Chapter 91 - Careful Choices
December, 2000
Genesis Rhapsodos killed both his parents.
Angeal Hewley slaughtered his remaining mother.
All Sephiroth could think to do was walk.
The loss of it is incomprehensible.
How could they kill people so precious?
So he walks.
A pointless action as he haunts the upper level of Midgar, tracing the lifelines of the city in the middle of the night. Zack Fair came back with Banora in flames behind him. Sephiroth sat in the room for the debrief and stared at a smudge of ash on Zack's cheek. Something had left Zack's eyes when he reported that both Genesis and Angeal "seemed kinda…wrong."
What "kind of wrong" could have someone kill their own parents?
The houses and apartments around him go dark. The street lights dim. The stars flood in the darkness of the sky. He shouldn't be doing this. It is unnaturally cold. The deepest parts of winter are settling into the bones of the city and even this cold hurts him. Mako can only do so much and his body has been reaching a new equilibrium. The thin shirt and pants can't hold up to the winter. He didn't stop for a coat. He didn't care to. Let the cold burn.
Still he walks because he is unable to stop the bleeding in him. The pieces do not fit together. How could they do that? How could they kill their true family when he had none? Regardless of their opinions of them, they were still something significant. A part of a life that could not be replaced if removed.
Perhaps, he thinks as he walks a city street staring at the neon "closed" signs, he did not understand the people that he associated with. How could that hurt even more? They deceived him for years then but it felt wrong. Was he so broken that he missed years of acting?
There are only a few residents on the street as he slips into a neighborhood. They avoid him. Simply by height and bulk alone, he is something to fear. At some point, he is sure that he needs to walk back to his apartment. Frostbite could be healed if needed but he should change his clothes before he goes back into work. Some appearances need to be kept.
He loses himself to walking anyways.
Eventually he gets caught like a stick in a river. A small park snags him. The trees hang dark and empty against the sky. A round walking path becomes the track he goes on, his mind circling further and further downward. For all the people who live on the plate, it feels like one of the emptiest places on the continent.
Except for her, of course.
Tonight she haunts him.
The woman appears and disappears. Sometimes she walks in his periphery of his vision, keeping pace and trying to attract his attention. Her feet are soundless on the ice and snow. Feathers trail her before they get left behind. Other times she appears standing in front of him. He simply side steps around her. Her expression is always the same.
Wanting.
She wants him to address her. It's clear in her eye and the way that she persists, appearing over and over again. Something will happen if he does so. The ghost will no longer be a ghost. The thing that he dreamt snapped Hojo's neck will have a reality, for better or worse. A problem or a savior, it hangs in equal balance.
By the gods, he's too numb to even try. There is nothing left in him but the ache. He has nothing to give her. Not tonight.
So he walks on and waits for something to stop him.
She eventually fragments and disappears into the background.
It's the chattering of teeth behind him that draws him back.
Sephiroth pauses. Turning on the path, he looks. Between the shadows thrown by the streetlight, a man, a real person, stands behind him. The Turk stopped hiding himself hours ago. The tail is about thirty feet back, dressed in a thick black coat, hat and blowing into cupped hands. The air is a bloom of frost around his gloves.
"When are you going to stop following me?" Sephiroth asks.
The Turk doesn't even pretend to panic. He just looks up. The black hat catches the light. The eyes underneath are sharp as he sucks in another breath and blows it out over his fingers. The scarf pulled up over his chin is puzzled with white.
"Dunno. When are you going to go fuckin' home?" The shivers rattle in his voice.
Sephiroth blinks. "I know you."
"Yeah. You do."
The Turk doesn't move as Sephiroth walks up to him. The figure starts to look more and more familiar. He waits until they are close before he says his name.
"Reno."
Reno shrugs and drops his hands into his pockets. "The one and only but this one is freezing his ass off."
Another roll of shivers go through him. It's so incredibly human. Sephiroth knows how still he is. It registers in him that he is freezing but it is remote. Sephiroth doesn't permit it. He remains operational. Reno's teeth chatter and he shifts his weight uncomfortably. His fingers dig into a pocket. Redness has spread across his cheeks.
What must it be like to feel this cold like that?
"Do you truly think I am going to betray Shinra enough that I might decide to do it in the dead of night?"
Reno laughs and pulls a lighter and pack from his coat. "Fuck no but the Turks don't like SOLDIERs now. You are causing too much havoc."
"So you get to follow me."
"I don't want to be here, buddy." Reno's lips slur the words around the butt of the cigarette that he sticks between his teeth.
"And I am not your friend."
"Don't I know it?" A hoarse laugh comes out of him.
The lighter clicks twice but the flint won't light. Reno's thumb keeps sliding off the wheel. He mutters a curse and shivers again. It's because of him that he is out here. Sephiroth holds out his hand. His palm waits empty for a minute before the lighter gets slapped into it.
"Aren't you tracking my phone?" Sephiroth leans in, cups the top from the breeze and snaps a flame into existence. The orange lights up Reno. The contours are sharp and his face is wary as he dips forward. The relief is immediate as end lights and he sucks in his first breath of smoke.
"No comment." He says high and whiny with his eyes closed.
Sephiroth looks at the barrel of the lighter and the dragon carved on the outside shines in the moonlight. The steel is solid and cold in his hands. This place feels insulated. The embers of the cigarette flare red as Reno takes another breath.
He tosses his head to the side and blows the smoke away from him.
"You are in a shit place, Sephiroth."
"Am I?" He wraps his fingers around the illustration and squeezes it enough to feel it bite into his skin.
Reno squints at him as the cigarette lights up his cheeks and puts fire in his eyes. "Everybody and nobody wants you."
"That is a way to put it."
"Don't you get tired of it?"
Sephiroth pauses. The truth is so simple and he can't say it.
"We all have our own burden to bear." It comes out soft. He half turns and takes a step. When Reno eases forward into a walk, Sephiroth continues down the path. He plays with the lighter, turning it over and over in his hands. It's a rhythm he can focus on.
Reno walks next to him silent as they take to walking the circular path around the park. He's still shivering but the smoking has done something. They ease into a strange silent companionship.
Eventually it has to end.
"So did…you…with them?"
Sephiroth's stomach drops. He didn't want this. They could have walked in silence for hours. He flips the lighter over in his hands.
"Who?" He asks because it is better than answering.
Reno snuffs and wipes his face with his sleeve.
"Genesis and Angeal. One of them? Both of them? Rufus is good at spreading rumors."
"Is he now?"
Reno looks at him. "Yeah."
He thinks he is being clever. Sephiroth opens his palm and looks at the lighter. The dragon's mouth is open. Fire drools out of it. The design in the back is of Wutai. His chest aches in frustration. It could be the cold but it is the words. It sits heavy on him. They all want to be right about him.
To all of them, he is not their friend.
No, it is becoming a tragedy in their eyes. Sephiroth was a toy, a lover, picked up and thrown away.
It must be simply impossible for him to have friends that like him for who he is. They, like everyone else, must have simply wanted him for his body. It doesn't matter that neither one of them ever touched him like that. It's humiliating.
His mind starts to look for how this is all his fault.
He should have seen signs.
Or perhaps Rufus is right and he is too weak to see those signs.
"These rumors are baseless." Sephiroth tosses the lighter away into the darkness of the park.
Reno stops. "Hey, I really liked that one."
"Go get it," Sephiroth says, "I am going back to my apartment."
The Turk doesn't follow him as he walks away.
The frustration doesn't leave. It follows him now throughout the day. It sits at a low level under his skin like a snake working its way through his body. Sometimes it is in his hands and his fingers won't stop curling into fists. Other times it twists around his spine until it might break.
They don't understand him. Even Lazard with his smile and confident way of leading has been grating. It is harder and harder to dip his head and take orders. Without the other Firsts, all the work is on him and it sucks on him like a cancer.
Sephiroth starts to say no more often for the brief burst of joy it gives him. It is the safest way to protest. Yet, that agency turns into an addiction. In a way, he seizes control of his life. He does not do things that he doesn't want. It makes him feel something, a bittersweet excitement, a break from the monotony of grief.
What could they do? SOLDIER needed him to fight the people that he held nearest to heart.
His actions spread like an infection.
The rumors start first and they are followed by the facts. Red angry strings of truth trace through the ranks. He hears them and he pretends to ignore them. The SOLDIERs start to think of him as spoiled. They think he is a child refusing duty. A man uninterested in his life's work.
Strangely enough, he doesn't care.
These choices have consequences.
Sephiroth expects it and waits for them.
It's Mariella who addresses it directly. Sephiroth has no doubt that it is Lazard the reason for it.
"Sephiroth." She sits in his office when he arrives. He knows she sees through him into the mess that is inside.
"Yes?"
She waits to speak again until he closes his door. He goes to his desk but stops next to her. She stands and digs her fingers into one of the arms of the chair. Her frame has lost weight. SOLDIER has been forcing men from exposure to exposure trying to fill up the ranks. She's been overworking. Yet another thing that he has no control over.
"You just have to hold out for a little bit longer," she whispers.
He sighs and shakes his head. "I'm not sure the worth of this anymore, Mariella."
He sees that dig deep. She moves forward a step, something verging on suppressed worry in her.
"What about the three of you?"
Sephiroth stares her dead in the eyes. "I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no 'three' left. It is them. It is me. Separate."
They are alone. She still glances around.
"I took care of the bugs this morning," he says. Finding the small circles of ears and eyes that move into his office overnight has become one of his favorite chores. The day after his walk with Reno, one of them had a small note attached to it. It simply said: I lost that lighter, asshole.
That made him chuckle. He kept the note. It lives in one of his empty drawers.
Mariella still comes close enough that she could touch him. "Once we are done, I know you want to go after them."
Sephiroth stares at her openly. After the surgery. While there had been ideas of what he would do after, the truth is that all his hopes had all somehow involved Genesis and Angeal. Since that is no longer an option, that future has become blurry and ineffective. A piece of his life that he treasured but now is only another piece of trash.
He has still been stumbling towards it because it was simply something to do.
Going after them, betraying Shinra that deeply, it had not struck him.
"You know there is nothing left for you here. It's not safe anymore," She says it like they have had this conversation before. They had not. She looks around again.
Would they even want him?
"…you need to be careful until then."
Sephiroth sounds breathless. "So do you."