raisedbymoogles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raisedbymoogles) wrote2021-12-25 12:49 am
raisedbymoogles) wrote2021-12-25 12:49 am
ficbit: FFVII fixit, time travel, and bad endings.
Inspired by this art. I don't think I'm going to continue this, but considering this is the first time I've actually been able to write anything in a couple of months I'm posting it as a victory.
Sephiroth entered his office and halted immediately, as two familiar faces looked up and pinned him with very unfamiliar expressions. Cloud Strife’s face was a contradictory tangle of emotion, fear and hurt and anger twisting with some terrible hope, but Zack Fair’s was nakedly simple by comparison. A man he’d taken as a prisoner of war in Wutai had looked like that once, when one of his fellow soldiers had come to bring him home as part of a prisoner exchange, and it had come out in whispers after that the two men were lovers.
He and Zack had never shared a bed, though, so his reaction to seeing Sephiroth made no sense, and Cloud’s made even less. Sephiroth hesitated a moment before deciding to deal with it the way he dealt with everything that made no sense and ignore it entirely. “Strife, you’re late for duty, your sergeant is asking after you. Fair, you’re late for your mission briefing.”
Zack made a noise that might have been a laugh or a choke, pressed a hand to his mouth immediately in an uncharacteristic attempt to muffle himself. Cloud stood slowly, one hand on Zack’s shoulder like he needed the other man to stay steady. “…Sephiroth,” he breathed. “Is it… really you?”
Sephiroth blinked. Cloud almost never addressed him by his name like that. “….yes?” he hedged.
It must have been the right thing to say. The two of them lunged - with eerie synchronicity, Sephiroth would only realize later - and pinned him between them, grasping him about the waist (Cloud) and chest (Zack) with embraces that nearly stopped his breath. “What-” he blurted, and stopped, because although he wasn’t what Zack called a hugger, it was impossible to prioritize his own discomfort over the desperate way Cloud clung to him or the sudden wetness where Zack’s face pressed against his bare chest.
“Please be sane,” Zack begged hoarsely. “Please, please be sane.”
“………………what?”
Over the next hour, they told him everything, and Sephiroth could no longer be sure of his own sanity.
Apparently they had just come back in time from the future, or a future, or received knowledge of it from their future selves - the exact mechanics of that was better left alone. It was a grim picture they painted, fire and torture and the destruction of all life on the Planet brought about, apparently, by Sephiroth himself.
“But it wasn’t you,” Zack told him earnestly, as though trying to convince all three of them. “It was always Jenova pulling your strings.”
That was why Sephiroth couldn’t dismiss their tale as a particularly vivid shared hallucination or a dream. They knew that Jenova was the name he’d been given for his mother by Hojo, who was his father; he’d never spoken of such things to any of the SOLDIERs, let alone the two of them, and it was doubtful they had heard it from another source. They also knew about Professor Gast, and a woman named Lucrecia who was apparently the woman who’d actually given birth to him, and - and -
-and it was all a lot, so much that when one of the SOLDIERs tapped on his door looking for him, Sephiroth informed her that he was taking medical leave effective immediately and shut the door in her face.
Zack was looking positively impressed when Sephiroth turned around again, though Cloud, tucked against Zack’s shoulder, mostly looked exhausted. “…I’ll see that you’re both put on medical leave as well,” he offered quietly. “You won’t be penalized for your absences.”
Cloud winced and Zack hugged him closer, either comforting him or seeking comfort, Sephiroth wasn’t sure. “No offense, boss, but we’re quitting Shinra. No way can we follow their orders again, knowing what we know.”
Killing the Planet, making monsters of Generals. Sephiroth was half tempted to do the same, except apparently when he quit his job he did so with mass murder. “I understand,” he said. “I will be sorry to lose you, but-”
He was getting looks again. Cloud’s stubborn, Zack’s heartbroken. “Boss - you don’t think we’re going to leave you, do you?”
“But you just said-”
Cloud interrupted him mid-frustrated snap, which was another thing he never did. “Sephiroth. Sir,” he said, and that was less a courtesy toward a commanding officer than an implied order to get it together. “You’re coming with us. That is not negotiable.”
I’m - what? Sephiroth actually sputtered, as shocked by the suggestion itself as by the indignity of being issued orders by a private, no matter how almost-friends they had been before all this time-travel business. “Strife, I can’t very well abandon my post on the spot-!”
-his gaze was caught by Cloud’s eyes, the sight of them a greater shock still, and the words died in his throat.
“You know the truth now, and you haven’t gone swan-diving off the deep end,” Cloud told him steadily, his young voice somehow taking on the timbre of command. “That’s good. But that thing is still in you, and until we find a way to get it out of you, you’re still the Crisis and the Planet’s still in danger. I watched the world end, Sephiroth.” Cloud’s voice cracked, and those (strange, beautiful, terrifying) eyes closed tight for a moment. “I don’t want to be your enemy, but I can’t watch it happen again. I can’t.”
“Cloud…” Zack drew him close and Cloud leaned into it, once again as young as he seemed. The two of them clung to each other, all while Sephiroth stared in silence. “…hey,” Zack said to him after a moment. “Say something, will you? That was a lot of words by Cloud’s standards, he deserves a gold star for effort.”
Rather than respond verbally, Sephiroth reached out and hit the light switch without ever looking away from the pair. He got two pairs of eyes blinking at him in bafflement for that: Zack’s glowed a familiar and comforting violet, and Cloud’s glowed a brilliant, eerie electric blue.
“Odin wept,” he breathed.
“What?” Zack stared at him, glanced at Cloud, glanced back at Sephiroth again. Then the gil dropped and he nearly dropped his friend. “Holy,” he blurted. “Cloud, your eyes!”
“What? What about my eyes?”
“You have Mako eyes! I mean - you still have Mako eyes!”
Cloud let out a wordless blurt of shock. Then he cupped his hands over his face, presumably so he could see the glow for himself.
“…shit,” he breathed after a moment, and let his hands drop. “I guess part of me was still hoping this was a nightmare.”
“Sorry, Cloud,” Zack shrugged, putting on a crooked grin that didn’t fit at all with his worried eyes. “Guess you’re still a weirdo like us.”
“No one’s a weirdo like you, Zack.” Cloud poked his arm and Zack laughed, not even bothering to fend him off. “But this is even more reason we have to go,” he said, picking up the thread of the argument with Sephiroth as easily as if the relevation of his sudden glowing eyes was only a minor bit of trivia. “I’m not going to be able to hide this. It gets around that a trooper’s randomly popped up with SOLDIER eyes Hojo’s gonna get curious, and then I really will have to kill him.”
“If I don’t get to him first,” Zack muttered darkly.
Somewhere within himself, Sephiroth abruptly surrendered. This was too much - he couldn’t take command of this, he couldn’t even understand this. He sank down to sit on the floor, only retaining enough control to sit rather than fall. “Yes, all right,” he said quietly. “You’re in command. Only - you know we can’t just disappear. I’m too distinctive, and even you two will attract attention.” The two of them grimaced in unison - right, Mako eyes. “Shinra will never just let us go. We need a plan.”
“…okay. Okay.” Without a trace of shame Zack came over and sat on the floor next to him, their knees touching; Cloud flopped down on Zack's other side. “Cloud’s in charge, you’re the tactician, and I’m the pretty one. Together we can make this work.” He earned another poke from Cloud for that, which seemed to be his goal to begin with.
Note: this takes place after an Even Worse version of canon, where Zack didn't die on the cliffs but they didn't hook up with Avalanche/Aeris in time so everything was pretty much doomed from the start and they got the bad ending.
Sephiroth entered his office and halted immediately, as two familiar faces looked up and pinned him with very unfamiliar expressions. Cloud Strife’s face was a contradictory tangle of emotion, fear and hurt and anger twisting with some terrible hope, but Zack Fair’s was nakedly simple by comparison. A man he’d taken as a prisoner of war in Wutai had looked like that once, when one of his fellow soldiers had come to bring him home as part of a prisoner exchange, and it had come out in whispers after that the two men were lovers.
He and Zack had never shared a bed, though, so his reaction to seeing Sephiroth made no sense, and Cloud’s made even less. Sephiroth hesitated a moment before deciding to deal with it the way he dealt with everything that made no sense and ignore it entirely. “Strife, you’re late for duty, your sergeant is asking after you. Fair, you’re late for your mission briefing.”
Zack made a noise that might have been a laugh or a choke, pressed a hand to his mouth immediately in an uncharacteristic attempt to muffle himself. Cloud stood slowly, one hand on Zack’s shoulder like he needed the other man to stay steady. “…Sephiroth,” he breathed. “Is it… really you?”
Sephiroth blinked. Cloud almost never addressed him by his name like that. “….yes?” he hedged.
It must have been the right thing to say. The two of them lunged - with eerie synchronicity, Sephiroth would only realize later - and pinned him between them, grasping him about the waist (Cloud) and chest (Zack) with embraces that nearly stopped his breath. “What-” he blurted, and stopped, because although he wasn’t what Zack called a hugger, it was impossible to prioritize his own discomfort over the desperate way Cloud clung to him or the sudden wetness where Zack’s face pressed against his bare chest.
“Please be sane,” Zack begged hoarsely. “Please, please be sane.”
“………………what?”
Over the next hour, they told him everything, and Sephiroth could no longer be sure of his own sanity.
Apparently they had just come back in time from the future, or a future, or received knowledge of it from their future selves - the exact mechanics of that was better left alone. It was a grim picture they painted, fire and torture and the destruction of all life on the Planet brought about, apparently, by Sephiroth himself.
“But it wasn’t you,” Zack told him earnestly, as though trying to convince all three of them. “It was always Jenova pulling your strings.”
That was why Sephiroth couldn’t dismiss their tale as a particularly vivid shared hallucination or a dream. They knew that Jenova was the name he’d been given for his mother by Hojo, who was his father; he’d never spoken of such things to any of the SOLDIERs, let alone the two of them, and it was doubtful they had heard it from another source. They also knew about Professor Gast, and a woman named Lucrecia who was apparently the woman who’d actually given birth to him, and - and -
-and it was all a lot, so much that when one of the SOLDIERs tapped on his door looking for him, Sephiroth informed her that he was taking medical leave effective immediately and shut the door in her face.
Zack was looking positively impressed when Sephiroth turned around again, though Cloud, tucked against Zack’s shoulder, mostly looked exhausted. “…I’ll see that you’re both put on medical leave as well,” he offered quietly. “You won’t be penalized for your absences.”
Cloud winced and Zack hugged him closer, either comforting him or seeking comfort, Sephiroth wasn’t sure. “No offense, boss, but we’re quitting Shinra. No way can we follow their orders again, knowing what we know.”
Killing the Planet, making monsters of Generals. Sephiroth was half tempted to do the same, except apparently when he quit his job he did so with mass murder. “I understand,” he said. “I will be sorry to lose you, but-”
He was getting looks again. Cloud’s stubborn, Zack’s heartbroken. “Boss - you don’t think we’re going to leave you, do you?”
“But you just said-”
Cloud interrupted him mid-frustrated snap, which was another thing he never did. “Sephiroth. Sir,” he said, and that was less a courtesy toward a commanding officer than an implied order to get it together. “You’re coming with us. That is not negotiable.”
I’m - what? Sephiroth actually sputtered, as shocked by the suggestion itself as by the indignity of being issued orders by a private, no matter how almost-friends they had been before all this time-travel business. “Strife, I can’t very well abandon my post on the spot-!”
-his gaze was caught by Cloud’s eyes, the sight of them a greater shock still, and the words died in his throat.
“You know the truth now, and you haven’t gone swan-diving off the deep end,” Cloud told him steadily, his young voice somehow taking on the timbre of command. “That’s good. But that thing is still in you, and until we find a way to get it out of you, you’re still the Crisis and the Planet’s still in danger. I watched the world end, Sephiroth.” Cloud’s voice cracked, and those (strange, beautiful, terrifying) eyes closed tight for a moment. “I don’t want to be your enemy, but I can’t watch it happen again. I can’t.”
“Cloud…” Zack drew him close and Cloud leaned into it, once again as young as he seemed. The two of them clung to each other, all while Sephiroth stared in silence. “…hey,” Zack said to him after a moment. “Say something, will you? That was a lot of words by Cloud’s standards, he deserves a gold star for effort.”
Rather than respond verbally, Sephiroth reached out and hit the light switch without ever looking away from the pair. He got two pairs of eyes blinking at him in bafflement for that: Zack’s glowed a familiar and comforting violet, and Cloud’s glowed a brilliant, eerie electric blue.
“Odin wept,” he breathed.
“What?” Zack stared at him, glanced at Cloud, glanced back at Sephiroth again. Then the gil dropped and he nearly dropped his friend. “Holy,” he blurted. “Cloud, your eyes!”
“What? What about my eyes?”
“You have Mako eyes! I mean - you still have Mako eyes!”
Cloud let out a wordless blurt of shock. Then he cupped his hands over his face, presumably so he could see the glow for himself.
“…shit,” he breathed after a moment, and let his hands drop. “I guess part of me was still hoping this was a nightmare.”
“Sorry, Cloud,” Zack shrugged, putting on a crooked grin that didn’t fit at all with his worried eyes. “Guess you’re still a weirdo like us.”
“No one’s a weirdo like you, Zack.” Cloud poked his arm and Zack laughed, not even bothering to fend him off. “But this is even more reason we have to go,” he said, picking up the thread of the argument with Sephiroth as easily as if the relevation of his sudden glowing eyes was only a minor bit of trivia. “I’m not going to be able to hide this. It gets around that a trooper’s randomly popped up with SOLDIER eyes Hojo’s gonna get curious, and then I really will have to kill him.”
“If I don’t get to him first,” Zack muttered darkly.
Somewhere within himself, Sephiroth abruptly surrendered. This was too much - he couldn’t take command of this, he couldn’t even understand this. He sank down to sit on the floor, only retaining enough control to sit rather than fall. “Yes, all right,” he said quietly. “You’re in command. Only - you know we can’t just disappear. I’m too distinctive, and even you two will attract attention.” The two of them grimaced in unison - right, Mako eyes. “Shinra will never just let us go. We need a plan.”
“…okay. Okay.” Without a trace of shame Zack came over and sat on the floor next to him, their knees touching; Cloud flopped down on Zack's other side. “Cloud’s in charge, you’re the tactician, and I’m the pretty one. Together we can make this work.” He earned another poke from Cloud for that, which seemed to be his goal to begin with.
Note: this takes place after an Even Worse version of canon, where Zack didn't die on the cliffs but they didn't hook up with Avalanche/Aeris in time so everything was pretty much doomed from the start and they got the bad ending.