This piece has been a long time in coming. Not because I've been working on it for long- from start to finish, it took a day or two with classes and work to manage- but because every FF7 writer has to do an altered-history-what-if-Nibelheim-happened-differently story. This is mine. I felt like exploring what kind of impact this altered history would have on the characters in a more personal and medical way, rather than how it would impact history itself. This will be a chaptered fic, but I don't know how long.
Questions should be directed to me at once, as I think it will be easier to explain some things individually rather than trying to work it into the story and make it make the right kind of sense.
Enjoy!
((Many, MANY thanks to my wonderful beta underhandlilies, who puts up with my raving and caffeine-induced insanity for two hours almost every night. You are the best beta a girl could ask for, Tea Leaf.))
"You're taking him."
"No, I'm not."
"You don't have much of a choice."
Sephiroth snorted. "Yes, I-"
"War games. Three days from now. He's the only one not on assignment and not signed up for the games."
"Angeal, you can't honestly expect me to take any solider on a mission with me when he looks like that."
'That' happened to be a picture on Angeal's phone, of his young student curled up in bed with a stuffed Cactuar in his arms and a thermometer under his tongue. Even with poor picture quality, he looked unwell.
"He's almost over it. He'll be just about ready to go when you leave, and it's a two-day trip, Seph. He can sleep the whole way, and get a good meal and more rest when you get there. He'll be fine by the time you head up to the reactor."
Sephiroth scowled. Angeal was right, as he so often was; the assignment wasn't for another two days. The trip would take two more, and there would be a delay between their arrival in the afternoon and their trip up into the mountains the following morning. Nearly five days to rest and recover was more than enough for a SOLDIER at Zack's level.
"If you insist," he muttered, trying to retain some dignity.
"I do," Angeal chuckled. He put his phone away and patted Sephiroth's shoulder. "Just put him in a corner with a jacket for his head and let him sleep. You won't even know he's there."
/
Sephiroth did know Zack was there, because sitting close to him, preferably leaning on him, was apparently the most comfortable spot in the truck. He did sleep, though, snoring softly until Sephiroth briefly covered his mouth, just enough to change his breathing pattern. They repeated this exercise every few hours for two days.
Their arrival in Nibelheim was uneventful, though instead of Zack going to rest for the remainder of the afternoon, he vanished into the village with one of the support troopers. Sephiroth went up to the mansion to explore- and to find some peace and quiet. The long ride in a noisy truck, combined with the altitude, had given him a slight but nagging headache, and he wanted somewhere secluded to let it fade a little. Carrying a canteen and his phone, he vanished into the halls and rooms, wandering until he found a hidden passage…a library. Files with his name…
Zack found him after sunset, sound asleep at the desk he had carted his findings to. It had been dark and dank and unpleasantly suffocating down where he had found the files, and there had been a strange stink in the air that made his headache worse, so he had taken several trips to carry everything to a desk on the ground floor, where it was warm and reasonably lit and he could be comfortable after two days in the back of a truck. He didn't remember falling asleep, only many of the horrors he had learned and a woman's voice whispering to him.
"C'mon, we're gonna miss dinner," Zack urged, tugging at his arm. "Let's goooooooooo."
"I'd rather stay here."
"Bring your books with you, then. You need to eat. How long have you been up here?"
Sephiroth's two-quart canteen was empty. He didn't remember drinking any of it. He looked at it, then shrugged. "Long enough." He chose a few books he hadn't touched yet, and the completed files about him- a careful compilation of the other folders of observations and records. He wondered who had forgotten it, or if Hojo had another copy.
At dinner, his appetite roared to life, protesting the extended period with nothing but water, and he all but forgot about the files in favor of stuffing himself. He had enough energy remaining, after that, to shower and collapse in bed, holding a book he'd meant to start reading but hadn't even been able to crack.
/
Sleep came easily, and with it, dreams. Strange ones. Sephiroth squirmed and shifted in his sleep, fighting with strange, mutated monsters that became humans just seconds before he slaughtered them, standing over a ruin of a battlefield, watching a city burn…all with the voice of a woman speaking into his ear.
He was beautiful.
He was perfect.
He was her son, and so worthy of everything she had to offer him.
He was a god.
He could be god of this unworthy planet, if he wanted.
He could take revenge on all those who had hurt him.
He could…he was…everything blurred together eventually, and Sephiroth fell into a deep, restless sleep.
/
Morning came too. Damn. EARLY.
"Um…General? Sir?" Cadet Strife was a local, one of his support troopers, small, blonde, and prone to motion sickness. He'd spent most of the drive up in the passenger seat in an effort to curb his illness. Sephiroth had never met him, though Zack said he was nice. At that hour, Sephiroth didn't care if he was the nicest kid in the world.
"What?"
"Breakfast is ready. Z- Major Fair wanted me to check on you."
Apparently he'd slept through his alarm. Sephiroth sat up slowly, wincing as a stiff neck and back protested painfully. "I'll be down in a minute. My alarm must be malfunctioning."
The Cadet nodded and fled the room, leaving Sephiroth to groan and haul himself out of bed, wondering what he had done to himself to feel so bad in the morning. He hadn't been drinking. No strange drugs. No Mako shots. Nothing except…
"Zack, I am going to kill you."
The chance to kill Zack didn't come. The young SOLDIER cheerfully piled a plate high with breakfast for him, handed him a mug of coffee to occupy his other hand, and derailed any desire to kill him by dropping a bottle of painkillers beside Sephiroth's plate.
"You look like you need these," he remarked, leaning over to snitch a piece of bacon from Sephiroth's plate. "What's up? You don't usually sleep late."
"Headache," Sephiroth grunted. He took four of the pills- never mind Zack's warnings that he should take half that many- and washed them down with half his coffee. "Likely because Angeal insisted on me bringing you along while you were still sick."
"You think you're sick?" Zack put the half-eaten bacon down and pressed his wrist to Sephiroth's forehead. "Shit. You do feel kind of warm. Maybe we should postpone the mission? Just in case?"
"Unlike you, Major, I am capable of functioning under less than perfect conditions. And as my system is more heavily modified than yours, I doubt this will progress beyond a headache. Be prepared to move out on time."
"Um…"
"That's an order, Major."
"Yes sir."
Sephiroth finished his breakfast in silence.
/
They drove as far as was possible, then left the truck with one of the support troopers and headed up the mountain path. Sephiroth had been dismayed to find that he felt nauseous on the ride up, and was only somewhat calmed when the fresh air on the trail helped settle his stomach.
The hike up to the reactor was miserable. Cloud explained that usually the few trucks that came in for maintenance and such came from the other side of the range, through a different pass, and that the trip took several days, off-road capability, and camping. Walking was easier, and preferred by all but a few of the maintenance worked and researchers who dealt with the reactor. Sephiroth didn't really care. All he could think about was that it would be a downhill trip on the way back, and he wouldn't have to worry about his shaking legs giving out. Even Zack, the perpetual fount of energy, was cowed by the incline and effort required to traverse it, and Cadet Strife seemed to be the only one not suffering.
The voice in his head grew louder when they reached the mouth of the entrance tunnel, and while Sephiroth was still pondering the reason for this, they came across several specimen pods set into the wall, long tubes presumably full of Mako running back towards the reactor.
Zack opened one, assuming, as they all did, that there would either be partially formed Materia or an empty interior revealed to them.
The thing that flopped out, hanging in midair because of the tubes and wires connected to it, was not a Materia. It looked like it had once been human, possibly, but one lung and what appeared to be its heart were outside the chest, moving sluggishly. The skin appeared to have been burned or melted off, and as they watched, air contact with the slimy thing caused burns, then melting, then full degradation. Wires and tubes swung free as the thing slopped onto the floor in a puddle of thick fluid and assorted chunky bits.
Sephiroth threw up. He had time to stagger a few steps away from the pod before it happened, and to bend over to avoid soiling his clothes, and then it was upon him, wave after wave of crippling nausea, each culminating in another tight clenching in his belly and another painful retch. He stumbled over to the opposite wall to support himself, briefly wondering why Zack wasn't fussing over him until he realized that the only one of their party not heaving up their breakfast was Zack, and even he looked rather green.
Eventually, it took Zack carting each one of them further into the tunnel, away from the remains of the specimen, to get all three of them to calm down. Sephiroth had to lean on Zack as they went, feeling weak and dizzy and wondering if there was anything left in his stomach. It felt like there might be. Good. He hated working on an empty stomach.
"Wh…what was that?" Cadet Strife asked softly.
"That," Sephiroth growled, "was a blatant lie, an act of cruelty, and likely a man who 'went missing' on an assignment."
"That was a man?" Private Jameson asked, voice shaking.
"I believe so, yes."
"And he was still…"
"Alive. Until the air hit him and set off a reaction in the Mako he was soaking in. Apparently he wasn't…done."
Private Jameson threw up again. Sephiroth's stomach turned at the sight.
"We will destroy any other specimens we find- on the way out. No need to make a mess to wade through on the return trip."
"Yes sir."
Down the tunnel, past pod after pod. Zack and Cadet Strife checked those with viewing windows, finding that some did contain Materia in various stages of growth.
As they descended into the mountain, Sephiroth's headache grew worse. The voice in his mind was complaining about how he was slow and his brain full of fog, and he dimly wondered if that was because of whatever he had caught from Zack. He did feel extraordinarily fuzz-brained.
They emerged in the main chamber, and the voice in his head screamed. He drew his sword without a thought, staggering slightly with the weight of it on his tired body.
"Sir? What is it? Is there a-"
Masamune flicked, and Private Jameson was missing an ear and part of his cheek. Screaming, he fell back, clutching at his face.
Zack was on him in a moment, trying to wrest the sword from his hand.
"What the hell did you do that for? He didn't do anything!"
The voice screamed again, and Sephiroth struggled to keep his sword from rising again, shaking with the effort of controlling his own disobedient limbs.
MINE! You are mine, child, and if you are not the perfect specimen, then you will be the perfect host! Give yourself over to me and I will spare your mind.
The voice was coming from the same direction as the strange pull compelling him to move, pulling him to the clear, fluid-filled tank near the viewing platform over the reservoir. Sephiroth stepped towards it, flicking Masamune again. Cadet Strife screamed then, and a spell flashed towards him. A Freeze. Smart. Mako could explode on contact with open flame, but freezing it was perfectly safe.
"Seph, stop it! Don't…don't make me hurt you!"
He tried to cut at Zack, and found his voice then, screaming wordlessly as his body tried to bisect the young man. He couldn't control it, and he couldn't control the swing and thrust that sent the tip of his blade deep in Cadet Strife's thigh.
"Goddamn it!" Zack drew the sword off his back and faced off with Sephiroth, teeth gritted. "I dunno what's going on with you, but this has to end. Right now. You have one more chance to drop the sword."
The screaming in his head grew louder, and Zack faltered, one hand coming up to his head, touching his ear.
"Ah…fuck, what is that? It's like…someone screaming. Seph? Are you hearing this?"
KILL HIM! He is inferior!
"S-Stop me," Sephiroth whimpered. "Please."
He stepped, swung, staggered, fell to one knee, dizzy and uncoordinated. The voice shrieked with fury and his body jerked, slapping Zack across the side with the flat of his blade. The edges of it cut into his shirt and left faint traces of blood leaking onto the fabric.
"Stop you? What are you t- shit!" Zack leaped backwards, sword in his left hand, right arm cradled against his chest. A hunk of flesh slapped on the stone floor, sliced off of the man's bicep as if off a roast.
The voice was in the tank, Sephiroth realized. His reading…Jenova…her remains. No one knew exactly what she was capable of…
"In the tank!" he cried, struggling to his feet. "Destroy it! Do it!"
"But-" Zack was forced to raise his sword in a last-minute block as Sephiroth honestly tried to behead him. "Cloud! Go!"
The little blonde trooper darted around Sephiroth and Zack, sprinting for the tank. Sephiroth's body jerked, trying to follow, and Zack opened up his side, fully capturing the attention of the thing in his head once more.
Insolent CHILD! How dare you defy your own mother?
Silently, Sephiroth screamed that she wasn't his mother, because he had had a biological mother listed in his files and her name was not Jenova.
You belong to me, boy. You were made for me and of me and you will OBEY!
Cadet Strife swung his sword against the tank. The thick glass cracked, leaking thin dribbles of fluid.
YOU DARE ATTACK ME?
The screaming became so loud it was physically painful. Sephiroth bit his lip to distract himself, hardly feeling when his teeth cut through the skin and met in the middle. He stumbled again, heard Zack cry out as his sword hit home again, felt the younger man's blade slice into his bicep, an obvious attempt at disarming him.
"Kill her," he gasped, lisping with the damage to his lip and the blood flooding his mouth. His vision was blurring, likely because of the pain in his skull. "Hurry."
"What? Kill who- holy shit!"
The tank shattered under another strike, and a flood of fluid and broken glass washed around their ankles. What remained was an armless torso and attached head wearing some kind of metal helm, suspended by wires and tubes. The only resemblance to it that Sephiroth could see in himself was the silvery white hair hanging lank and wet around the creature's face.
"That?"
Something sank sharp claws into Sephiroth's brain and squeezed. He screamed, falling forward as Zack struck at him again, his scream turning into a cry of surprise and a different kind of pain when he caught Zack's sword in the thick muscle of his thigh. The blade sunk deep, and the deeper, jarring pain told Sephiroth it had scored the bone.
"Killherkillherkillher god PLEASE!" Sephiroth wailed. One of his hands released Masamune and came up, slapping over his mouth. He bit at it, teeth slipping in blood from his lip, feeling the pain from it even if he couldn't move it himself.
"Ah…fuck!" Zack rushed away, sword swung back, heading for the tank and the little cadet before it, slashing at the tubes and wires holding the body within.
NO!
Sephiroth struggled to his feet, staggering sideways, favoring his injured leg, arm shaking and hands slipper with blood, heading after Zack to blindly protect the creature in the tank. With his mouth uncovered, he screamed desperately, at himself to stop, at her to stop trying to kill his troops, at Zack and Cadet Strife to hurry up and kill it already.
Zack leaped, swung…his blade came down square on the creature's head. The helm split.
Time slowed to a crawl. Through dimmed eyes, Sephiroth saw the metal cut into skin, into bone, cutting straight down through the skull and sinking deep into the neck with a thick, sludgy sound.
The thing in his mind screamed once more, and he could almost feel it scrabbling, clinging desperately to his brain as it was drawn back into the dying body.
"MORE!" he shouted hoarsely. "Destroy it!"
Zack cut the body from the remaining tubes. It hit the floor with a sloppy splat and both Zack and Cadet Strife set to hacking at it. Zack went so far as to stamp on parts that came too close, crushing bone under his boots.
There was a final burst of pain in Sephiroth's head, leaking out to burn through his limbs. Blood dripped from his nose. He swallowed, dropped Masamune, found he had control of his own body again, and collapsed on hands and knees, trembling.
Zack used the flat of his blade to shovel the mangled remains of an alien invader into the reactor, and as they hit the Mako, Sephiroth shuddered and began to vomit, feeling each piece hit and burn and ultimately dissolve into nothingness.
"That's the last of it." Zack's voice was tight and shaky. "You okay, Cloud?"
"Y-yeah. The bleeding's almost stopped. Where did Jameson go?"
"Booked it back out to the pass, I think. Seph? You okay, sir?"
"He…he doesn't look too good."
"Shit. Here, hold this. And get his sword while you're at it." Zack clomped over and knelt at Sephiroth's side, one big hand gently touching his shoulder. "Sephiroth?"
Sephiroth whined softly. He had quickly run out of anything to vomit up, but that wasn't stopping his body from trying.
"Okay, okay, hang on. Lemme just sit you up. Calm down." Zack drew him up onto his knees, holding him gently and stroking his back. "Breathe, Seph. Breath."
He coughed weakly and leaned against Zack. Now that the fighting was over, his shakes had turned into shivers from chills he hadn't noticed previously.
"You're gonna have to tell me what happened later," Zack murmured. "But right now I think…" He hesitated, then pulled his glove off and touched Sephiroth's forehead. "Oh, fuck, you've got a fever. Um…okay, sit tight, I'm gonna heal you real quick and we're getting out of here."
Sephiroth nodded and let Zack move him against the wall. The Heal sealed the holes in his thigh and his bicep, soothed the pain in his side, and left his lower lip smooth and whole again. He listened while Zack healed himself and Cadet Strife as well. No one had died. Not like in his dreams.
"Okay, we're outta here. Can you walk, sir?"
He struggled to his feet, swaying, and reached for a support. Zack guided his hand to his shoulder and smiled faintly. Together, they walked back down the tunnel towards daylight. Judging by the angle of the sun, they had been inside less than an hour. It had felt like an eternity.
"Wait," he whispered as they reached the wide staging area right outside the tunnel's mouth. He pulled away from Zack, raising the arm with his bangle on it. He concentrated, finding it rather difficult to force energy into it, then fired off the most powerful Flare he could manage. Something deep in the reactor exploded, and he smiled thinly. "Now we can go."
As the spell completed, he felt his energy drain out with it, and he was unconscious before he hit the ground.
/
It took hours and a lot of near-disasters to get Sephiroth back to the truck. In the end he was laid out carefully in the back of it and braced by Zack on the drive back to town.
Back at the inn, Sephiroth was stripped down, the blood was cleaned off his body, and he was tucked into bed. Zack chased Cloud and Jameson out of the room and tended to Sephiroth himself, carefully coaxing water and weak tea into him, waiting for him to wake up.
After two days, Sephiroth had woken only partially, eyes opening in a delirious haze as he fought his way out of a fever dream, or when he struggled upright to make uncomfortable, breathy sounds and throw up.
Zack called for a medical evacuation and sent Cloud and Jameson back to Midgar with the truck.
/
When Sephiroth woke up, there was an IV in his arm, one with two tubes running into it, and assorted other medical bits and bobs attached to his body. He was naked except for a horribly inadequate hospital gown, hair gathered up into a braid lying against his side like a rope. He felt…weak. Weak and empty and sick because of the emptiness. He shifted, trying to get more comfortable and possibly into a position that didn't feel as vulnerable, and wound up setting off some kind of alarm- a pressure sensor, he assumed, since the shrill noise it made didn't sound panicked the way a emergency alarm ought to. He cringed, covering his ears and shying away from the side of the bed closer to the alarm, and finally pulled a pillow over his head to block out some of the racket.
Footsteps on the tile. Someone talking to him. He growled softly in response, determined to keep the pillow over his head until the alarm was turned off.
Blessed quiet. He lifted the pillow, finding himself faced with two nurses and a rather harried-looking doctor. He was summarily interrogated, checked over, given a laundry list of orders, and informed that he would be allowed to leave in the morning. No one bothered to tell him what was going on, or what had happened.
He sighed and settled back down, trying to sleep until morning came with his freedom.
/
Morning did come, and with it, Professor Hojo. He barged into the private room without so much as a warning, storming over to Sephiroth's bed with fury written all over his face.
Normally Sephiroth would flinch away or at least tense up at Hojo's approach, but he was just too tired to do so, so he remained where he was, lying on the bed, and blinked at the man who had walked in his nightmares for as long as he could remember.
"How dare you," Hojo hissed. "How dare you murder your own mother. How dare you destroy my specimen!"
What followed was a tirade that largely focused on how useless Sephiroth himself was, and all the things Hojo was going to do to him once he had been cleared for duty and therefore for his regular Mako boosters. He ranted and raved and screamed at Sephiroth, threatening a hundred punishments.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sephiroth's throat tightened. He was briefly worried that he was going to vomit, but the tightening was accompanied by hot prickling in his eyes, and right after that, tears, trickling down his cheeks without so much as a by-your-leave. He was crying.
As a child, Sephiroth had been taught that crying was bad, and when he couldn't stop himself from doing it, he thought something was wrong with him. It had taken Angeal and Genesis several years to convince him that it was natural, something the body did when it was hurting. He had come to accept it when he was in pain, but he had never understood crying for other reasons, so it was a nasty surprise when his breath hitched in a sob right there in front of Hojo. Blushing with embarrassment, he covered his mouth, looking down at his knees and hoping he hadn't been heard.
He had. Hojo grabbed his chin and forced him to look up. He sneered.
"You're even more worthless than I thought," he said nastily. "Your mother would be heartbroken…if you hadn't killed her."
"Jenova was not my m-mother." Another sob made him stutter, but he pressed on, angry that Hojo had lied to him about such a thing. "I had a human mother. You married her."
"Her? She was simply a convenient womb for you to grow in. Jenova was your true mother." Hojo idly checked the charts on the wall beside the bed. "Hmh. They baby you here. You will come to the labs when you are released, and I will do what I can to correct the…damage that has been done."
Sephiroth sniffled and swallowed another sob, blinking rapidly in a failed attempt to stem the flow of tears.
"Honestly, I never expected you to be this much of a failure."
Sephiroth was still crying with Angeal padded in with a cup of coffee and the news that he was there to take Sephiroth home. In the minutes since Hojo had left, Sephiroth had sat up and curled in on himself, head resting on his knees, sobbing quietly, afraid of what it meant that he couldn't stop crying. Perhaps something really was wrong with him. Maybe he did need to be fixed.
Something was set down on the bedside table, and a familiar hand touched his back. He made a desperate sound and flung himself at Angeal, hugging him as tightly as the IV would allow and sobbing into his shirt.
"M-Make it stop," he whimpered.
Angeal seemed as shaken as Sephiroth felt, but he wrapped strong arms around him and kissed his hair anyway, drawing him close. "Make what stop? What's wrong?"
"The tears. I can't…I c-can't make them stop coming."
"They'll stop on their own."
"But…but I don't want-"
"Shhh. Just let it happen. It will be over when it's over."
Sephiroth whimpered miserably and hid his face. Angeal shifted him around a little and gently stroked his hair until the sobs slowed, then stopped, the tears dried up, and Sephiroth was left trembling, red-eyed, and sniffling.
"Feel better?"
"I don't know."
Angeal sighed and released Sephiroth, getting up slowly. He leaned out the door to flag down a nurse, then returned to the bed, offering the coffee he'd brought. "What made you cry?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? No idea, even?"
"Hojo was in here, scolding as usual. It just…started in the middle of that. I've never done that before."
"Too much stress," Angeal said firmly.
"What?"
"You work too damn hard."
The nurse showed up then, and the conversation had to wait while Sephiroth's IV was removed and the assorted machines were unhooked. One final check, to ensure that his temperature was normal and he didn't seem to be in danger of falling down dead, and he was allowed to leave. Angeal had brought clothes by some time before he'd woken, so he was dressed, and thankfully allowed to walk with Angeal standing close rather than deal with a wheelchair. He was silent on the way out of the hospital, out to the car, and on the drive back to Angeal's apartment until Angeal spoke up.
"Seph?"
"Mmm?"
"What happened? At Nibelheim."
"Ask Zack."
"I did. Repeatedly. So has everyone else. But he doesn't know what caused anything, only that you apparently went postal and tried to kill him and your troopers while screaming at them to destroy some specimen in a tank. And that once it was gone, you calmed down, got out of the reactor, cast Flare on something in the tunnel, and passed out."
Sephiroth bit his lip. There was no scar, but he remembered biting through it. "I don't want to talk about it, Angeal."
"You need to, though."
"I don't care."
"Would you rather tell me and Zack, or wait until the president or a member of the board comes after you, looking for answers?"
Sephiroth opened his mouth to answer, then made a soft sound and closed it again, vision blurring. He ground his fists into his eyes, forcing the tears away. "I don't want to talk about it yet, alright? I don't even know how I got back to Midgar."
Angeal sighed. "I can tell you that, at least. Do you want to pick up something to eat on the way home?"
"I guess."
They went through a drive-through. Coffee all around, doughnuts, and a fruit cup each as a healthy afterthought. Angeal chewed thoughtfully on a bite of apple fritter before starting to talk.
"According to Zack, after they got you back to the inn in Nibelheim, you spiked a fever over 104. You drank when he gave you fluids, but you couldn't eat, you weren't waking up, and you threw up repeatedly. He called a chopper to come in and rush you back to base. You've been home for a little over a week- they actually had you sedated for the first few days while they worked on bringing your fever down, and then it was just a matter of waiting for you to wake up." He smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry I made you take Zack. I didn't mean to get you sick."
"You didn't know," Sephiroth said stiffly. "I think…I think it was for the best."
Angeal sighed and stuffed the rest of his fritter into his mouth to free his hands up for driving, and nothing more was said for a while.
/
Sephiroth hadn't wanted to sleep, but shortly after arriving at Angeal's apartment, he found himself dozing off on the couch in spite of the two cups of coffee he'd had that morning. Reasoning that he'd been very sick, he allowed himself to sleep once more.
/
Late afternoon light was slanting through the window in thick gold slices when Sephiroth woke up. It did nothing to help him- he had woken straight from a dead sleep, heart pounding in his throat, entire body geared up for a fight, deeply afraid of…something. He panted like a winded chocobo, struggling to get a hold of himself, and was still trying when Angeal wandered in.
"Hey, I heard- Sephiroth? What is it? Are you alright?"
"I…I-I-I…" Sephiroth swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. He was shaking. Why was he shaking? Why was he afraid? "I just…I…"
Angeal frowned and knelt beside the couch, reaching to touch Sephiroth's face. He shied away from the touch for reasons he couldn't name, making a thin, frightened sound.
"Seph? It's okay. It's just me."
Sephiroth swallowed again, felt the fear begin to lessen, then hid his face as another flood of tears overwhelmed him without a warning. Angeal's hand came to rest on his shoulder and he jerked away.
"Don't touch me."
"But-"
"Don't. I'm not…I'm n-not a child."
"Did you hear me say that you were?"
"N-No. But I d-don't need to be comforted."
"Why not?"
"Because…" Sephiroth trailed off. There was no because. He didn't know why he didn't want to be touched or comforted or told that it was alright. Something in him did want that. Confused and frightened by the confusion, he stood up, still shaky on tired limbs, and stepped away from Angeal.
"Where are you going?"
"I n-need a shower. I'm…sweaty."
"What you need is to talk about this."
"No. I need a shower." Sephiroth swayed, then caught himself and vanished into the bathroom.
He felt better about crying when there was already water flowing over his face.