Chapter 63 - Drinking in a Constructed Life
March, 1995
It has been a year.
Sephiroth wishes that he doesn't mark the passage of time.
It counts itself against him, one small tap after another. An impatient rap against the back of his skull that doesn't go away. The days themselves have been uncountable. Life itself has become unknowable. He's fixed in a pattern. It's methodical. It requires no decisions. It keeps him safe. It only asks for him to physically move himself from one task to another in return. This is something that he is more than willing to do.
The day starts at 4:45 a.m.
His body never loses the sense of military time. He needs to rise with the sun and get moving before the rest of his unit. A unit that is no longer his. A unit that does not exist. All that is left is a bloody hole inside him that doesn't heal. He opens his eyes and remembers that when the ceiling of his apartment greets him. It is too late to go back to sleep.
His alarm is set for five but he is awake before that. He stares at his blinds and listens to the air conditioner kick on and off. The fridge makes barking noises in the kitchen. He thought about trying to have it fixed but then the silence would be too much. These are the moments that he has to be careful. If he loses focus, he will be dragged back into his memory.
This is a place that he no longer likes to be.
He holds himself stagnant instead.
The clock announced the time with a piano melody. The default blare forces his heart to race. An alarm used to mean immediate danger while on the front lines. It makes him grab for the sword that used to be at his bedside. He had to have a repair man come in and patch the wall where his fist had punched through the first time this had occurred. It was not ideal.
By 5:10, he's locking the apartment, heading down the hotel hallway lined with wall lights. Early morning has stillness to it. It settles between his lungs, smothering everything in between. He puts in his earbuds and gets to work on exercising his body. The music is a variation. Sometimes he picks something classical or modern. Upbeat or sad. It doesn't matter. This choice is pointless in the end. Sometimes he cannot pick anything at all and the earbuds sit silent in his ears.
For the first month, he didn't make an effort to do much exercising outside of what his life naturally provided.
It built up like a pain. His muscle mass does not decrease without physical exertion. He is the way he is now. The mako, he supposes, locks it in place. The energy is what gets to him. The unrelenting urge that he should be moving forward and fighting. The habit that he needs to keep himself in the best shape possible.
It had built up like a bomb.
One day everything became intolerable like someone had turned on a switch.
The anger, the violence, everything that he has schooled his whole life, it bubbled to the surface. He felt himself nearly snap with anxiety in the Shinra building. He has always been able to hear others. How they slurped their coffee from nearby rooms, how they wheezed with a suppressed sickness, how their joints cracked with disuse, and their guts moving with digested food. Even the conversations they had. Sephiroth had naturally tuned it out for years.
With his own body rebelling against him, every sound scratched into him with dull nails. He was helpless to the way that it wound him up. The noises would not stop.
He had almost broken the man in front of him who told him with a wavering certainty that the coffee machine was out of order but certainly his assistant would be happy to go get his drink from another floor.
It was the inconsequential nature of this thing that told him something was deeply wrong.
One sick day is the only day he has allowed himself to take. Any more would report more weakness to the administration that kept him locked here.
He went to the gym in his building that night.
He had stepped on the treadmill.
And ran flat out for almost eight and a half hours.
He could have sobbed in relief when he stepped off it. Everything shook as he leaned against the frame of the hot machine. His body was soaked through. His mind was numb. The pounding of his feet echoed in his head for hours. He had limped back to his apartment and called in sick on his assistant's personal phone. Alvar was so surprised that he had stuttered only a few words before Sephiroth hung up and slept.
The assistant asked if he was feeling better the next day.
Sephiroth can't remember the answer he gave now. All he knew was that his words did not answer the question.
Now it was all a game of staying ahead of it.
The gym on this floor is built with SOLDIERs in mind. There is even a small, one person simulation room built next to it. Sephiroth hasn't stepped into a sim since the day that he crawled out of it bloody and bruised and so has no interest in it. Physical weights and machines are sufficient.
He follows a routine of his own making.
Many things in his life are monitored by Shinra.
What he does in this room is not. No one can dictate that except himself.
By 5:50, he wraps up and leaves before it is too late.
He has his suspicions that no matter when he leaves the gym in the morning, Angeal Hewley will always be locking his door in the hallway and wanting to intercept him. Sephiroth has even swapped his two morning hours. He used to read a book from five to six and then exercise from six to seven but then he had to encounter Angeal in the gym so he switched to going even earlier.
Now he has to deal with a warm smile in the hallway on his way back.
The First always steps aside, allowing him to pass but attempts to make some conversation. Angeal's eyes are knowing. It is one of the things that makes him a good First. He has a strong sense of empathy. He looks at Sephiroth like he understands him. It makes him crawl up his own throat. The words he says are inconsequential. Sometimes Angeal asks how he is or wishes him good morning. Other times it can be as random as the weather report: sunny skies, I hope you get to enjoy it or don't forget an umbrella today.
Let's make today a better day than yesterday even if it is Monday! Angeal had laughed after saying that one.
It had stuck with him. That positivity haunted him like a ghost.
Sephiroth directs the other Firsts on occasion. Mostly that is left to Lazard but he has that authority. Talking with them is something he does rarely. He doesn't want companionship. He wants to be alone. He is isolated. This is his place in this world, carved out by other people. This First will suffer the fate of every other First that has come before him. They will die.
Angeal's smile hasn't faltered.
Sephiroth knows that he is having a bad day when he feels his jaw open and the air catches on his tongue after Angeal speaks.
He always nods instead at the other SOLDIER and moves on without another word.
At least Rhapsodos doesn't make the effort.
Any quiet time in the apartment is filled
Nonfiction books drone out of his phone through all morning and evening activities. He doesn't have time to think. He learns about plants, biology, astrology, physiology, anything that keeps his mind occupied. His assistant accesses his audiobook account and picks the new ones once a week. His only feedback is if Sephiroth abandons a book. He rarely missteps. It used to be four to six books a week but as he walks to Shinra he has switched to the local MPR news.
It is all lies but it is good to know which lies are being spun. So now he completes three books a week. His mind tracks these things. He is not even sure why.
Once he completed ten but that was the week in which he couldn't sleep. The silence of his apartment was too overwhelming.
Work is an affair that he has come to know.
It hasn't been easy but they have come to a limping understanding.
He is required to be in his office by 9:00. Sephiroth prides himself by being in the building before 8:15. These are the ways that he bends the rules. The little thrills that he allows himself. The office is quiet and he can walk through it without any eyes on his back. He moves freely stopping by a specific window to watch the sunrise if it was the appropriate season.
The job entitles more management than he ever thought that he would have taste for. He has two main priorities: he oversees the training and maintenance of the SOLDIER troops and provides supplementary strategic advice on the Wutai War to Lazard. The second means that the Director stops by his office to mention the different ways to break this war back open.
Sephiroth nods through these conversations. He sits in his chair and tries to not dwell on how he cannot get up. How he is still trapped in this sterile version of life.
If Lazard notices this detachment, he only pushes harder for advice.
Things had finally stagnated. The battle where Sephiroth had lost his freedom hadn't crippled Shinra but it has caused them to be more hesitant with the troops that they have left. Wutai in turn figured out the power of the summoning materia that they seemed to have acquired. The thief has been identified now but it is pointless. The damage is already done.
So Sephiroth's email fills with reports on SOLDIER performance and training. His mission, as his mind is trained to call it, is to look and find the ways their mostly green troops could season without killing them.
His usually cheery assistant shows up by 8:30. He is sleepy, grumpy, but salutes from Sephiroth's open office door before closing it and getting to work himself. The phone calls and schedule starts promptly at 9:00.
The work keeps him busy once he comes to accept it. Banality. Problems. Situations. Injuries. Feedback. Emails. Meetings.
It's not what he wants to do but it has its rewards.
Rarely there is a week where he doesn't get to go down to the training floors to see a particular unit or a SOLDIER that Lazard is considering promoting. Seeing the SOLDIERs fight and correcting them reminds him of what he used to do. Observing the slow improvements shows him something of worth. Now that he lives in Midgar, even PR's hold on him isn't as desperate. He does events and interviews but his time in the limelight has faded as the war itself flickers uncertainty.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, he eats in the staff cafeteria. It is him being social. His table by the window remains empty for him. Eyes watch him as he eats and reads whichever report he brings down with him. No one approaches the table. Sometimes he rereads paperwork or he will write a list of facts from an audiobook to test his recall. It is better to be doing something than nothing.
Doing nothing is to be always avoided.
The food is terrible and it hurts his ears to hear all those voices talking at once.
He's not sure why he does it.
Afternoons slide by. It is the easiest part of his day. This is when he is wrapped up in meetings. He talks to others. Alvar brings him coffee midafternoon. They have a small conversation about something pointless. The assistant is too chatty to be left alone at his desk all day. It took looking over at Alvar drawing deep black circles in his pad of paper to guess something was off.
Now the young man takes his guest chair once a day and Sephiroth listens to whatever conversation comes his way as he drinks the coffee. He barely has to speak. He nods at appropriate places and watches the relief form on Alvar's face at the simple acknowledgment.
They aren't friends.
Sephiroth doesn't have those.
But Alvar having that illusion proves useful and keeps him in the chair outside his office. The assistant has been accepted into the small group of people that are worth part of his attention. This is rewarded by Alvar knowing his preferences. His assistant lies for him. He tells staff he is out of the office when Sephiroth cannot stand faces. He will close his door, muffling the world. Still no matter what Sephiroth says, he continues this ridiculous saluting business every morning.
Alvar does not have any formal combat training.
And he always saluted incorrectly.
It was two months of sloppy heels, untucked stomachs and lowered chins that Sephiroth decided it was enough.
They spent ten minutes on proper posture. Sephiroth tapped the areas with a pen for correction. The man isn't in the best of shape but he attempted it. Body awareness was a skill. Then they drilled it every morning. Why the man couldn't remember that his heels need to be together is a mystery to him.
Finally the time came when he did it properly.
Sephiroth had set down his pen and addressed him as he would with a proper member of SOLDIER.
"Good, dismissed," Sephiroth said.
He still does not understand why Alvar's eyes had filled with tears as he closed the door.
The saluting and dismissal has become part of the pattern.
Sephiroth puts in a ten hour day and then takes his work home with him. With a folder tucked under his arm, he nods at security as he leaves. Usually the Turks have free rein of the building at night. They heckle him to go home and crochet a hat. Sephiroth has thought about stopping them but doesn't. The words don't cut deep. He hardly cares at all. There is a bet, he's learned, of who can get Sephiroth to bite back first.
No one will win.
Sometimes he varies his walk back to the apartment and takes a slightly longer route if the weather is pleasant. The darkness hides him. The shops and the people visiting them late at night are as good as a drink to him. If that is not enough, he looks up as he walks. He's been learning to identify the stars or listen to the various noises of the city, enjoying the last dregs of the day.
Each night has a different task. Tuesdays are his favorite. He sets his laundry out for the maid the next day on the loveseat. The suits to be dry clean lay on top of each other neatly. Exercise clothes go in a plastic bag. Everything else goes in a cloth one at the foot of the chair. He puts a wrapped chocolate on a clean pocket square on top of the suits.
Picking out the sweet from the set he buys gives him something harmless to consider. He's only met the maid once. He wouldn't have noticed her on the street, yet, here she is, leaving food in his fridge and taking care of him silently. He doesn't even know her name. All his bills and papers are connected directly to his Shinra bank account which will not run dry before he dies. She even picks up his prescription from Shinra. The pill packs that he needs to live. The medications which chains him here without room for dreams of otherwise.
The clothes show up in the closet pressed and folded two days later. The plastic bag is replaced. The cloth one is folded and in its spot for another week. He used to look for a note from her. Feedback on the candy choice would be preferable but it is always singularly his belongings.
He forces himself into more work in the apartment until he can't stand sitting anymore. His body has become a hassle. It wants more than this life gives it so he has to get up annoyed and has to exercise it again.
The First's floor is not the penthouse. That belongs to a certain Vice President but Sephiroth discovered something remarkable. At night, he used to walk up and down the mandatory fire escape stairwell. It's quiet. The floors all look the same. He can lose himself to it until he is tired again.
The door to the roof has always sat untouched at top.
Until one day, the boredom got to him.
And he realized the door is always unlocked and a new part of his routine formed as easily as blinking.
The view at night still takes his breath away every night. The city stretches before him, vulnerable and decorated. If Midgar is a man, he'd be stretched shirtless and sultry before him. Sephiroth is high enough that the sky is less of a washed out gray and more of an inky black. The air is fresh and clean above the smell of too many humans living too close together.
The air conditioners moan together, especially if it is a hot night. This is a space that is raw and unsmoothed. Rust clings onto pipes. An abandoned bird's nest clings to a small structure that houses the entrance. Dead leaves crowd in corners. It is completely unlike what Shinra has done to the rest of his environment. This feels real like the mud that used to cake his shoes or the blood he would scrape out from his nails.
He is unobserved and alone up here.
It's beautiful.
This is where he summons and works with Masamune.
He used to push his living room furniture aside and exercise there. The risk of striking his ceiling or floor causes questions that he doesn't want to answer. The blade has rarely been seen by anyone else in person and for some reason, he wants to keep it that way.
Masamune takes months to calm down after he starts actively summoning her.
The sense of personality is so thick in his mind that he has no choice but to accept the gender that feels appropriate.
Once the grip materializes into his hand, he is battered mentally with impatience and anger. This is a byproduct from years of disuse. The materia strikes out against him. He is simply the closest and easiest target. The edges of Masamune's emotions are tainted with desperation. It stirs in him dissatisfaction and frustration. It rises from the depths of his gut. It is an illusion of course. Why would he have those emotions? Isn't his life designed the way it needs to be? The framework is different but he has always been in the service of others. Now is no different.
It used to take a half an hour but now in a few minutes Masamune cools and settles into the back of his mind as a soothing purr. She's powerful and temperamental. So he bonds with the materia methodically. It is a project that he can do outside of work. The rewards are productive. He eases through formations, understanding the weight and the heft and finding out how they work together. It is a slow dance, reactionary and almost instinctual. One step wrong and she flares up. The emotions are distracting. Regardless, the blade always remains cool and steady. Sephiroth has no doubt she could disappear from him if he wanted.
The starlight is enough for him as he practices.
The length of the blade feels ridiculous but she shores up his weaknesses, giving him an extra sense of intuition. Being captured, being hurt like that, being forced here, it has thrown everything into a different light. All the skills and power are still in him but he is reserved now. It's compacted in him. It's an immovable force. He fights it. He is supposed to be aggressive, proud and strong.
Instead he is everything now that he was told he should not be.
He has to ignore the shake in his fingers.
He works until his arms are warm and his mind starts to flicker with exhaustion. Exercising himself and Masamune fills an hour in the evening. The blade disappears from his grip. She slips away from his mind and he always has to take a moment to breathe and ignore the emptiness that comes. Quietly, he heads back down to his apartment.
Going to bed early is his preference. There is nothing else to do.
The weekends are torture.
Most Saturdays he will still come into the office but in the afternoons, he is forced back to his apartment.
He doesn't dwell on these days.
He's been cleared for limited duty. This means he deals with the minor monsters and skirmishes around Midgar when called for. Wutai is a far off dream. Mariella still does check ups and health evaluations on him but they barely speak. Lazard is someone he has to respond to as his superior. She is his doctor, yes, but her eyes see the pain in him and he says no more. There is nothing more to say.
Hojo has disappeared underground. This statement is literal. Sephiroth has access to some of the primary findings and reports about SOLDIER that come out of it. His stomach twists and he deletes the files. No matter how hard he looks, he cannot find more information on Orlin and his pride prevents him from asking Mariella anything. He doesn't want to ask for something that she will once again deny him. It hurt too much.
When they told him that he was to be permanently stationed in Midgar, part of him flickered once and guttered out.
That's when this pattern started to form heavy in his mind.
That's when his feet started to walk on their own and his fingers to type reports without any conscious thought.
That's when things finally fell into place.
He excludes everyone, cuts them off of him, leaves the wounds to scab and scar without further attention.
The fewer people he has to interact with, the better. Every new set of eyes is poison in his system that he has to work to dispel. He does not want to be noticed. He will walk this life without disturbance.
He wants to drown in it.