he take that room and he just silently carried his suitcases inside and closed the door after him, allowing her only enough time to take the sheets to be washed before shutting her out. The rest of the tour had been done on her own, the kitchen appliances were older, but still more expensive than she could afford. The main living room sported a huge flat screen TV with a surround sound system and there was a large selection of movies to chose from and comfortable couches to lounge on. Obviously this had been installed for them.
Tifa finally chose a bedroom for herself, making sure it was far from his own so he wouldn't feel she was listening in on him and overtime, she tried to befriend him to no avail.
For the first week, he refused to leave his bedroom, making it necessary that she leave all food in the hallway on a tray and then collect the empty tray later. She got to do that three times a day. Finally, she put her foot down and slipped a note under his door, threatening him with her "forgetting" to supply his meals if he didn't start joining her at the table.
She waited on pins and needles for two more days, waiting the stubborn ass to appear, wondering what his not eating was doing to the baby with his crazy metabolism that required him to eat a boat load of food a day. She almost caved several times, when one morning he simply appeared and then ran to the nearest washroom to upchuck again at the food smells coming from Tifa's own breakfast being made.
So they arrived at some kind of truce, he would join her in the mornings and throughout the day for mealtimes and she would have her breakfast only after he had the various things that settled his stomach. They got along to a point, though for Tifa, living with Sephiroth was like living with a polite ghost who thanked her when she tried to arrange his life to make things as comfortable as possible for him, but would not engage with her. Their conversations ending with him being monosyllabic as possible.
"How did you sleep?" she asked him.
"With my eyes closed" he said without any emotion in his voice as he took his prenatal vitamins without protest.
"I made your favourite smoothie; pineapple and strawberry" she said.
"Thank you" he said, as monotone as ever, taking a sip of it.
"How was your weight this morning?" she asked him.
"About the same" he said.
"Have you lost anymore weight?" she asked him outright. He had lost a lot of weight at first because the caloric intake necessary to fuel his augmented body wasn't enough to feed two people, so supplements had to be added to his diet to stabilize him and Tifa had him drinking lots of smoothies.
"I am fine" he said, not liking when she nagged him. She was a combination of mother hen and jailer and he still resented how she had trapped him.
"I only saying this because I worry about you" she said and placed her hand over his. "You would be the same about me if I were the one pregnant" she supplied.
He could only stare at her hand and waited a fraction of a second longer than normal to wrench it back, but it was too late as the warmth of her hand seemed to flow through his system like a necessary drug for a junkie and seemed to warm him to his toes.
"I would have no say in the matter. I wouldn't have been stupid enough to mate with you in the first place" he said getting up and glaring down at her and he relished the look of pain in her eyes. "I had wondered why such an attractive woman like yourself was still single, but now I see that your personality is lacking. You're an overbearing nag who loves to emasculate a man. To be with you, a man would have to be deaf and mute and have had a frontal lobotomy" he spat and walked out of the room, he didn't stop until he reached his room and firmly locked the door.
Tears pricked his eyes as they did a lot these days, but they were mainly tears of frustration at his own body betraying him.
Tifa had tried to discover his cravings from offering him ice cream with a whole slew of disgusting toppings like anchovies, hot sauce and pickles, but he wanted none of that. It was only a single incident that clued him into what his treacherous body craved: Tifa's touch. Every time she touched him, even by accident, it was like a his body was ignited and craved more. Imagine a solitary creature like him wishing for that! He obsessed about flinging his arms around her and drowning in her scent and clinging to her like a child. Well, he had resolved as he had weeks ago that it wasn't happening!
Tifa watched him go, a little hurt by his words but knew full well why he was acting this way.
The incident had been so innocent that it was laughable. Tifa had opted to watch a chick flick as her attempts to get Sephiroth to lower himself to watch a movie with her had gone unheeded in the past. So she had chosen one that was particularly romantic and never failed to make her feel warm and tingly at the sweet moments and weepy at the sad ones. It was like living with someone who had nothing but disdain for her and nothing to offer her but resentment and anger when he deigned to speak with her at all, made her long for another set of emotions he couldn't give her. She was laughing at a funny scene when someone said. "What are you watching?" and the elusive man took a seat practically beside her on the same couch.
"It's a movie about a man and a woman who have a lot of differences, but they fall in love anyway" she explained.
"Is this what they call a 'chick flick'?" he asked her, his eyes seeming to be glued to the screen.
"We can watch something else if you want" she offered.
"No, please don't let me disturb you" he said and she settled back and didn't think anything of reaching over and draping the blanket that covered her, over his lap too and both sat there watching and she got the impression that he had actually sought out her company.
She noticed that he seemed to be struggling to stay awake and his head kept nodding forward before he would catch himself.
Finally, Tifa gently hooked an arm around him and pulled his head onto her lap and she draped the blanket over him. Without thinking while engrossed in her movie, she began stroking his soft hair and put her other hand on the warm skin of his side where his t-shirt had been rucked up. She looked down at him questioningly at his soft sighs and she experimentally touched his cheek and he nuzzled into her touch. Her other hand slipped up his shirt and caressed his waist and stomach and his sighs deepened.
"So that's the direction where your cravings lie? You poor man; so untouched when I would gladly smother you with so much love you would drown in it" she whispered to him as she caressed his gently writhing body.
His eyes soon blinked open and he leapt away from her as if she had burned him. His eyes were wide open and he blushed so painfully red that it was like she had caught him pleasuring himself.
"What the hell you think you're doing?" he demanded with his hair slightly tousled.
"I was stroking your hair, it's just a habit" she explained.
"I'm not here to entertain your hair fetish. Kindly keep your perversions to yourself" he demanded and left with a glowing face that kind of bellied that cold look he gave her before departure.
Tifa waited until Sephiroth was back to being his usual barely civil self and played her trump card by putting the jar in front of him.
"What's that?" he asked her.
"Vitamin E cream. It prevents stretch marks" she explained.
"What are stretch marks?" he asked her he listened in horror as she laid it out for him. He certainly didn't want to get those! For all the damage his body had sustained over the years, he always healed quickly and scar free. He felt overwhelmed at what changes a body went through during a pregnancy. There were so many things to remember, so many restrictions. No working out for four hours each day because he was losing weight as it was, no caffeine though he loved his black coffee. It never seemed to end! His belly was growing, his energy level wasn't like normal, he found himself longing for the naps he refused to take on principal that the harpy he lived with kept on suggesting them and now this!
He could feel tears pricking his eyes again and felt like the loneliest man in the world and the freak everyone claimed him to be.
Tifa was concerned for how down Sephiroth seemed.
"Are you okay?" she asked him.
"Like you care. All you care about is your precious fetus. If you cared about me, you would let me have the operation I seek. But that is not happening. How do I use this miraculous cream?" he asked her.
"I put this on you once a day" she explained.
It was suddenly like Sephiroth was a statue.
"Why do you have to do that?" he demanded with an angry frown. It was bad enough that she was privy to his bodily secrets but now she had to touch the area that embarrassed him the most!
"Child bonding" she said. "It's not going to hurt you. I will put this on your belly and talk to it" she explained.
"What if I refuse?" he said. "Shall I get sealed by your friends into a mako coffin for misbehaving?" he said, feeling like his eyes were pricking with tears again and refused to give into the thing that seemed to control his life more than Tifa ever would; pregnancy hormones.
He felt a wave of self pity that he had no one even to talk about how he felt. Then felt embarrassed he wanted to talk about his feelings with someone. Certainly his friends from back in the day would have a field day with him at his current situation, big belly and all. They would have listened to him spout on like a pathetic woman and then told him to stop acting like such a pussy and grow a pair.
Was he even considered to be a man anymore? Certainly what he normally had between his legs was the same as before but he still felt emasculated.
"I would never allow that to be done to you" she said. "I care about you" she said careful not to touch him, sensing the sadness within him.
He gave her a genuine perusal at the statement as time stood still. It seemed as though something was changing, albeit slowly with them.
"Okay" he agreed. "It doesn't need to be done on a bed or anything, does it?" he asked her.
"No just lie on the couch" she said pointing to it and he did so as tense as anything and he didn't relax as she lifted up his t-shirt, however he almost groaned out loud when she started to massage the slippery cream onto his taunt belly and he suddenly wanted to start wiggling under her hand like an excited puppy as she slowly coated his firm mound.
Tifa watched as a pink blush stole across Sephiroth pale cheeks. She could tell he was trying not to react to her caresses but the subtle shifting of his body encouraged her movements on him so she started making an unnecessary spiral pattern on his stomach, starting in the center with slow circles that spiraled outward with each stroke.
Sephiroth had to force his body to stop trembling at how good it felt as Tifa's small, soft hand caressed him. He had clenched his teeth against the moans that threaten to spill forth from his mouth that steadily bubbled up from his own chest. The warmth spread throughout his entire body, enlivening nerve endings he hadn't been aware of until now. The foreign feelings stole all over his body, reminding him of the one forbidden night he had experienced something close to this. Suddenly he imagined her oil coated hand going lower and undoing his pants and touching his hardening flesh and...
"Are we done here?" he suddenly barked at her, irregular pupils dilated hugely.
"Of course, until tomorrow" she sweetly said and he glared back at her with unfocused eyes. From that day forward, he promised himself he would look at all angles of the situation. He would try to be civil as he lived out his sentence.
And so it was each day going forward.
Tifa dutifully and carefully massaged the cream into Sephiroth's sensitive skin of his taut stomach. He as much loathed as he did desire the action. It was getting increasingly harder to control his body. Naturally hormones ran higher… and hotter than ever before while pregnant.
Every time he was alone to himself, he would be bombarded with decadent yet unwanted flashes of how he'd gotten here. He began having more particularly lucid and sexually charged dreams, leaving him with a host of emotions, anger and desperation taking the forefront. He'd also been jostled from those dreams as a female to a very male issue.
On one particular time as Tifa applied the cream, he'd bounded from the couch glaring daggers at her, secretly hoping that she had not noticed the growing tightness in his nether region. Though he wore baggy sweat pants, he knew that he also was not a small man in that regard and it would have been spotted to his worry and shame, as he now paced his room.
He'd given thought to what had transpired from that day. He had conceded that though it was dubious at best because of the nature in which it all had transpired, from the alcoholic shot with that mystery man, to the actual use of the Materia on his person, he was starting to hate what he was coming to understand.
He'd admitted to himself that in light of all he'd done and how he'd lived-something as outlandish and unusual as this would have had to been implemented to free him of his control. Yes, alcohol was involved and he had no tolerance due to Mako, he would and was able to keep his faculties. As a male being approached by a female, he wouldn't have thought twice about denying a night cap. Hell, the same was for men as well. While he had no preference on sex, all would meet and had constantly met opposition.
Why?
His heart and memories knew why he behaved the way he did, though he vowed to never give voice to that unholy name anymore.
The Materia had offered a kind of anonymity and new identity for himself.
Only the Materia would have freed him from the burden of being…him.
As the days continued to wear on, his nausea tapered to being absent. This allowed for him to enjoy more variety of foods for breakfast…and to be in Tifa's presence longer.
They began watching TV regularly together, with him typically toppled over from the need to sleep at a moments notice and having his head towed into her lap. Sure, he would leave…after a time now when questing hands finished rubbing his belly and sides, and entwining in his hair. He no longer glared but the sexual tension between them was painful. Could she feel his nerves as he felt like they broadcast loud and clear.
He was conflicted. He wanted, no needed touch. He needed Tifa. He despised and lusted for her…surprisingly now in any form.
Oh his dreams had finally pieced together what had happened that fateful night. He found himself hard pressed to care which form starred in his dreams. Where she as the beautiful male that took him in feminine form, or now her natural form as he plundered into her hot depths. The dreams were reaching a fever pitch with cries and moans from himself in male or female form intermingling on his waking mind each morning. He needed answers from the source.
Tifa's had noticed the small changes in Sephiroth immediately. She never pointed them out or eluded to him she even realized anything was amiss. She noticed that as his morning sickness went away, he ate more and lingered longer than before. Secondly, he would seek her out purely under the guise of needing the help with the Vitamin E cream, yet as before would stay until he tired and laid his head in her lap. She had estimated a full 30 minutes in which he allowed her freedom of his body after the cream. Even now, when he would rise to depart in feigned disapproval, the glares were few and far in between and a look of confusion would surface only to be snuffed out to the neutral face she'd only seen Vincent Valentine do so perfectly.
Everything had came to a head when she had noticed that he was aroused after her manhandling. He had blushed but fled as fast as he had before the new sense of truce had been met.
Tifa knew to not to question him about this new "symptom".
She idly wondered if he ever thought about their night together or would it forever be a mar in his history. She'd went into it with something to prove, a old vendetta that she herself with her friends had killed him for already. That brought a icy cold chill down her spine. He'd already suffered for his part in Jenova's plans. Maybe that's why when she had went to him as a male…she'd choked, completely forgetting about her vengeance in seeing his vulnerability.
How lonely was the man that he would have readily drank with a perfect stranger, let alone a Wutaian 'man' in light of his history with Wutai? It was no secret that Mako treatments made you intolerant to alcohol. You had to force yourself to build up a immunity like Cloud and Vincent and the TURKS had. Was he so trusting or just so happy someone was not hurling insulting statements at him?
Tifa felt torn. She had went to him with one thought and had spent one of her now greater moments with him, though he didn't know it. Seriously Sephiroth was beautiful in either form and she longed to be taken or to take him again. Above all else, he was having her baby that she couldn't, further mending a mental wound she'd had. After seeing Sephiroth's "predicament", she knew that they'd need to clear the air.
Sephiroth sat in his room with his arms crossed, his hands grabbing each elbow as he shook all over from another particularly vivid dream. This was getting dangerous…to Tifa's person. He had to have her but he would try to rationalize with her first.
What they didn't know was the time for talking was over. Action seemed to want to rule.