So yeah, I'm alive and all. Here's what's been keeping me away from all of you lovely people: summer school (composed of 2 separate 5-week sessions), getting a job, losing that job, looking for another job, Camp NaNo (quit at the 10 day mark to preserve my sanity), the Kingdom Hearts BigBang challenge, looking for a new place to live (no luck yet), and submitting my applications for graduation and for a potential position at a botanics in Scotland.

But you have not been forgotten!

Be warned: this chapter is a little mature, and alludes to activities that are VERY mature. Oh, and Seph's quirks are coming out again.

Enjoy!

Sephiroth returned to his own apartment shortly after noon, dropped off near the base gates by an army escort and left to walk the rest of the way back to his officer's quarters in the residential corner of the base. Angeal and Genesis kept pushing him to move off base, but he had always felt it was best if he stayed close, where he could be in the tower or on the field in minutes if he was needed. Now, however, faced with the dull gray building in a shadowy corner of the base, he thought they might be right.

They were definitely right. Dust had already settled all over the place, happily taking over during the nearly two weeks since he'd last cleaned. Not that there was much for the dust to settle on. Sephiroth was forced to endure random room inspections, as per Hojo, and had long since taken to hiding a few precious possessions with Angeal and Genesis. His own quarters were Spartan at best, decorated by a few framed recruiting posters with pictures of him, Angeal, and Genesis on them, and a fake plant he'd bought because he wanted real ones but didn't trust himself to keep them alive. Nearly everything was in shades of grey, with very few exceptions. Despite the dust and the musty smell, it felt sterile and unwelcoming. Claustrophobic. Sephiroth swallowed uneasily.

The next two hours were dedicated to frantic cleaning. He bustled around the little apartment, cramming week and a half old laundry into the washer, wiping every flat surface down with a dusting cloth or a sponge and cleaning solution, attacking his three windows with a rag and more cleaning solution, rearranging his collection of books on war history alphabetically by region, and throwing out most of the food in his fridge, long desiccated, grown fuzzy, or frozen solid by the inconsistencies of the machine.

In two hours, he didn't feel a bit better. Clean, the apartment pushed in on him. Freshened up, it was free to fill itself with the wartime smells of oiled leather, polish and cleaning supplies for his sword, and chemicals. With al the lights on it felt as open and invasive as a lab, and with the lights dimmed, he wondered what might hide in the corners where light didn't fall.

So he cleaned himself after that. It didn't help. Next on the list was groceries; half an hour on the website of the service he used left him with the promise of fresh food in his future, but nothing to do now except a stack of files a cadet had dropped off. Most of them had his name on them, so either Genesis' papers hadn't made it or there hadn't been many of them to start with.

Paperwork took six straight hours, with one pause to answer the door and take the first half of his grocery order. Back to work with a bottled coffee, and by ten, the groceries were put away, the paperwork was finished, the apartment was spotless, his laundry was clean and put away, and the only personal hygiene activity he hadn't participated in already was shaving.

Carrying another bottled coffee and squirming with the tense itching on either side of his upper spine, he slipped out of the building and picked his way across the base, guiltily avoiding night guards on his way to the tower. He went in through the rear entrance, slunk past the guards there, and took the elevator every other six floors to avoid more guards but also to avoid taking all seventy four floors by the stairs, since that totaled a painful number of individual steps somewhere around 1500.

Rufus Shinra's personal suite took up a hefty portion of the seventy-fifth floor to the right of the staircase. Sephiroth had a passkey to access the private part of it, and entered through the main door opening off of his public office. The rooms beyond were comfortably appointed, warm, and smelled comfortingly familiar. He took his boots off in the entry and padded into the living area on silent socked feet, intending to nap the night away on one of the sinfully squashy couches. He could be gone before Rufus even woke up. With this in mind, he fetched a blanket from the trunk being used as a coffee table and curled up at the end of a couch, sipping slowly at his coffee. It was easier to relax in Rufus' quarters. Easier to ignore the press of the walls with the big windows offering visual escape. Just…easier.

"Sephiroth? What are you doing up h-"

Sephiroth hit the roof. Literally, unfortunately, as the first syllable of his name had startled him into a spray of blood and feathers, and the combination of long legs and powerful wings was more than enough to launch him straight up into the ceiling. The impact, however, stunned him long enough to him to crumple back onto the couch- and into the puddle of coffee from the dropped bottle. Groaning, he clutched his head, opening one eye enough to see Rufus leaning over the couch and staring at him.

"You have wings."

"I do," he groaned.

"You got blood and feathers all over my living room."

"I'm sorry."

"What are you doing up here?"

"I hate my quarters."

Rufus blinked. "I thought you liked living there."

"I did, I…I don't know. The walls were closing in. I needed to leave."

"I suppose that's reasonable. When did you get wings?" Rufus moved around the couch and gently helped to fold one of Sephiroth's wings up. "You're bleeding."

"This morning," Sephiroth grunted. He managed to get the first wing folded with help, but the second one had been landed on wrong, or had hit something. When he tried to fold it up, it sent dull throbbing pain running down his spine. He flinched and let it hang. "Am I?"

"Rather profusely. Off the couch, please, let's take this somewhere more easily washed."

Sephiroth got up and rather unsteadily followed Rufus into the kitchen, where he leaned heavily against the counter while the blonde pressed wet dishtowels against the broken, bleeding skin around the base of his wings.

"I suppose you aren't going to talk to me about what happened in the reactor, are you?"

"I'd rather not."

"Mmm." Rufus rinsed a washcloth, squeezed most of the water out, and reapplied it. "I can't make you. But will you tell me something?"

"Depends on what 'something' is."

"Do you think you're going to be alright?"

Sephiroth took a shaky breath. It was a hard question to answer. He was sprouting extra body parts at the drop of a hat, his own home felt alien and uncomfortable, he cried at the slightest provocation, he was full of a nervous energy and he knew there was alien matter in his body. His entire life had been a lie, but what did it matter? He wasn't human anyway.

"I…I don't know."

"You don't know because you don't want to tell me, or you don't know because you haven't had time for things to sink in yet and you have no idea where you stand right now?"

"The second one."

"Then I suppose that's an acceptable answer." He lifted a towel and scowled. "You're still bleeding. Shouldn't it have stopped by now?"

"It didn't stop for a little while this morning either. And it didn't heal before I went back to bed, almost an hour after they came out."

"Mmm. I don't like that. Stay. I'll get the first aid kit."

Sephiroth nodded faintly and sank to his knees as Rufus walked away, resting his forehead against the edge of the counter. It was cool and smooth against his skin, reassuringly solid.

Rufus returned with a hefty plastic lockbox packed with enough basic medical supplies to last weeks at a time, and knelt again, swiftly cleaning the torn skin with antiseptic wipes. He gave the wounds a critical look, then spread cream over them and stuck bandages carefully around the thick bone sprouting from Sephiroth's shoulders.

"There. As good as I can make it, sans Materia." He closed the box and stood, stretching. "Did you want to stay here tonight?"

"If that's alright."

"You were going to anyway, so I see no point in throwing you out now. I was just getting ready for bed when you showed up, actually. Care to join me?"

Sephiroth stared at Rufus. "In…in your bed? With you?"

"If you want. There's plenty of room for you and those wings, if you lie on your side." Rufus put the box up on the counter and looked over at Sephiroth. "It's better than the couch."

On occasion, Sephiroth had shared a bed with Angeal and/or Genesis. It was usually because they were on assignment somewhere cold, or because they'd stayed up too late doing something or other, or because Genesis wasn't feeling well and wanted to be held. He'd never gone to bed with anyone just because. Normally he wouldn't even think of doing so. It was…invasive, and probably uncomfortable, and…he liked the idea.

"That would be…nice," he said softly. "If you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind. I wouldn't have offered if I did. Come on."

Sephiroth woke with Rufus tucked against his front, comfortably curled to fit the line of his own body. They were both covered in feathers, as Sephiroth's wings had once again vanished as he slept. The slightest movement set them dissolving into faint mist that smelled like thunderstorms, so he kept the movement to a minimum and just lay still, watching Rufus sleep.

It would be incredibly easy to kill him, Sephiroth noted. He appeared to be a very sound sleeper, and there were no weapons in, on, or near the bed that he could identify. No Turks in the room. No surveillance. Just Rufus, half naked and defenseless, mumbling softly in his sleep, something about carrots. He could just…get his hands around that pale, pretty throat and squeeze a little, or roll over, clasp the fine-boned jaw, and twist hard to one side. There were other, messier options as well, so many that he wondered if he'd always known them or if the alien 'mother' had passed them on to him as it died.

Then he wondered why he'd even consider killing Rufus. While often an arrogant prick to people he didn't like, Rufus had always been good to him, and they'd known each other as children, on the rare occasions when their paths had crossed. Rufus pulled strings, now and then, to get him things or assignments that would have otherwise passed him by. Rufus helped him get out of stuffy formal functions. Rufus tended to his wounds and offered his own bed as a resting place. There was no need to kill him, or even to think about it. So why did he want to?

Rufus yawned and tried to roll over. Thwarted by Sephiroth's broad chest, he looked up, smiling sleepily. "Morning. Your wings are gone."

"They dissolve," Sephiroth mumbled, sitting up and trying not to cry out at the stiffness in his shoulders, left by the wings and the thick muscle required to use them. "The feathers should go away if you shake the blankets out."

"Mmm…I don't mind. They're beautiful. How are you feeling?"

"Stiff and tired." Useless, caged, damaged, and afraid, he added mentally.

"A good hot shower and more sleep will fix that. You're off for a few more days, aren't you? Lie back down and sleep until…mmm, until noon."

Sephiroth watched Rufus stretch and resettled himself beneath the bedclothes, pressed up against his side. Might as well. He lay down slowly, feeling his leg slide down Rufus' body as he moved, then realizing there was an inconsistency, which became all the more obvious when Rufus yawned and wriggled a little closer; the blonde was aroused.

Awkward uncertainty turned to curiosity in seconds. Sephiroth rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow while he contemplated Rufus and how he was pressing himself against Sephiroth in a way Sephiroth usually associated with Angeal asking him to leave the room so he could roll Genesis over on the couch and make him whimper and beg.

"What are you- oh." Rufus rolled over at once, hunching over slightly, both hands going to cover himself. "I'm sorry. You…just stay in bed, I'll go- Sephiroth? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Sephiroth said nothing, but he grabbed Rufus' hip and pulled him flat on his back, nudging his hands out of the way. Zack complained about this, he remembered. So did a number of the soldiers and SOLDIERs he'd spent long missions with. He and Genesis were exceptions to the apparent rule of morning wood, and Angeal never talked about it. Rufus was, apparently, as normal as Zack was.

"Sephiroth, why are you staring at me like that?" Rufus's voice was a little high and tense, but Sephiroth couldn't determine if it was because of his physical condition or his own influence.

"May I?" he asked, hooking two fingers into the waist of Rufus' pajama pants and tugging lightly.

"Er…I suppose you can, but why do you want to?"

"I want to look."

"Look at what? I don't have anything that you d- ah, fuck that's cold!" Rufus bucked when Sephiroth yanked his pants down without warning, then flinched back against the mattress. "Give me a warning!"

Sephiroth absentmindedly patted Rufus' head and sat up a little further to look at him.

"Yes you do," he said quietly. "I don't have this." He reached out to touch, and Rufus slapped his hand away.

"Sephiroth," he said slowly, "I like you. I really do. We've known each other longer than is probably healthy, and I have no problem with you coming up here to hide or to rest. But if you intend to grab my dick, you had better be planning on finishing the job, or you are going to be in so much trouble."

Sephiroth blinked at him. "You want me to help you masturbate?"

"It's six in the morning, I'm hard, and a man I've been attracted to since I knew what sex was is grabbing me. I'm certainly not asking you to put on a tutu and do Swan Lake for me."

"I can't dance."

"I know that. Sephiroth, there are certain…things that one expects when asked to drop trou and submit to being handled. Sex or at least an orgasm is one of those things."

"I don't want to break you." Sephiroth reached again, slowly this time, and was pleased when Rufus did not try to make him stop this time. "Why do you have this?"

"Break me? How on earth would you do tha-aaaat! What did I say about warning me?" Rufus looked down. "What, my foreskin? It's normal. My father doesn't believe in circumcision- the surgical removal of that skin at or around birth. You don't have it, I take it?"

"Nuh-uh. Neither do Angeal and Genesis."

"No surprise there. It's a common procedure." Rufus bit his lip. "I'm serious, Sephiroth. You keep fiddling around down there and I'm going to expect dinner as well as an orgasm."

"What if I want to keep fiddling?"

"Then as long as this ends with me happy, I don't mind."

"What if I hurt you?"

Rufus sat up, giving Sephiroth a look he couldn't place. "Do you want to hurt me, Sephiroth?"

"No."

"Then you won't. I trust you."

"But I'm so…big. You're hardly enhanced, you don't-"

Rufus shook his head. "You won't hurt me if you don't want to. It's alright. Just…try not to drag this out too long, alright? I'm not particularly patient in the mornings."

Sephiroth hesitated, then nodded and settled down to learn a few things.

As it turned out, Sephiroth had more in common with a normal human male than he'd thought. Plenty of the things he liked were definitely things Rufus liked as well. He'd still felt awkward and unsure of what he was doing, but Rufus hadn't seemed to mind and had even rolled him over and returned the favor after finding that the experimenting was turning him on.

Afterwards, Sephiroth lay in the bed, panting slightly, trying to figure out what he was feeling. It was a little strange, a little nice, a little terrifying. Nothing he could define properly.

Rufus yawned and stretched beside him, then rolled over, tucking his arms beneath his head and watching Sephiroth from under thick gold lashes. "That was…. unexpectedly wonderful," he murmured.

"Erm…thank you…what does this mean, now? For…us?"

"Why does it have to mean anything? We enjoy each other's company, as we always have. We're just enjoying it in a more adult fashion. I would love to do this again sometime. Or move on to more intimate things, when you get over this obsession with how fragile you think I am." Rufus smiled at him. "Is that enough?"

"I…think so."

"But you don't know?"

"I didn't come up here looking for release. I just wanted somewhere safe to be so I could actually sleep. I needed somewhere to go, somewhere close…this was the best place to go."

"Clearly you needed something. Sephiroth…will you do something for me?"

"Mmm?"

"Do not shy away from me."

"What? I-"

"I can see you tensing, ready to get out of the way. Please…don't. I value and love you as a friend, and I would love to have you as a lover as well. I'm not turning you away. I would never do that to you."

Sephiroth bit his lip. "I…I will try not to. But I can make no promises. I don't…I don't feel like myself anymore."

Rufus nodded. "I can accept that. If you need anything, tell me, okay?"

"I need something to do."

Rufus blinked at him, surprised by the immediate response. "You need…what?"

"I ad paperwork…but I finished it."

"Finished it? Sephiroth, Genesis showed me that stack. It should have been enough to keep you busy for two days!"

"I did it in two hours."

Rufus gaped at him, struck dumb by the simple announcement.

"Well then. I'll…see what I can find for you."