Title: Fingerprints
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud

Genre: Angst/Introspection
Warning: None
Chapter: 1/1
Comments: Just a writing exercise to loosen me up before trying to work on a particularly difficult scene of Twisted.

I think I should know how to make love to something innocent

without leaving my fingerprints on.

-Starstrukk, 3OH!3 feat. Katy Perry

Sephiroth watched the cadet while he trained. He was struggling. His smaller frame made wielding the standard issue blades next to impossible. His boyish face was dripping with sweat as he went through the routine over and over again, his muscles quivering from the effort. It was obvious that he was going to break any minute, his body spilling to the floor where he'd be left until he could struggle to his feet once more.

Sure enough, in a few moments the cadet's body thunked to the floor, the sound echoing through the empty gym. Sephiroth watched as the cadet wasted some of his strength pounding on the floor in frustration that his over taxed body wouldn't keep going. His enhanced eyesight picked up the tears clinging to the other's eyelashes as he screwed his face up in pain and tried to massage a cramping leg.

Sephiroth didn't want to move, didn't want to break the wall between voyeur and active participant. He watched the cadet suffer, his leg drawn up to his chest, and briefly imagined what could possibly happen if he intervened. The boy would probably look up in horror, attempt to get to his feet and feel ashamed when he couldn't salute a commanding officer. And if Sephiroth tried to help him to his feet, he could only imagine how the boy would feel. Useless, most likely.

So Sephiroth watched as the cadet forced himself to his feet and limped to the changing rooms, dragging the sword along the floor as he could no longer lift it.

It was better this way, he decided. Watching this particular cadet from afar, without him knowing he was being protected from above, was much better than him being scarred by Sephiroth's attentions. Sephiroth knew that nothing he touched remained unmaimed for long. Hojo found uses for things that distracted Sephiroth. The only thing Sephiroth had been allowed to 'keep' had been Zack Fair, and only then it was because it was too difficult to make a First disappear without suspicion.

No, Sephiroth was the voyeur and would remain that way, lest his touch left bruises on that straining, struggling cadet.