Dreams of Conspiracy
He stays quiet and stares at the ceiling like he didn't hear a word I said, long enough for me to regret it before he has the chance to say anything. Then he lets out a heavy sigh, pushes me off of him in a tired way and turns his back to me while calmly stating, "I have no desire to be in your possession forever, Vince."
"That's not what I said."
"No," he firmly answers before grabbing at the sheets to cover himself while curling his arm under the pillow to suggest that he'd rather go to sleep than entertain my ridiculous antics for the rest of the evening.
"Tseng—"
"I said no," he says again, adamant about not wanting to discuss it any further and causing me to react by angrily sitting up while fighting the temptation to yank the blankets away from him when he grips into them so I won't pull them away with my bohemian movements.
"You won't even discuss it?"
"There's nothing to discuss," he says, like he can't believe that he has to say it before he sits up to face me and stares at me like I'm mad, "You know how I feel about my job, Vince—It's—"
"The only thing you think you can do right," I interject.
"And as for you wanting me to run away—"
"I'm not asking you to run away from anything—I'm asking you to—"
"What…? Give up everyone and everything I know for someone that can't even call me by my own name half the time?"
"Kjata…"
"I'm not yours to control!"
"What the hell is the matter with you?" I angrily ask him when he starts to get up and I grab him to pull him back down. Though I wasn't anticipating him to hit me across the face, hard enough to make my lip bleed the taste of chemicals into my mouth. Then I growl out something unintentional and thoughtless before wiping at my mouth, not even thinking about a possible consequence when I say, "You really are a miserable Tonberry."
"What?"
Calm…
He couldn't have said it more calmly, causing an unwelcome chill to crawl up my spine.
Though to contradict the stoic façade in his voice, his reaction suggests I'd just shot him, pale as he suddenly is. Ghosts wouldn't recognize him as a separate entity as he stands by the bed and stares at me like Sephiroth's sword was never pulled from his back, both hands gripping over the scar that reminds him of his lover's betrayal.
His eyes are empty though, staring at me like he's looking right through me and during this moment, I literally curse myself for saying something so personal if he hasn't done it to me already.
And all I can focus on right now are those charcoal eyes of his, deep pools of obsidian framed by thick lashes and well-groomed brows. Then he takes a stumbling step backwards and hits the floor as if his legs gave way, causing me to react on nothing more than reaction as I leap to his aid in a sudden panic.
"Kjata!"
"Sir, reviving him is too risky."
"Why?"
"Because the infection could spread…"
"I thought I told you that I didn't care about that… If it becomes apparent that it will do what it did before we'll simply have to put him down and start over again!"
It's just like before only different this time as I feel reality slip away the moment I touch Tseng to check his eyes. I can only hear voices and the sound of Tseng's breath, and if I set more focus on him, I can even hear the sound of his heart beating. It's a low and steady sound that leaves no cause for alarm as I hear the dull and distant thud of my own body hitting the floor beside him—suddenly unable to move from the unknown void that restricts me.
All black, save for the obscure pain in my gut that emanates outward as if I'd been impaled by…
'You have no idea how much I love you…'
"I thought you finished reading that book."
"I did."
"Twice in a row… It must be good," Tseng muses as he sits on a black leather sofa beside his lover, both of them dressed casually. Then he takes a sip of his tea before putting it down.
"It's tragic and alluring," Sephiroth offers without taking his attention from it and flipping to the next page.
"Alluring?"
"Like you."
"Mm… Speaking of tragic," Tseng comments with a wry smirk as he loosens the tie holding his hair in a high tail to let it down, "we found the bodies…"
"I thought you weren't allowed to discuss classified information."
"It's been discovered by the media."
"I see," Sephiroth mutters before closing the book and letting out a heavy sigh. Then he sets his focus on the front of Tseng's partially done up shirt with a small sign of approval, "What did they find?"
"Exactly what I suspected."
"Which was…?"
"They were the victims of an experiment."
"Hm."
"Mm…" Tseng mutters, almost in a trance, "I think I'd rather be dead than live through what they lived through… No humanity was left…"
"Mm," Sephiroth mumbles before crossing his ankle over his knee and placing his arm around Tseng's shoulder while teasingly musing, "I guess it's a good thing you already are a monster."
"Seriously… I wouldn't want to live if I was no longer myself."
"Then I'll make sure it never happens."
It's cold, the way that Sephiroth said it, and it's colder still the way that Tseng accepted it like they were simply planning out their grocery list, never realizing that it was going to happen to one of them when Sephiroth casually returned to his book while holding his lover with his other arm and Tseng casually took a sip of his tea before turning his attention to his lover's book and reading it with him.
A side I never would have expected from either of them. It was affectionate and ordinary, almost chilling to think of how it ended. Once again, I hear the words I've heard spoken before as Sephiroth's voice echoes like a distance inside of my head.
"It's not what you think," he says before I hear a more real voice pull me out of wherever I am, murmuring but legible at the same time.
"I loved my wife…"
"What?" I mindlessly ask, groggy from an indescribable swoon before I turn to see Tseng lying beside me with his eyes closed.
"My wife…" he answers when I turn to the clock to see that we must have been laying here for almost an hour, "I loved her…"
Talking in his sleep, I think, and I turn to him and lightly brush his hair from his face while thinking that he's never done that before. Then I lean toward him and press my mouth to his forehead, cool, dry, and I simply stay like that, eyes closed while whispering in a husky growl, "I never thought otherwise."
Then he turns over, pushing me slightly and hopelessly breathes out that, "I deserved what she did."
I don't ask though, fearing that it would be pushing things too far before he opens his eyes and looks at me like he's confused. Then he looks at himself, naked and wrapped in a sheet, and me as bare as the day I was born before looking at the bed and knitting his brows.
"I take it we had sex," he says before putting his head back and staring at the ceiling. "Why the bed wasn't good enough…"
"It started there," is all I tell him before he snickers at the thought and I frown without him noticing. Whether I'm doing the right thing by playing along with whatever it is I'm suddenly playing along with, I don't know. I struggle though, mostly at the fact that he seems to have genuinely blocked out everything that happened before he passed out, and I struggle over the fact that it's not the first time.
Though it's not the first time that I haven't said anything about it as I search my mind for a possible pattern or cause and notice that it tends to happen when certain memories of his are triggered. And as much as I don't want to face the possibility, it makes me wonder if he was tampered with somehow. But it also makes me wonder why his colleagues seem to be unaware of it.
And for a while, I simply stroke the hair near his temple with my thumb, studying him in the dim glow as he stares blankly at the ceiling and appears confused while he brushes off any anomaly with the typical logic that makes me want to pull my hair out.
"I honestly didn't think the dosage for those painkillers was that high."
"Pain killers…?"
"Mm… I must have underestimated my condition…"
He sighs then and turns his attention to me while appearing awkward and youthful in the low lighting and I find it easy to look past the dark circles under his eyes, the hard line of his mouth, and I almost forget about my growing concerns for him and the fact that I'm taking a twisted form of relief in the fact that he's completely forgotten about the argument that almost started between us.
"Don't you mean overestimated?"
"No… I mean underestimated because the dosage was harmless," he answers as he struggles to get up and I stay out of his way. "Yet it appears to be having more of an effect on me than I thought it would."
After that, he sits with his knees bent, rubs at his temples, and looks around the room while awkwardly snickering and adjusting the sheet to cover himself better, "After all, I'm not sure I can recall a time I've had no recollection of… well… except for the time that you…"
…Took advantage of him in Kalm, I silently finish, and I clench my teeth while fighting the urge to help him from the floor as he locates his pants and goes straight for them. Then he digs through the pockets and finds the handful of pills that he took from the lab and examines them closer than he did when he took them.
After that, he quirks his brow and comments on the fact that he's at a loss and sits on the bed, dropping his pants carelessly to the floor and sighing while I continue to sit there with a growing dizziness and a strangely washed out image, like static, of Tseng, Sephiroth, and Hojo in something that looks like a lab.
"Sephiroth! Keep him still if you want me to help him! Or better yet, knock him out!"
"I can't do that!"
"Well you need to do something! He's reacting to the mix… er… Don't worry…! Anyway, he won't remember a thing about you holding him against his will if that's what you're worried about!"
"What's the matter?" Tseng distantly asks, careless-sounding as he fixes the sheets on the bed to make it more to his liking. All the while, I sit there with my hand pressed to the side of my head and wonder if I did or said anything out of the ordinary.
"Nothing," I say while dizzily shaking my head again and staring at the scars on his shoulders where the sheet doesn't cover.
"Hm…" he mutters as he turns around and sits on the bed before staring down at me with a strange concern. Then he gets on his knees and crawls over to me while commenting that, "You don't look well… Are you sure you're all right…?"
"I don't… Don't touch me!"
"Jen—"
"I don't like keeping secrets from him."
"He's a Turk, Sephiroth… Certainly you can see why the two of you are an issue."
"You're beginning to sound like him."
"Hehehe… Well I'm afraid the two of you are simply incompatible."
"…"
"You're genetics are different… You're a high-class of Soldier—Mako and… er… other… 'enhancements'… Well let's just say that his symptoms are making it very clear that he's the more… 'passive' one in the relationship—"
"Our relationship is none of your concern."
"I'm afraid that it is… and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to urge you to stop seeing him."
"Do what you must to make him better."
"Don't change the subject—Sephiroth! Get back here!"
"Vince!"
Tseng's sharp voice snaps me back while he simultaneously snaps his fingers in front of my face and makes me feel dizzy as I wearily bat his hand away. Then he frowns at me and pulls me to my feet while muttering something about being concerned that the only chance he thinks he had to help me with whatever problem I have is now gone.
But I'm only half listening to him as he sits us both on the edge of the bed and pushes my bangs from my eyes to get a better look at them. Though I wonder why he bothers when he knows there isn't much to tell, and I find myself studying him back while trying to make sense out of what the hell just happened or is happening while I hear a continuing murmur of conversations from some other time and place in my head, and I constantly replay the parts that don't make sense to me.
"Vince…" he says again, cupping the side of my cheek with his palm and tilting his head as if to look for reassurance.
"You… were poisoned…"
"Yes."
His answer is confused as he reminds me about the spider creature in the mansion, unaware that I'm referring to something completely unrelated as he shakes his head in search of clarity.
"No…" I say while doing as he does in hopes I can clear out my own head, "Mako…"
"What?"
"Mako-poisoning…"
"I highly doubt that thing poisoned me with mako," he states with a strangely quiet snicker before he quirks his brow and moves away from me.
Then he turns slightly paler when I tell him that I'm not talking about recent events by saying, "No… before… you were in a lab from Mako poisoning…" while subtly shaking my head to let my bangs fall back into my eyes as if it's easier for me to deal with the situation by hiding from it at the same time.
"A hospital…" he corrects, "I…" with a slight hesitation, he turns his attention to his torn blazer that's lying on the floor and looks as though he's falling distant before he curls his forefinger over his mouth and takes on a darker look while muttering something that I can barely hear.
"Marina…" I think he says, a hoarse whisper that causes him to clear his throat. Then he closes his eyes and asks, "How long have you known about that?"
It's the typical accusation that burdens me. Whenever I bring up anything from the visions, he thinks it's because I've managed to 'dig for dirt' on him.
'You were a Turk…' is what he usually says as a way to convince himself that the truth has no substance. Then he'll find all sorts of conspiracies regarding why I'd want to dig into his past while dismissing anything I might tell him about the dreams as being a poor excuse if not an insult for assuming he'd believe in something so ridiculous.
He doesn't start with the tangent this time though. Instead, he continues to stare at his blazer where the locket is, and I turn my attention to the surface of the bed with nothing but blank thoughts, partially thankful that the resentment isn't there this time.
"It was a long time ago…" he says while I feel myself start to drift again as if hypnotized by the sound of his voice and directed by his words, "Saity… My daughter… She was only three years old… and Marina and I were going through a rough patch. She thought I was—"
"Having an affair," I mindlessly say, still focussing on the bed while he clears his throat and awkwardly shifts.
He doesn't deny it though, suggesting that I'm guessing right while he falls silent for a moment, allowing the conversation in my head to fall clearer. It's a conversation between Tseng and his lover from what I can tell.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was concerned."
"I thought I told you to stay away."
"Tseng…"
My focus shifts the moment Tseng speaks again though, telling me that he was sent on some kind of assignment that he doesn't elaborate on and that there was some kind of accident near one of Shinra's refineries.
"I couldn't just stand by…" he says, falling distant again, "There were people inside and I couldn't just…"
"You nearly got yourself killed…"
"My wife is probably on her way down here—"
"I don't care about your wife!" Sephiroth hisses, "You're not immortal—"
"You have to leave."
"I woke up in the hospital on the Plate afterwards," Tseng says, making me wonder how much I missed between what he's not saying or what I'm not listening to, "Apparently I suffered from a mild case of Mako poisoning."
"Apparently…" I mindlessly repeat while unconsciously scratching at the surface of the bed with the hand that I usually cover with my gauntlet.
"Mm," he mumbles before turning his attention to me and subtly pulling at my arm to suggest that he wants to hold my hand. Despite the mask of affection that he hides the action behind though, I know the real reason that he does it while he intertwines his fingers with my own and he breathes out like he's suspicious of his own past.
"I don't remember anything that happened in between then and the hospital…"
"Nothing?"
"No…"
"Leviathan… Seph… I'm trying to patch things up with Marina…"
"You're not in love with her."
"No… It's you that I'm not in love with. Now do us both a favour and leave before she gets here."
"Sit back down. You're not well enough to stand right now."
"It's Mako poisoning, Sephiroth… not a bloody plague."
"I think…" I mindlessly mutter while the sound of a thud resounds in my head like the sound of someone falling before images start to clearly form and Tseng's voice sounds like he's in another room…
"What?"
"You're a stubborn bastard, Tseng…" Sephiroth says, looking down by a hospital bed at a black-haired man on the floor. His jaw is clenched underneath a sullen frown and he kneels down to aid the man.
Tseng…
He's wearing a pale garment provided by a hospital and his hair is much shorter than it is now, tapered at the back with longer bangs in the front, much like my own hair used to be. But his part is on the opposite side. The skin exposed from the garment is flawless, save for a subtle tint that hints at a case of too much Mako in the veins, a symptom I've seen on would-be Soldiers that were intolerant to the process.
I can only assume that he'd passed out, possibly by ignoring Sephiroth's warning and standing when he shouldn't have, and I watch as Sephiroth adjusts the part of Tseng's garment that slipped to expose his hip in a strangely compassionate manor. Then he takes off his glove and runs his ring finger over Tseng's brow, tracing it with a conflicting combination of admiration, anger, and guilt.
Then he smirks with a strange look of relief when Tseng stirs, still carrying the misleading combination of emotions before leaning to kiss the man on the lips as the door opens to reveal a woman holding the hand of a small child…
"How did Marina find out about your affair…?" I mindlessly ask as Tseng taps me on the cheek with his palm to make sure I'm still with him and I make every effort to focus on him.
But all I can focus on is Sephiroth's pale green eyes, staring coldly at the woman—shameless and without pulling away from Tseng. Then he turns his cold attention to a pair of legs behind her, partially covered by the bottom half of a lab coat as a shrill and familiar snicker echoes through my skull.
It would have turned deafening if it wasn't for Tseng breaking me away from it when he answers, "I have no idea."
Then he gets up and turns his back to me while smoothing his hair back and adds with an attempt to hide the emotional mixture that the question spurs, "I never got the chance to ask her."
After that, he awkwardly snickers and lifts his hand partially away from him before dropping it back down and asks, "Is that what you've been doing for the last hour…?"
Hour…?
"Attempting to reason out a new fantasy about how Sephiroth may have ruined my life so that you can feel better about yourself?"
"I think you were set up," I tell him while brushing off the feeling that he's accusing me of ruining his life in a roundabout way.
"Of course you do, Vincent," he says. Then he turns and sits on the edge of the bed to stare down at me while wiping at his upper lip.
"Vince…" I correct.
"Mm… Well, I suppose I should be thankful that it's Sephiroth that you're fantasizing about this time…"
"I don't fantasize about her," I dully answer before I sit up and place my forearms over my knees and wonder why we always return to the same circular argument while frowning over it. Though I'm partially thankful that my head is clearing up enough for me to question it and I'm partially disappointed that I don't have whatever it is to escape to.
All the while, Tseng continues to stare blankly at me as if he's not plagued by the usual thoughts and accusations that he likes to throw at me over Lucrecia and how he believes that he's only a substitute for her. Then he subtly shakes his head at me and frowns while I continue to work out a way to make light of what's going on.
Yet all I can focus on is the fact that I don't know where to start before I set my sullen attention onto him more clearly by pushing my bangs slightly to the side so I can see him better as he remains wrapped in the sheet, almost looking vulnerable to me, soft. Though he never hesitates to disprove that vulnerability, be it through cruelty or force, and he always fails miserably in my eyes.
"Can't we have one conversation that doesn't turn into an argument?" I ask, pulling myself from an admiration I don't want to feel while feeling it just the same and ignoring the words in his reply.
"I don't think that's possible."
"I do," I say as I push myself from the floor and sit beside him, somewhat hesitant in how I want to say what I want to say. But it comes out anyway.
And I wind up telling him about the growing suspicions and the hypnotic lapses again, and the fact that I want to know more about what happened to him back then and how everything changed while part of me suspects that there might be an answer somewhere that I never thought of before.
And much to my surprise, he answers my questions and gives thought to my own thoughts in a more agreeable manner than he normally does. He even leans into me and rests his head near my shoulder while he tells me that the incident with the Mako reactor was at Nibelheim.
Why it suddenly bothers me though, I don't know, and I can't seem to reason out the strange churning—almost like Chaos—in my gut when he tells me that he ran into the reactor to help some of the men that were trapped.
"Did you get to them in time?"
"I was told that I saved their lives," he calmly tells me before lying down and staring at the ceiling, "but all I recall is running in and waking up on the Plate over a month later."
"Were you on the Plate the entire time?"
"No. The doctors said there wasn't enough time to bring me back initially. So they kept me in Nibelheim until I was well enough to be moved to Shinra's infirmary."
Despite that it's another hole in his life, it feels like he's telling me the truth instead of leaving something out this time and I wind up putting my arm around him when he tells me that he attempted to find his records out of curiosity. But there were none to be found.
"Much like the incident at the Temple…" I mutter, suddenly wondering if there were more answers in the mansion than what we came looking for and silently sinking over the fact that my ability to help him is no more efficient than his is to help me.
He's mindless of my thoughts though, and he snickers and intertwines his fingers with mine. Then he quickly brings my hand to his mouth and pecks at my knuckle before dispassionately turning over and tiredly muttering something that drops an unsettling weight somewhere inside.
"Not quite…" he says, "I was only unconscious then… not dead…"
