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The Little Guy	By : TokiMirage Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male > Cloud/Sephiroth Views: 2374 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I own no FFVII, I do own my own creative mind, and If I actually made money off this I would be rich. But I don't. So I starve.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
The Little Guy
. , . , .
Chapter Four: A Sephiroth Interlude
The Coffee Machine
Sephiroth’s office was a space the General didn’t allow many to interrupt, let alone occupy. His desk sat facing one of the blank walls disrupted only by a single guest chair placed directly across. To his left was a window that looked out onto Midgar and gave him an expansive view of the track and cadet training in the mornings. At exactly 1600 the bar bisecting the window would create a shadow over his hole punch that indicated the earliest time he could leave the office.
It was a place of order, quiet, and productivity.
Moving another report from the ‘unread’ pile to the ‘read’ pile, Sephiroth tried to ignore the shadow sitting in his peripheral vision. “No.”
“Pleeease?”
Suppressing his irritation after many years of practice, the General signed a request form for more materia bracers. “No.”
“I’ll finish all my paperwork by the end of the day?”
“Those are already part of your duties.”
“Aw, come on Seeeph! He could be dead in a ditch somewhere for all I know! Can’t you make an exception this one time? I need to know what happened to him!”
“No.”
“Argh! I’ll give you a whole box of mixed chocolates! A big one!”
Sephiroth stared Zack down for a long five seconds before turning towards his computer and drawing up the employment records. Ignoring the puppy’s quiet cheering, he drew up the file of one ‘Strife, Cloud’ and quickly scanned through it. “He’s been hired as a custodian. Apartment 237.”
“Thanks Seph!” Zack bounced up from his chair and was out the door before the General could say another word. Irritated, he turned his attention back to his paperwork now that Zack had stopped harassing him every available moment to find his chocobo.
Glancing up at the file still open on his computer, he frowned at the blond’s haircut. It was barely regulation when the cadet had been in the program. Closing the file and turning his attention away from pointless pursuits, he focused on the mission report he’d been going over before Zack had interrupted him.
The Lieutenant had left his guest chair off center.
. , . , .
Sephiroth stared at the coffee machine. It still hadn’t brewed his coffee. It had been over five minutes, and it hadn’t brewed his coffee.
“Cynthia. What did you do to the coffee machine?”
She perked up behind her desk and gave him an alarmed, wide-eyed look. “Nothing, General! I don’t touch your coffee machine.”
Hm. Turning his focus back to the machine, he pulled out the handle to look at the filter. The coffee grounds were barely wet. Great. His coffee machine was broken. Again.
More than a little irritated, he wondered if he could find someone competent in the next ten minutes to fix it. The last time he’d reported it to facilities management, it had taken them a whole day and a half to get someone in to take a look at it – an unacceptable waiting period. That man had been a custodian, had he not? Perhaps the cleaning staff were trained in fixing coffee machines.
His mind flashed back to ridiculous blond hair and he frowned. Zack never ceased talking about the former cadet. In fact, no matter how he varied the degrees of his glares, the Lieutenant was never phased by his ire. Fortunately, when he chose to actually do his work, he got the job done. Competent assistants were difficult to find; one of the few philosophies of Hojo’s that he agreed with.
As a thought took root in his mind, a little ball of vindictive satisfaction uncurled in his stomach. Since Zack was immune to all forms of glares, insults, death threats, intimidation, dehuminization, or harassment, perhaps he could get a little revenge on the blond for being the source of Zack’s fixation. He had had to endure two weeks of oral torment before finally capitulating and taking the bribe of chocolate.
Though, they had been particularly good chocolates bars. Flakey wafers wrapped in black and milk chocolate dipped in nuts…
Going back to his office, he pulled out one of the chocolate bars and brought up the former-cadet’s file on his computer. Today he was working from 10-6 on the 29^th floor… Unwrapping the chocolate bar, he left the office in search of a head of spiky blond hair.
It didn’t take him long to find the custodian. Since the 29^th floor mostly consisted of a hallway circuit and endless offices, he merely walked the length of the hallway until he found an adolescent kneeling on the ground, his cart nearby, scrubbing at a dark patch on the floor.
“You there. Do you know how to fix a coffee machine?”
The blond froze before slowly turning his head up to look at him. Panic flashed through cerulean eyes for a moment before subsiding and becoming neutral. “I’m not authorized by Shinra to fix their coffee machines,” he finally said, his tone moderately respectful, but not nearly as terrified as Sephiroth had been expecting. Perhaps he didn’t realize he was speaking to the General?
“That’s not what I asked,” Sephiroth said sharply, annoyed this blond was wasting his time. “Do you know how to fix a coffee machine?” He hated repeating himself.
The blond let out a sigh and dropped his rag in the bucket. Taking off his gloves, he moved his cart to the side of the hallway before grabbing a tool box off of it. “Maybe. I dare say I’m mechanically inclined, but I lean more towards engines than coffee machines,” he said with a touch of humour, his entire posture, which had initially been tense and surprised, now relaxed and easy. Sephiroth stared him down, beginning to lose patience. The blond raised an eyebrow, also infuriatingly unaffected by his demeanour. Had Zack been corrupting the cadets with his attitude problems? “I’ll attempt it,” the blond finally capitulated, “but I don’t promise I’ll succeed. So, where is it?”
Sephiroth spun on his heel and walked down the hallway, irritated that this custodian had already wasted minutes of his valuable time. The blond followed him into the executive’s elevator without a complaint, jogging at times to keep up with the General’s long strides.
“On how many floors did you look for a janitor before you found me?” the blond asked as they reached the 37^th floor, breaking the silence.
Sephiroth suppressed another flash of irritation. Perhaps he should have found a different custodian to fix the cursed coffee machine. He gave the blond an icy look. “Too many.” Looking on one floor was one too many. Shinra’s incompetence at times was truly irksome.
“Well, I’ll see if I can fix it for you.”
The custodian had the nerve to smile at him. Whether it was mocking or not, Sephiroth didn’t particularly care, not saying another word and turning his eyes forward to watch the numbers change. If the blond couldn’t fix it he’d find some way to get him fired for wasting his time.
Upon arriving at his office, Sephiroth was alarmed to see the coffee maker was now smoking. Before he could so much as react, the blond beside him let loose an impressive string of curses that Sephiroth had only heard on the few occasions he’d been around sailors. Moving swiftly, the blond made his way over to the cursed coffee machine and unplugged it.
He also flawlessly anticipated Sephiroth’s own ire and started chewing out his secretary for her incompetence. Sephiroth grudgingly admitted that his technique insulting her intelligence was well-executed. When he essentially told her to shut up and return to her “secretarial porn”, Sephiroth was hard-pressed to choke back his vindictive amusement.
“This is probably going to take a while. If you don’t have to replace the machine entirely,” the blond said, shooting an annoyed glance at the secretary. This unfortunate news did little to dull Sephiroth’s overall annoyance at the situation. “Perhaps your secretary could at least get you some coffee for all your trouble,” he said, aiming the last comment at the woman sitting behind her desk looking insulted.
When she didn’t respond, Sephiroth lost patience entirely. “Cynthia.” After giving her a long stare, she obeyed without a word and left the office. Sephiroth didn’t look forward to the drink she’d return with. After the first time she’d failed to make his coffee the way he liked it, he always made it himself.
Seeing that the blond had lost himself in the coffee machine, Sephiroth went to his office to get some more work done. Three long hours and one cup of sub-par coffee from his secretary later, his nose caught the scent of coffee from the reception area. Leaving his office, he watched as the custodian poured himself a cup of coffee and added sugar. Walking towards the blond, he waited in anticipation.
The custodian spat it out into the sink. “Aw, disgusting! What do they make this out of, fried rat intestines?”
Well, that was creative. “I believe it may be worse than that,” he said, smirking slightly when the custodian froze in surprise before turning to look at him with a rather alarmed expression. Sephiroth made his cup of coffee and tested it. While there was a slight burnt flavour to it, it didn’t taste that much different than usual. Unwillingly impressed that the blond had managed to fix the cursed machine at all, he pulled out a few bills and placed them on the counter. “For services rendered.” If he’d had to wait for someone to come, he would have been coffee-less for a day or more, and the last thing he wanted to do was owe a custodian for anything.
The blond stared at him before raising an eyebrow at the money. “I’m not a whore, sir. Just doing my job.”
Cynthia choked behind her desk, and Sephiroth just continued to stare him down. A custodian with honour?
“If it gives you any more trouble, you might want to just buy a new one. If the fuse keeps blowing, it’s probably from either overuse or age. An industrial coffee machine would probably last longer, since they’re built for that kind of stress,” the blond explained before picking up his toolbox and walking to the elevator with a relaxed wave.
Sephiroth stared after him with mixed thoughts.
The Light Bulb
Sephiroth scowled as his papers flickered for a moment before quieting. Forcing himself to loosen his grip on his pen lest he break it, he got up from his desk and went to quell his mood with a cup of coffee. Cynthia immediately flinched and started typing away as soon as she caught sight of him out of the corner of her. Perhaps she was viewing her secretarial porn again.
Pushing the memory of a blond custodian away, he went about the time honoured tradition of coffee preparation. Perhaps when he went back into the office, the flickering light will have fixed itself.
Five minutes later, he was back doing reports, except the light overhead was now flickering at an almost consistent rate of 113 beats per minute.
Checking a certain custodian’s schedule, he noted with some irritation that today was one of the blond’s days off. He was tempted to hunt down a different custodian altogether, but resisted. The blond was efficient, didn’t ask questions, and got the job done right. With his recent luck of office equipment, a new custodian would probably succeed in falling on his desk from sheer incompetence. At least the blond appeared to be moderately intelligent.
And there was also the small bit of vindictive pleasure he got from inconveniencing one of Zack’s fixations.
. , . , .
The next day Sephiroth put up with the flickering light bulb in his office for all of two hours and twenty-one minutes before his irritation sent him in search of a certain blond. If the custodian wasn’t available… The General would not be pleased.
Coming to a stop in front of the blond, he frowned at the sight of the custodian attempting to remove a very large oil stain from the floor with steel wool. He stood there impatiently, expectantly, for all of three seconds before the blond finally noticed him. Feeling a little smug that his presence made the custodian stiffen so, he watched as the blond’s eyes raked up his body from boot to head.
“What can I do you for, General?”
Ah, so he did know who he was speaking to. Perhaps he had been enlightened since the last time and had learned a little respect. Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at the strange wording, for the first time taking note of a subtle accent he didn’t recognize. His memory immediately pulled up the blond’s file. Ah, so he was a mountain boy. “A light in my office has been flickering since yesterday,” he said simply, still rather irritated about the inconvenience.
“Is it a bulb or one of those long, double light fixtures?”
“The latter.”
Without another word, the custodian got off his feet and got his cart and equipment out of the way. After divesting himself of his gloves, he walked over what appeared to be a supply closet and collected from it a long box, a ladder, and a screw driver. When blue eyes turned to look at him expectantly, neither afraid of Sephiroth nor amused at the situation, the General started walking towards the executive elevator, knowing the blond would follow behind.
Quiet and efficiently, the custodian manoeuvred the ladder into the elevator without even coming close to hitting the walls or its current occupant. Upon arrival on the right floor, Sephiroth walked towards his office, knowing the blond wouldn’t be far behind. Going in and leaving the door open behind him, he glared at the light that continued to flicker.
Again, without a word, the custodian moved his chair out of the way and got to work fixing the problem without so much as a screw falling and hitting Sephiroth’s immaculately organized desk. And again, when he had expected the blond to make a witty comment or fill the silence, he didn’t. Instead, he was the epitome of efficiency, even going so far as to replace the other light after testing it and finding it faulty as well.
Finishing the job quietly, the custodian folded his ladder and put the long box under one arm before manoeuvring Sephiroth’s chair back into its rightful position. “How’s the coffee machine?” he asked, shattering the silence.
“Fine.”
The blond nodded, expression neutral and missing the fire it had possessed insulting his secretary and finding amusement in his plight. “Anything else, while I’m here?”
Sephiroth shook his head, watching the blond as he calmly walked through the door and let him alone in his well-lit and once-again orderly office.
. , . , .
The Printer Massacre
As Sephiroth drained his fifth cup of coffee that hour, he let out a small sigh and scrubbed at his tired eyes. He’d been working overtime for the past week, assembling a baseline of reports concerning monster populations that Shinra assets had been sent out to deal with as far back as twenty years ago. Apparently the President couldn’t understand why he was spending so much money sending out resources to deal with problems he didn’t think concerned him, and Sephiroth had been spending the past week of 18-hour work days to pull together a case defending and justifying the expenditure of resources.
To say the least, it was tedious work even he was having trouble keeping straight, memories of reports flashing behind his eyes every time he rested them or went to bed.
Pushing away from his desk, he stood and stretched his stiff body the best he could without taking it to the gym and working it properly. Turning around to look over the lights of Midgar and give his eyes a rest from white legalese, his attention was caught by flickers of movement on the track below. Straining his sharp eyes to see more clearly, he was surprised to realize a very familiar head of blond was running around the track – he checked the time – half an hour after his shift had ended.
Why would a custodian want to keep in shape?
Perhaps it was a habit from cadet training, he dismissed, making himself sit down and return to the bank of reports filed in Shinra’s mainframe he’d been sifting through. A good hour and a half later, he left his office for another cup of coffee and to collect the printed reports when he noticed that the batch he’d just sent, which was more than thirty pages, wasn’t printing.
Putting his dirty coffee cup on the counter, he walked over to the printers, ignoring the one Cynthia had tried to fix that afternoon as it flashed many red lights and error messages on its little screen. Turning his attention to the printer that had been working faithfully for him for the past five hours, he frowned at the small stack of reports that should have been at least five times that size.
Checking the little screen, he frowned at the absence of a paper jam. He’d had to pry more than a few sheets of paper out of the paper death trap that was ‘the jam,’ but this didn’t appear to be the problem. Bending over, he checked that all the slots had enough paper. Things were fine down there. Just in case it was being finicky, he filled them anyway with new sheets of paper. Still nothing.
Irritated and completely at a loss, Sephiroth scrubbed his tired eyes again and frowned. It was almost eight o’clock at night. There would be no-one in the building to fix it, and he couldn’t forward it to another printer for security reasons. Anything that was printed from Sephiroth’s computer went to two machines only, in case someone hacked his computer and tried to send them to a room easier to steal the hard copies from. Since his computer had programming and viruses in place that prevented any copying aside from his weekly download to Shinra’s private backup server, the only way someone could steal information from his computer was to sit in his office and wait for it to print to his own machines.
His own machines which were both apparently out of commission and causing him no little amount of grief. As it was, he’d already had to ask for an extension on this little ‘side project’ of the President’s due to the sheer volume of information he had to organize, on top of his already taxing duties as General assessing threats and assigning SOLDIERs to various missions.
Knowing it was a futile hope, he went back to his office window and looked down onto the dark track field, hoping his custodian was still down there. To his surprise, the blond was still there. Quickly rushing out of the office, he took the executive elevator all the way down to the twentieth floor before being forced to switch elevators. While usually this security measure didn’t bother him, at the moment he had to resist the urge to run down the hall so he didn’t miss the only person who could probably fix his printer before tomorrow afternoon.
Upon arriving at the edge of the track, the tension in his shoulders eased at the sight of a blond-haired figure. He frowned and slowed his walk when he realized that not only had the custodian stopped running, but he was currently going through what was obviously a sword form, sans blade. Curiosity peaked, he wondered why the former-cadet was practicing combat skills he no longer needed to use with his career choice.
Determining that getting his printer fixed was more important at the moment than figuring out the mix of contradictions his custodian presented, he wondered how best to get blond’s attention. Though, a few questions couldn’t hurt or waste that much time….
Deciding to go with the most efficient route, he caught a pair of wrists as they swung downwards in a vertical jump and slash. The action surprised his captive enough that momentum carried him right into Sephiroth’s chest, and would have knocked them both over if not for the General’s impeccable sense of balance. One could hardly wield a 6-foot blade with a poor centre.
“Se- G-General!” the blond nearly squeaked.
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at the stutter. The blond had almost called him by name. “What were you doing?” he demanded, visibly throwing the blond off further. While he doubted the custodian could see him in the evening lighting, his own mako eyes gave him no such difficulty, allowing him to see every flicker of emotion in expressive blue eyes.
“Uh… exercising?”
Sephiroth’s mouth twitched. Such an answer would have been more believable if it hadn’t been turned into a question. “You were practicing kata without a sword. Why?”
“Uh… it’s calming,” the blond answered, still off balance.
Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed. “You are agitated?” Had someone else been bothering his custodian?
If possible, the former-cadet went even farther off balance. “W-well, some things have happened and- and- I just wanted to, you know, cool off.” Something had been bothering the blond. Before Sephiroth could question him further, he was interrupted. “Why are you here?” the blond demanded, taking a step back and suddenly removing his heat from Sephiroth’s body.
The General absently noticed the way his clothing cooled once more in the outside air. Shifting his weight slightly, he wondered if the blond would indeed help him, in spite of the circumstances. “My printers broke.”
Blue eyes stared at him. Their intensity made him break eye contact for a moment before he realised if anyone should be breaking eye contact, it was the custodian. “I understand that you are off duty,” he began in the same tone of voice he used when he needed to tell President Shinra this is how things need to be in one of their infuriating and entirely too long private meetings. “However, there is work that I cannot finish tonight with two broken printers.”
The blond ran a hand through his already messy hair, a mix of emotions flashing over his face too quickly for Sephiroth to interpret. “How did both of them manage to break?”
“Cynthia damaged the first one this afternoon. The second failed tonight.”
“Mhmm. And how did you know that I was even here?”
Did this mean the custodian was considering it? “I noticed you running through my office window an hour and twenty-five minutes ago,” he reported.
It started to rain at that moment, and Sephiroth, who had been in such a hurry he hadn’t noticed the impending shower or its preceding droplets, found himself rather suddenly irritated. Taking a deep breath, he forced the unconstructive emotion away. What he wanted to do was go back to his rooms and sleep. With the way the evening was looking, however, he’d be forced to work past midnight to compensate.
“Fine.” Could he really be…? “But since this is off the clock and I’m hungry, you’re buying me dinner!” the blond demanded, blue eyes burning with a stubborn fire.
Sephiroth thought about it for a moment. Weighed loss of time and work against the small trouble of paying for a meal… Well, he’d meet the blond’s condition. Nodding once, he started walking away. He hated rain-wet hair. It just didn’t dry properly when it didn’t come out of a scorching hot shower after a thorough conditioning.
. , . , .
Sephiroth watched as the custodian fiddled and made faces at the printers, having escaped his office for a moment to get another cup of coffee. As he took his first sip of the warming concoction, the blond finally broke the silence that had been pervading the office all evening.
“So, what’s keeping you here so late anyway? Shouldn’t you get off when everyone else does?”
Sephiroth grimaced down into his coffee mug. “It’s classified.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to talk to me. Even if you can’t give details, you can always say something vague like ‘there are outstanding reports my useless First Lieutenant keeps failing to deal with that fall to me,’ or ‘Shinra has me doing work that no one else is supposedly able to complete but even a retarded poodle could do just fine,’ or ‘The President keeps getting caught going to the brothel and the Turks apparently aren’t enough to scare those involved into silence.’ Okay, so the last one was a little ridiculous, but-”
When the blond trailed off, Sephiroth realized that he’d almost started laughing and ceased immediately, taking another sip of coffee. “My useless First Lieutenant has left me with reports to deal with on occasion, but never enough to keep me busy for four consecutive nights in a row,” he explained. Then wondered why he bothered to in the first place. If his functionality was beginning to be affected, maybe he should consider taking a day off from the project to recuperate his wits.
The blond grinned, as though amused by his rather factual statement. “So what’s been eating up all your time?”
Sephiroth wondered how he could put it without breaching confidentiality. “I believe it would fall under your second category.” It was close enough.
“Well that sucks. The least he could do is give you something to laugh at. Maybe we could find someone with crazy ninja skills to take pictures of him visiting a brothel.” Sephiroth raised a dubious eyebrow. “That’d be funny to see on the news.”
“The Turks would bribe or threaten the photographer into silence.” This was a well known fact. Why the blond had failed to consider it proved he was not military material.
“Ah, but that’s why you find someone with crazy ninja skills!”
Sephiroth failed to see how that was logical. “There are few Wutaian refugees who would be willing to risk their livelihood on obtaining a few incriminating photos of President Shinra.”
“I might know a guy who knows a ninja who could be paid to do it.”
This time Sephiroth raised both eyebrows. “Then I would have to arrest you.”
A blond head came out from behind the printer, which he had pulled away from the wall. “Sephiroth, we are having a hypothetical and totally bogus discussion on how best to get a picture of Shinra screwing a few hookers. Can’t you be a little more constructive in your criticism of my awesome plotting skills?”
Sephiroth stared at him. How had the blond gone from polite silence and “General” to Zack on a sugar rush and “Sephiroth”? The change was so distinct as to tempt him to think they were two different people. At least his First Lieutenant was consistent with his never ending jokes, bad sense of time, irregular work ethic, and constant requests to leave early to go see ‘that cute flower girl of his’.
The blond had raised a questioning eyebrow during his silence. Sephiroth shrugged. “I was merely pointing out the flaws in your plan. I am not an ideal asset in this plot of yours, as I am the General of Shinra.”
The blond interrupted him before he could continue. “And as the General you have certain responsibilities to the company, blah blah, etc. This is a hypothetical plotting game, Sephiroth. So forget for a moment that you are The General, and I am a lowly Custodian, and put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Surely you’ve done the same thing when trying to anticipate the enemy’s movements during war?”
Sephiroth almost opened his mouth to comment on the custodian’s lack of respect before he registered what the blond had said and “Yes” slipped out of his mouth instead. The custodian was making more sense than Zack usually did.
“Well then this should be old school for you. Except remember that the objective of this exercise is to arrive at the most entertaining solution, rather than the most efficient. Understood?”
“Yes,” he said, understanding the concept. As unnecessary and strange as this apparent social activity was. But when he opened his mouth to continue, the blond cut him off again.
“Alright then, how would you go about getting incriminating evidence of Shinra sleeping with a prostitute?”
And now his intelligence and strategic ability was being questioned. How had the conversation led to this? “I would hack into the Turk’s security cameras and record it, as his home is the only location he has elicit affairs.”
“I still think the ninja idea is funnier, but your plan would probably be more successful.”
“Indeed.” Alarmingly enough, it probably would. And while it was well known among the upper Shinra staff that he had illicit affairs with women in his home, Sephiroth probably shouldn’t have let the fact slip to a custodian. Even in a hypothetical strategic undertaking.
“So, what about that food?” the blond asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Sephiroth turned his attention to the problem at hand. “I will provide compensation with which you can buy your dinner,” he said, deciding that was a suitable solution.
But the blond came out from behind the printer again with an unhappy frown. “That’s not what I meant by ‘buy me dinner’.”
Sephiroth stared. Was this one of those sexual propositions that Zack had told him he should engage in more often? “I am already behind on my work because of these printers. It would not be wise to spend my time escorting you to a restaurant.”
The blond raised an eyebrow, though he didn’t appear insulted. Perhaps Sephiroth had interpreted incorrectly? “Well if you’re so worried about efficiency, then why don’t you just order us some take out and get it delivered here? Come on, you must be hungry by now.”
Sephiroth frowned slightly in thought. While he could ignore his own hunger easily enough, perhaps his efficiency would increase if he ate something. It seemed like a fair compromise. “What would you like for take out then?”
The custodian shrugged and turned his attention back to the printer. “I dunno. I’ll eat whatever you want to eat. Get something you like.”
Sephiroth pondered the dilemma he now faced. If the blond had made a demand, it would have been relatively easy to fulfill. However, now that he had the choice, he ran the risk of displeasing the one who was fixing his printer for him at nine o’clock at night.
Heading into his office where he kept his PHS and the phone number for a good Wutaian take out place Zack had first introduced to him a few months ago, he took his coffee with him. Might as well get some work done while they waited for the delivery.
. , . , .
When Sephiroth got the call from the night shift desk clerk for his delivery, he collected all the gil he’d need and left the office. A glance at the diligently-working custodian showed that he had borrowed a few parts from the printer happily flashing red error messages, and the General couldn’t bring himself to care.
Giving the delivery man a reasonable tip, he made his way back upstairs wishing not for the first time that his office wasn’t on one of the top floors at a ridiculous number 61.
When he arrived back at his office, Sephiroth was amused to see blond chocobo hair pop out from behind the printer at the smell of Wutaian. Blue eyes locked on the food the General carried to the coffee table where they would be able to eat most easily, and with a final kick to the printer, it started spitting out the backlog of reports Sephiroth had been trying to print over an hour ago.
The blond man, for he certainly didn’t carry himself like an awkward adolescent, walked over to the couch and fell onto it much like Zack during one of his self-awarded ‘breaks’. Apparently the couches in the General’s office were more comfortable for sleeping on than Zack’s own.
As Sephiroth carefully opened his own to-go boxes and began to eat with his chopsticks, the blond quickly snapped his own apart and began to dig into the meal with gusto, leading the General to wonder if the blond had eaten anything after work or just jumped straight into his almost two-hour workout.
When Sephiroth was only halfway through his Wutaian, the blond leaned back in his chair with a pleased smile, licking his lips. It looked like the man might have some of the same tastes in food as the General.
“What’s the name of the restaurant you got that from?”
“Tsuchi’s Wok.”
“I’ll have to go there sometime,” the blond said, letting out a sigh and pushing himself to his feet with a stretch. Sephiroth watched him wander over to his secretary’s desk and dump the sticky containers into her small garbage bin. He smirked slightly at the petty revenge. “Thanks for the food. I’ll leave you to your work. Try to get a decent sleep, eh?”
Sephiroth watched as the custodian went over to the elevator and pressed the down button. “It’s fixed I presume?”
“Yeah. You might want to bring in someone who actually knows what they’re doing though to take a look at the other one. And don’t let the Secretarial Ho touch the only working printer! She can walk her shit down to another office and mess up their equipment.”
Sephiroth pondered that for a moment before realizing that the custodian might be joking. Before he could clarify, the elevator door closed and the blond was gone.
Sephiroth looked down at his cold Wutaian and frowned. Packing away the leftovers, he put them in his bar fridge beside the multiple cartons of cream stored within. Picking up the reports that had finished printing during their meal, he went back to his quiet office and closed the door behind him.
. , . , .
Friday Night Near-Fatalities
Sephiroth stared down into the dregs of his coffee cup with a scowl. His secretary had gone home hours ago, and the only one still left in this Planet-forsaken office on a Friday night was him. Where most of Shinra’s employees were probably out getting inebriated, the only thing their General wanted was nine hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Checking the time, he frowned as the hour hand sat at 7 and the minute hand at 53. Didn’t Zack have a duel of some kind at 2000 hours? Perhaps he should call it a night and go watch the battle. It was a good enough excuse to get him out of the office.
Deciding that his lack of focus wouldn’t allow him to get much more work done anyway, he put away the papers on his desk and stretched. His spine cracked its own complaints. Leaving his office, he stopped by the arm chair closest to him and pulled up the cushion. He’d had to move his supplies since Zack located and raided them last. Pulling out two different chocolate bars, he put the cushion back down and wandered to the elevator, hands deftly unwrapping his first late-night snack.
The trip to the SOLDIER facilities didn’t take long. Sephiroth slipped in without the other SOLDIERs noticing, as their eyes and attention were trained on the duel taking place in front of them. He also recognized a very unique head of hair that he hadn’t expected to be there. Standing near the door, only a few feet away from the custodian, he turned his own attention to the clashing swords in front of him.
Zack, for once, exhibited a stability and balance that his personality usually made him incapable of. The General wondered if it was due to the blond’s presence. McAphry, an up and coming SOLDIER First Class, appeared to also be in good form. The frown on his face, however, indicated an absence of the internal balance Zack had achieved.
Neutral concerning the outcome, Sephiroth watched as Zack kept up a steady pace and McAphry slowly began to tire, becoming more frustrated as the battle continued. Using his anger as a tool, he crashed his rapier against the Buster Sword once again.
Sephiroth saw it before he heard it. Predicting the speed and force of the projectile, it was likely to connect with the custodian before the unenhanced human could do more than flinch, if that.
Moving with speed he usually saved for real battle, he took four steps to the left. To his surprise, the custodian had already raised his arms as though to defend himself, so the General slipped his right arm around the blond’s shoulders and the left around his waist, shifting them both out of the way.
Green eyes watched the blade as it spun by, burying itself in the wall of the building. Turning his attention to his package, now that the danger had passed, he was unsurprised to feel a slight tremor pass through the body so close to his own. His arms moved with each adrenaline-fuelled, panting breath, and suddenly had to hold a little more weight as the blond’s legs weakened beneath him.
“Holy shit, Cloud! Are you okay?” His First Lieutenant demanded, coming towards them at top speed, a look of concern on his face. McAphry stood behind him, staring down at his broken sword with a dark expression, more concerned with his defeat than the fact that he had almost killed a civilian. Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed.
The blond twisting in his grip to look up at him snapped his attention away from McAphry and to Zack. Tightening his arms around his package, he prepared to dodge the incoming SOLDIER before a collision resulted.
To Zack’s credit, he stopped just in time. “Cloud! Are you okay?”
The custodian nodded shakily. “I’d like to say my life flashed before my eyes, but it was moving a bit quick for even that,” he half-joked, voice as shaky as his body, trembling slightly in his grasp.
Zack’s panicked violet eyes turned to him, expression morphing into one of gratitude. “Thanks for saving him, Seph! I don’t know what I would have done if this whole duel ended in him hospitalized, or worse.”
Sephiroth decided then that it was probably not socially acceptable to point out that the sword would have certainly killed the blond, as he doubted any of the SOLDIERs there carried a Restore materia with them off-duty. “I was nearby,” he said instead, shrugging awkwardly as he released the blond, having felt the man in his grasp stop trembling and find his legs again.
The custodian turned around and looked at him. “Thanks,” he murmured, uncharacteristically subdued in the event of his near-demise. Sephiroth inclined his head in acceptance. Before he had to think of something to say, Zack distracted the blond by checking him over for damages, not unlike a child would look over its stuffed chocobo before deeming it acceptable.
The General turned his attention to the SOLDIER who had unknowingly raised his ire. Lack of care for civilians’ safety was exactly the kind of thing that had a negative affect on Public Relations for the SOLDIER Program. “In real battle, a broken sword equals defeat. Perhaps you would do better to take more care with your blade in battle as well as out.” Turning on his heel, he left the gym, making a mental note to keep an eye on McAphry in the future for signs of emotional instability, as was his job as leader of the SOLDIER Program. Mako was a dangerous and unpredictable substance, after all.
As he headed to his quarters, his mind ran through simulations of predicted injuries and their resulting cause of death for the blond he had saved. Frustrated that his thoughts had strayed again, he pushed the perturbing image of dead blue eyes and hair stained red from his mind.
-Toki Mirage-
Oh man, I think Tariray pegged Sephiroth perfectly when she called him, and I quote, “A heart-warmingly adorable douche.” I laughed for a good half a minute when I read that review. And Cloud, a cockney-cutey. :P Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I’ve decided to condense all the Sephiroth-related scenes into one chapter. Sorry if some of you got confused by the repeat of the coffee machine that used to be in chapter 3.
Mega thanks go to Weather Marmalade for her thorough analysis of the story and characters. As a result, I’ve edited a few things in this chapter.
Music: http: // www . youtube. com / watch? v=JsD6uEZsIsU
For some reason this just created a great mood for me when I was writing this chapter. Along with other great guitar music, but this one stood out to me at the ending of the Printer Massacre subsection.
Happy reading!
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The Little Guy