Chapter 78 - Attachment
1996-1999
It smells the same when Sephiroth steps off the carrier. The air is thick and rich from the surrounding forests. The humidity is higher. Black stretches out on the tarmac but it is the greenery that hurts his eyes. It is rich and healthy. He had forgotten how much it rains in Wutai. Memories start to settle back. The hopelessness of living here crawls over him again like a familiar blanket.
His feet stall and scrap against the ground. Sephiroth looks out but he's not sure where he is. It is as if he had never left. He's been recovered from the battle, still bleeding out and screaming to die.
"Home sweet home, right Sephiroth?" Genesis asks next to him, snapping him back to the present.
Sephiroth hums and doesn't answer directly. Home? Wutai is his home? It sits wrong. Even if it is a joke, it doesn't sit right with him. This was where his childhood withered and this version of him was born, dragging itself bloody, twisted and horrid from the ashes. Genesis watches his face and shrugs it off.
The troops file out of the carrier and Genesis takes care of them. Sephiroth stares out, watching the clouds move across the sky. He dreamed of coming back here and never leaving. He thought that this was where he was going to die. Now this doesn't feel like his open grave. This ground is not his final resting place. It is a place that he will leave. It is almost a happy thing to go back to Midgar.
Sephiroth sighs microscopically. The pressure leaves his spine. That anxiety has been there since Lazard decided with finality that it was time to send him back across the planet. Sephiroth didn't ask why. He didn't need to ask why. It is different. He feels different.
"This is an easy mission. You've got both of us with you." Genesis stands next to a Third pulled away from their battalion. A few fresh recruits are with them. The Third's helmet is off. He looks green. The rest of the men are standing together, laughing and trying to make it just another mission.
This one has thought too much. It's clear by his stuttered words that don't make sense but end in "sir".
"Sephiroth," Genesis says, "Come here."
"I doubt that is what he wants, Genesis." He walks over. The boots click and the jacket tugs on his shoulders. They are all dressed for battle. He cuts the figure they all expect. The power isn't as uneasy on his shoulders now. The Third is young and indiscriminate. His brown hair means nothing in the anonymous way that the flood of hopeful Thirds fill their ranks. They've started promoting directly to the remote villages. It worked.
"Hey, what rank is he?" Genesis points at Sephiroth.
If there was any color in this poor Third's face, it's gone in a moment. "He's a SOLDIER First Class, sir."
"And what rank am I?"
The SOLDIER's mouth opens and closes in horror with air, not words. Sephiroth decides to be impressed by this man's fortitude to still be standing.
"First."
Sephiroth notes the way that he cuts the title short like it is less. It is.
Genesis' hand comes down hard on Sephiroth's shoulder and it takes all his control not to push him off. "Correct. Same class. Now do you think that anything Wutai has can stop the two of us?"
"No, sir."
"Correct. Now it would be an insult for you to say otherwise," Genesis says, "You've done your training. You know what to do. We will handle the big things. Your job is to keep your head on straight and make sure none of the small fry get lucky."
Sephiroth decides not to talk about the nuances of the First rankings. After Genesis finishes talking, Sephiroth pushes off the grip. They may be doing better but there is still something called personal space that he would rather keep.
"Yes, sir." Those syllables are clearer. The SOLDIER's eyes actually leave his shoes.
"Good. Now back me up just like the idiots over there." Genesis slaps his shoulder. "Get going."
The Third is gone in a second. He sprints over to the other ones with his helmet tucked under his arm.
Their transport waves them down. They walk together towards it, easy next to each other. The mission itself is simple. The enemy is starting to break down. Wutai is starting to simply lose the battle of warm bodies.
It's just a matter of time and then this whole part of Sephiroth's life will come to an end.
"That was a terrible motivational speech," Sephiroth lets those words come out slowly so Genesis felt the full weight of every single one of them.
Genesis eyes him. "I believe that you are the wrong man to judge that."
"I can speak to them," Sephiroth says.
"In orders."
"Just like I do to you at times."
Genesis scowls and moves to walk in front of him. "By the goddess, don't remind me."
Sephiroth lets him go. Genesis gets his moment to think about that, to ruminate and make it worse in his head. Then he turns around, flips him off with a smile before turning back around to notice that the SOLDIERs attempting to all jam themselves in the truck at once. He yells something, half decorated with curses and hurries off in their direction. The red leather and sword catches the sun.
Sephiroth walks so he can watch. It is different. He's no longer alone.
The time away from the lab flows in between his fingers like sand. He thought that it would be impossible for him to not take this time for granted. Somehow it happened. Part of him blames Genesis and Angeal for this. They are distracting. Somehow when he thinks that there aren't any more boundaries that Genesis can cross, he finds them. The days of quietness have passed entirely. His phone has started to drain with messages.
He has weekend plans.
How can they be so inexplicably intertwined in his life?
How could time pass this quickly?
It's winter again. Snow has fallen. It clings to the window of Hojo's office. Sephiroth watches it. He wonders how thickly it will lay across the city. Will it stifle the people? When he looks out his window tomorrow morning, will he see nothing but white?
"You won't escape this conversation by looking out the window."
Hojo taps his light with his pen. It clicks painfully in his ears. It's the metal clip against the metal rod of the lamp. It vibrates high and tinny, pouring needles down his ears. Supposedly, unenhanced people would not be able to hear the scope of this sound. It wouldn't hurt them.
Hojo knows this.
And he raps the pen against the lamp even harder as Sephiroth focuses on him.
He fights the urge to wince.
"I am not trying to escape."
"Then don't waste my time."
Sephiroth looks at the paperwork on the tablet before him. A few are physically printed so he could take them home. The lines and the spreadsheet of the schedule are for the next few months. He can trace the days that he is expected to work, expected to rest, expected to fill his own time, expected to report to the lab and more disturbingly, the days that he will be expected to be in "recovery."
Someone even bothered to color code them.
"I don't want to lose my memory," Sephiroth says finally, "I would rather remain the way I am."
Hojo's frown is natural as he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. "More mako exposure will not make you lose your current memory. The methods used before were crude. It's been over a decade. Our methods now are much safer."
Sephiroth tries not to focus on the taxidermy behind his desk. The animals are stuffed in jars, their eyes white and clouded with age. Bones are wired together in a mockery of what they once were. The shelves aren't full. The specimens are spaced out and lovingly placed.
The rat has a snake grafted onto it.
He hopes it died first.
Hojo continues. "Do either one of your friends complain of lack of memory?"
Sephiroth doesn't grace that with an answer. He shouldn't have to.
Is this all just a show? He has to wonder. They both know that line will be signed and sealed with his thumb print before he leaves the room.
"Well?" Hojo pushes sharply.
"No."
"Then we have learned something today. The entire R&D is not, in fact, idiotic and we might know more than you do about the subject of mako and materia."
"I am proficient in magic."
"Magic?"
Sephiroth corrects himself. "Casting of materia."
"Ridiculous." Hojo leans across his desk and smiles. "Tell me, do you have a top hat as well?"
"Excuse me?" Sephiroth feels the tension in his throat. Hojo's eyes are drilling into him and he knows this look. Now there is a point to this conversation and it has to do with verbally berating him. Hojo wakes up fully to figure out the best way to trap Sephiroth with whatever this means.
"The power of the planet. It is an incredible force. You mock it calling it after the cheap parlor tricks done at a five year old's birthday party. No. Allow me to give you the benefit of the doubt. Are you a child at that party instead?"
Orlin taught this to him as magic. Sephiroth can still remember the first spell he had cast on his birthday. The way that it had soared in him that he could do it. It was his will that made that fire light. It was beautiful.
Sephiroth tries to keep himself calm. "I am not a child."
Hojo's fingers spread across the schedule as he lifts himself up to standing. He leans down to smile at Sephiroth.
"Are you a magician then?"
"I do not possess the skill."
"Are you an entertainer?" Hojo asks casually.
Hojo turns his head slightly as if inspecting him. Sephiroth stays still. He won't rise out of this chair because he is being intimidated. He doesn't look away. He doesn't dream of leaving now. The snow has been wiped from his mind.
"No."
"You are mistaken. You are. You act on command. You kill on our whim. You do what we say. You entertain us and you are paid to do so. Perhaps it is only suitable that you sully the world with your magic."
Sephiroth hates the way that hits. The way this truth rings in a way that he has not felt since the dark days of Wutai. He is more than their puppet now. He has become more than what this man dictates. The fear rolls through him anyways. The phantom pains of dying on that Wutai battlefield break the surface. He keeps it under control.
"I am a First Class SOLDIER." He responds evenly.
Hojo settles back in his chair with the same self serving grin. Sephiroth knows he gave no outward signs. Hojo could not know what was happening in his mind.
"Entertain me." A stylus skitters across the screen, drawing lines of black. "Sign the line."
That fear turns black into anger.
"What if I do not sign?" He asks because it is a way that he can push back.
"I'll procure it the way that I did the first one."
How can he say that so simply? That he will trigger another autoimmune attack right now and force yet another signature from his fingers?
"I am healthier."
Hojo's glasses reflect his face. "And I know every part of your simple life like a picture book memorized. Every reaction is predetermined. There are no variables. Your biology is mapped. Your behavior, your insecurities, your weaknesses, I know them all. Do you really wish to test me now?"
Sephiroth needs the medication that this man can give him. He needs him to help him get better. There is that faintest of hope that within all this barely hidden scientific probing, Hojo will stumble across his cure for the sake of Shinra.
Hojo throws up a hand, the game up. "Don't embarrass yourself and don't waste my time."
"I could stop you." It's a childish shove. They both know it. Hojo isn't even affected.
He laughs.
"Attacking the head of R&D? Please. That is a long way to fall." He pauses him, eyeing him. "Sign."
Sephiroth gives himself one moment to resist.
Then he takes up the pen.
And signs his name.
"Seph, the stars have always been there, I won't. Come on. We have a reservation."
Genesis.
Why is it always Genesis?
The unfortunate thing is there is not much that Sephiroth can do about this. Genesis shouting "Sephiroth" catches more attention than the more simple "Seph." It suits him better than the "Sam" that Genesis tried to grace him with once. He had started calling Genesis "Gerald" in response and that ended the discussion within five seconds and all proper names were restored.
Angeal stands between them.
They had reserved a restaurant's private room. Sephiroth has the idea that it is the same place that he dined with Rufus so long ago. They wouldn't know that and he wasn't about to share that he had almost had sex with the VP. They didn't even know his attractions.
What difference would it make?
From Sephiroth's estimation, very little would change besides the color of Genesis jokes. They are colorful enough already.
Angeal nods his head in his direction. "Do you want to be here? With us?"
Sephiroth holds his breath still standing on the sidewalk and looking up at the tower that has the restaurant on top. It's the night before his first exposure since childhood. They have him scheduled to arrive at six the next morning.
"Yes, I want this," Sephiroth says and believes it.
They were taking him out for "kiddie drinks and good food."
It's a distraction. None of them are under the illusion that it is anything else than the truth. Finally he moves his feet and approaches. It fills the hole in his chest. It drains the tension slowly but their constant chatter is distracting him. It's better than sitting in his apartment alone.
That twists in him.
It's better than being alone.
He is getting attached. He can see the way that he is leaning on them. He should be able to be alone yet he is not. This is his fear, he remembers like a shadow of a dream. These Firsts are supposed to die. He is supposed to lose them like he has lost every other member of the SOLDIER First Class, the Curse of the First and all that nonsense.
It had been years.
The war is waning.
They both stand waiting for him, still very much breathing and living. Two First Class SOLDIERs that want to spend time with him for being him, not their commanding officer. They've made this terrible situation somehow better and in some way that he doesn't understand they enjoy the experience.
It's friendship.
What a soft word.
He should be ashamed of it.
He can't be.
It fits too perfectly. They are the ones to help him through one of the longest nights of his life.