herobox | but what if the sword kills the pen? // GENESIS HAS SOFT SKILLS AU

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but what if the sword kills the pen? // GENESIS HAS SOFT SKILLS AU

"Am I an human being...?"

Sephiroth asks and Genesis knows the answer. He has been waiting for this moment, repeating the words again and again, the truth he holds over his rival, his friend, his... But Sephiroth sounds raw and vulnerable in a way that makes his something between Genesis' ribs twist. He knows Sephiroth, he would dare to say he knows him better than anyone. Angeal didn't engage in petty rivalries, didn't share the spirit of challenge like they did. Angeal didn't burn for him as Genesis did, still does...

Standing there, waiting for his moment to interrupt, he remembers how the fire suddenly became poison and the jealousy still feels like bile on his throat, the same as the pulsing pain on his shoulder, growing impossible to ignore with each day. It was his own sword, and it could have been almost funny if it didn't become a tragedy so fast.

A tragedy indeed...

But there was more. So much more.

It wasn't always envy, or desperation. The desire of wanting to live knowing he was doomed in favor of the person he once idolized. He wants to claw the life out of Sephiroth and drink it all for himself. But it wasn't always like that and that glimpse, that flash of something broken and fearful in Sephiroth reminds Genesis that...

That everything he wanted, once, was to share an apple with him. The forbidden fruit. And those feelings only grew stronger once he was able to meet the real him. And now there he is, at his most vulnerable. Holding the salvation Genesis craves. It would be so easy to snatch that heart for himself.

'I could make you love me,' Genesis thinks. 'Need me, before I disappear."

It's just a couple of seconds after Sephiroth says those words, but Genesis' mind and heart work faster.

He flies into the scene, the scenario is all his. There's other way he can do this, and all eyes are on him.

"You're the one who gets to decide that, old friend."

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Sephiroth shakes his head.

"No," he says, quietly, seriously. "This is the calm before the storm."

There is no way the company would allow their three-million-gil investment to leave. Zack's words contained an implicit promise: this truce lasted until they reached the village, with all parties safe. This truce lasted until Zack went to sleep, and woke up. He would not attack them without explicit orders as such - but he would not remain without such orders for long. Further, Zack himself was endangered by the company they kept - Cloud could testify to his collusion, as could the girl.

(The girl in question keeps turning around unsubtly, looking at Sephiroth and Genesis's joined hands, and then turning back around. The things that are no doubt fermenting in her brain could fuel the tabloids for a year and a day. Sephiroth could have mitigated the damage by letting go of Genesis's hand, like a sensible man. But he doesn't want to. He feels like some sort of mindset has been unlocked, liberated from him, since the reactor core - he feels petulant, unruly. He wants to rebel. He wants to kick Shinra's applecart over. He wants them to gossip, he wants them to speculate, he wants them all to say and think the worst. He wants to take the design doc in Hojo's office that describes what Sephiroth is allowed to look like, and dress like, and speak like, and burn it. He wants the image of Sephiroth the War Hero to be in ruins by the end of the week, as though it had never been.)

Realistically, a military leader who was on the verge of defecting to the enemy would kill everyone present to witness and glass the local village, to cover his tracks. The smartest thing to do would be to burn Nibelheim to the ground to buy a few days. But - Genesis promised the truth. He says he has something to show Sephiroth, something he came here for.

Besides. Zack's little friend and their intrepid guide live here. Sephiroth would not repay their loyalty and their courage that way. It still sits heavy on his heart, that they lost the other man in the river. Genesis had won him with compassion - he would pay that forward.

Hah. Genesis can't help but smile at Sephiroth using even the most basic metaphor. It's charming.

"It may be, but don't forget we are the eye of the hurricane."

Shinra couldn't stop him alone, with Sephiroth? They will be unstoppable. The idea fills him with energy, one he has been lacking since the degradation started getting even more cruel. If the world seeks my destruction, he said once, it goes with me. Now, they could burn Shinra to the ground, make them pay—

It's the feeling of Sephiroth's hand on his that stops Genesis from getting lost in dreams of revenge. He hasn't let go; he won't let go. And Genesis won't let go either. If it's some kind of challenge, a competition of who gets cold feet first, Genesis refuses to lose. Besides, the girl's face is hilarious. What would the world say, about the Hero Sephiroth being this intimate with a traitor?

The idea exhilarates him even more than his revenge plot. He intertwines their fingers, even. Genesis finds that the bile that he has been swallowing since he deserted, doesn't taste as strong now.

He moves closer to Sephiroth, closer than he ever dared before.

"So, what's the plan, General?" Should they kill them? Burn this ugly town? Take prisoners? Genesis is listening to suggestions.

Genesis intertwines their fingers. Sephiroth... he inhales through his nose, and then exhales, to steady himself. Focus. They are deserting the most powerful military on the planet right now, and in the process, stealing their most valuable asset. (Yet, he can't let go. Not yet. He wants to spar with Genesis again.) So far, walking has conserved their energy.

"We can't enter the town proper," he says in an undertone. The wash of the river churns to the side of the path here, and below them, and masks quiet conversation. They would have to shout to be heard by Zack, tailing them at a respectful distance (again, Zack deciding he would rather not show Genesis his back), or Cloud and Tifa, leading the group.

Unlike Tifa, Cloud Strife has not turned around once, his shoulders so tight that they almost stand to lift his helmet off his head. Already a nervous personality, he is clearly Very Aware that this situation is the kind of irregular that might get him on the nightly news, if he is unlucky.

Sephiroth continues, "We can break off to enter the mansion. But at that point, I think you get to tell me what the plan is, considering I just resigned my commission."

Is not only because of his enhances senses that Genesis notices every micro-reaction. All his focus is on Sephiroth now. It wouldn't be the first time, at some point, the authority the other had over his attention enraged him, because Genesis desired too much, sometimes contradicting himself to the point of desperation. Now, on the same side, his wants and needs seem clearer. Like breathing fresh air after a season under the sea.

Weird. He hasn't felt like that in ages. He has been drowning for so long, he distantly thinks that if this doesn't pull him out, he will take them both to the ocean's abyss.

And yet, Sephiroth's hand is still warm. Genesis doesn't even register the cadet. The girl is funny, and Zack is someone Genesis even thinks about calling by his full name. That's all.

"Not General anymore? Hn, that's exciting," he's still close, he wants to live like that. "Don't you worry, Sephiroth. I know where to start, and for the rest... there's art in improvisation as well."

"Genesis," Sephiroth says, with an air of overwhelming, infinite patience (lying), "that does not sound like a plan."

....

"I do have a plan," Genesis answers back, exaggerating how offended he feels by the truth. "It just lacks some steps."

With his free hand, Sephiroth rubs his temple. He would have lost that headache by this point if someone weren't prolonging it.

"First, just answer me this: where have you been laying low in this area, and what was it that you wanted to show me?" Sephiroth already heavily suspects that Genesis was hiding in Shinra Manor, given that he has offered no resistance to walking Nibelheim-ward off the mountain. The locals avoid it, and there might even be a Shinra terminal inside. Genesis could have been spying on their comms for weeks.

"I think you know that already. Both things." Or at least, he hopes Sephiroth suspects it. He glances at Zack, at a prudent distant, and then to his friends on the front. "But should we discuss sensitive matters with such company?"

He isn't being cryptic on purpose. He's been a fugitive for way too long to just talk about his next steps in front of still-Shinra-employees and a girl with an awful fashion sense and unknown loyalties.

"If I knew what you wanted to show me, then you wouldn't need to show it to me," Sephiroth grumbles. He finally lets go of Genesis' hand - to sling his arm around his shoulders, and pull him close. He whispers directly into his ear:

"We burn the manor and - "

A sudden brrrraaat of gunfire snaps his head up. Cloud is firing on a Disgorgon that appeared at the edge of the trail, where they would have had to climb down along the sharp-edged rocks. Sephiroth sighs.

"Wait," he says, and leaps into action.

He runs forward, dashes, past the two at the front, not even bothering to verbally warn Cloud not to fire - the bullets would only strike his reinforced duster, and Sephiroth's body would not be severely damaged by their force, not from a standard issue Shinra machine gun. Better to keep the fiend pinned for even that extra second - but Cloud manages not to hit him. Sephiroth unsheathes Masamune with a force that cracks the air, an iaido-based strike; the blade has no sheath to produce the pressure except the crease of Sephiroth's knuckles, reinforced on the inside of his gloves with armor specially designed to this very purpose.

One strike breaks its jaw; another severs the tendons in its neck; a third slashes between its eyes. The beast falls dead, already steaming with corrupted mako.

Sephiroth turns, reversing his grip on Masamune, to see Cloud snap to attention once more. He's trembling like a leaf. "S-sir!" he yelps.

Sephiroth nods at him, already striding back. "Good instincts," he says, clapping him on the shoulder as he passes.

Closer, even closer. Sephiroth pulls him closer and makes promises of arson. Genesis' heart skips a beat. He wants to rest his hand on Sephiroth's chest, on that space where there's just skin and leather. He has a mole, there, he knows, he has seen it and now wants desperately to touch it with the tips of his fingers while he whispers yes, whatever you want, let's burn this whole place to the ground.

Gunshots.

The sudden noise startles Genesis. Abruptly, he understands the situation. It was a trap, an ambush, Sephiroth lied so he could kill him. But no, it's even worse, he called for reinforcement so he wouldn't have to do it with his own hands. Coward and a liar. Compassion doesn't exist and Genesis will make sure that they die together—

Oh. He's wrong.

It's just that stupid cadet having trouble with a monster Genesis could kill with his bare hands. Sephiroth moves forward to help him and Genesis can't help to stare. He's not happy about it, they should be equals, friends, rivals! Genesis is past the age of idolizing and yet he can perfectly understand the awestruck expression of the cadet.

"Please," he purrs, moving towards Sephiroth, making sure to tail him until he's between him and the cadet. "I didn't know you still wanted the hero's role. Unless it was to make me jealous?"

Make him jealous? Sephiroth gives a half-smirk. "You're free to kill any fiends you see," he replies. Then he looks at Zack, bringing up their six. "Zack. Why don't you go up front and do your job?" he says.

"Uuuuuuuugh, fine," Zack complains, striding forward to breeze past Sephiroth and their "captive," up to the front where the young officer and Tifa are. "Nice shooting, Cloud, why don't I give you two a hand?"

The girl whips around on the security officer. "'Cloud?'" she repeats. This starts an apparently very serious verbal altercation up front, one that continues as they walk. They are almost to the base of the foothills now.

A perfect opportunity to get away.

Sephiroth pulls Genesis aside as soon as they reach the last supply station (or first, if they were going up), which is mere tens of meters away from the woods that crowd the back side of the Manor. They could slip over the fence to the back of the building and avoid being seen by anyone in the village at all.

Not that kind of jealous. But Genesis didn't expect different.

It looks like something is happening between these... random and non-relevant persons on the front. Genesis is about to suggest they sneak away when Sephiroth pulls him aside (manhandling much, general?).

Finally.

He signals the fence with his head, expecting Sephiroth to understand, and moves forward to what will be their hideout and then, a pile of burned, forgotten wood.

Sephiroth easily scales the fence with a leap, with mako-enhanced strength. He doesn't look behind, trusting that Genesis can easily follow. A window on the first story is broken. He surmises Genesis broke it for easier access from the back.

"Come on," he says, stepping into the Manor.

The Manor is dark, and cobwebbed in the corners. Not so around the floors, though, indicating at least someone had passed through recently. Genesis, again. Sephiroth looks around. A large table, set as though a large family was just preparing to sit to dinner. A pile of notebooks on one table. Sephiroth turns as Genesis enters behind him.

"Where to?"

Obviously, Genesis has no problems following. He may be falling in pieces because of the degradation, but it takes more to have him crawling without any pride.

The Manor is as he remembers it, as he left it.

"Hm, actually, we're in the right place," Genesis comments, walking past the table to search for something a bit more hidden. Something you can find only if you're searching for it.

A portrait. He takes it with both hands, his gloved thumb taking care of the dust that obscures the woman's features. A woman of brown hair and sad eyes, just beside a man they both know well.

He extends it to Sephiroth.

"Does she look familiar?"

That's -

My mother's name was Jenova -

- but that's also -

Endure the pain, Sephiroth -

Sephiroth seizes the portrait, his eyes roving over it. His fingers grip the old wood of the frame, squeezing, squeezing. His eyes scan across it again, and again, as though it might update itself to something else if he keeps looking at it. His expression shows a flash of emotion - relief, concern - before closing down. His mouth is set in a line. His eyes grow more and more distant.

Finally, he turns away, holding the portrait. He sets it down on the dining room table. There are slight divots in the wood where his fingers had held the frame. He breathes once, twice. He turns back to Genesis.

He bears a small smile. Like the one he wears in the field. In front of the cameras.

Then he says a word that he has never said in the field, or in front of the cameras. That he possibly has not said anywhere.

(His vocabulary was also in the design doc.)

"That motherfucker."

Incredible. Genesis laughs, and it isn't cruel or mocking, it's sincere, even a bit relieved.

"Quite literally, my old friend."

He moves towards the picture, analyzing it briefly, pointing out something obvious.

"A lab coat. She must have been in the science department as well. Still, there isn't any register of a woman named Jenova," he knows, since he spent so much time with Hollander, searching for any clue, threatening any scientist he could put his hands over, reading top secret files about project G. He knows quite well how the department worked by now.

"Lucrecia Crescent is the only woman registered in the department, besides Gillian."

My mother's name was -

"Lucrecia..." Sephiroth repeats.

His whole life, he had been saying the wrong name. Calling the wrong name. Whispering the wrong name into his pillow. Bitterly praying the wrong name into his teenage hands, in the backs of the transports.

Maybe that's why she had never come.

He tears his eyes away from the portrait. She worked for R&D. She must have been accomplished, to make it in the department as a woman, under Hojo's infamously misogynistic command structure. They were lovers. She's no longer there. Sephiroth doesn't have to outline this to Genesis, working as he was with Hollander:

Shinra's top R&D scientists do not get to retire.

"I'm going to kill that man with my bare hands," he says, calmly, serenely, with a faint, wry smile. "He's going to beg for my forgiveness."

Oh, he loves this. Not the tragedy behind the hidden story of Lucrecia Crescent, not even Sephiroth's wound, beating and visible for him to admire. No, he loves his reaction, his well-directed fury.

Shinra shall perish.

He moves closer, almost purring when he talks.

"And I'll be there in the first row to see it happen," I'll be there, with you, it's what he means.

"But before that, I have some theories regarding Lucrecia Crescent," now it's time to give Sephiroth some information. Genesis must handle it with care, but with the newly added information, the pieces are finally coming together for an answer. Sephiroth's truth and Genesis' cure.

"How much do you know about Project G?"

"Project G..." The project that resulted in Genesis's conception. Sephiroth crosses his arms, thinking back to the small scraps of notes they found in Hollander's lab at Mako Reactor 5. "An attempt to use the cells of an Ancient to manufacture individuals with the powers of the Ancients at scale." This project had resulted in Genesis's conception, and Angeal's. "That's all I know. Hollander was otherwise quite thorough in removing or destroying detailed records on the project."

He had thought the G stood for Genesis, when he read the project summary. Later, he was corrected - they had named the project for the scientist whose body and labor (literally) formed its basis: Gillian.

Had Lucrecia Crescent collaborated on that project?

"Not an Ancient, but they didn't know that..." He moves a hand to his shoulder, the wound pulsing with the memory. He thought after taking Sephiroth to his side, he could talk more lightly about this. Hah. He feels a stab of pain just by hearing Sephiroth's words but doesn't react to it, Genesis just breathes sharply once and walks around the room to defuse his tension.

"Jenova was the monster the science department found and mistook for an Ancient. Its cells were injected into Gillian. Angeal and I, we were both exposed to Gillian's cells contaminated by Jenova's traits. It wasn't pure enough, it was a... a failed experiment."

Failed. The words carry such venom Genesis can't help but growl them. A failure, he could never rival Sephiroth. Since his birth, he was supposed to lose.

"This is just a conjecture, my friend, but I think when they realized our case was a failure, it was when your mother was pregnant... It was just in time to try something new."

Sephiroth's head snaps up.

"You're suggesting -"

(The word J-E-N-O-V-A twists above the reactor door. The pipes pulse, feeding the pods in the room. A monster's womb.)

Gillian, injected with the cells of a monster, had helped to bear two boys into the world. And died by her own hand, when her brood came home to roost.

Sephiroth's breath quickens, in the second after he cuts himself off. His eyes widen. His pupils dilate, and contract. (His head hurts again.) If they injected the mother with the cells of the monster, and found the children to be lacking -

"You're suggesting they chimerized me in the womb."

My mother's name was -

Hojo didn't lie. He told a piece of the truth. From a certain point of view.

Genesis closes his eyes. He remembers when he found out. The pain, the anger, and the feeling of despair grew inside him when he became aware of his monstrosity. But even worse, a lacking monster.

But most of all, he remembers how much he desired not to be alone.

He slowly moves closer to Sephiroth, resting a hand on his wrist, talking close to his ear, low, quiet but sincere.

"You were conceived as any child is. You had a mother like Angeal had. One who resembled you. The rest is Shinra's sins."

Genesis's touch is soft; his words are gentle, empathetic. But they fall on deaf ears, on numb skin. Sephiroth jerks violently away from him. "One who resembles me?!" He seizes the portrait and thrusts it towards Genesis. "Which of these people gave me my hair color, I wonder? Lucrecia is sitting - do you think she crowned two meters standing up? In fact -" he flings it back towards the table, where it scatters the silverware and dishes all around, crashing, the tinkling of broken glass - "was it her pupils that slit like a cat's? Hojo told me that was the mako exposure! The mako exposure! Except no one else in SOLDIER developed a tapetum lucidum, did they?!"

Ranting. Deranged. Is this what it is like, to be de-ranged? Un-hinged? Flapping like a poorly bolted door? That feeling is crawling in his veins again, prickling his skin, though rather than coming from all around him, it is calling him, pulling him. The reactor. The answers are at the reactor -

"The thing is at the reactor," he growls, and steps towards the window.

The portrait falls with a crack noise because Genesis doesn't catch it. He's busy moving towards Sephiroth, taking his face in his hands so he will look at him.

"Sephiroth!" He calls him again. If he had a surname, he would call him for his full name, but Sephiroth wasn't even granted that. "Look at me!"

He doesn't look well, it's too much information. Genesis knows it, goddess, he deserted because of this. He drew countless other SOLDIERs to their deaths because of this. Angeal died because of this. But they are together now, things can be different. Their story can have a happy ending.

"That thing is nothing!" He yells. "Don't let it haunt you, not when you're finally close to the truth. Isn't this what you wanted? To know more about your mother? I don't have any idea what my parents looked like but to me... You have her eyes. Those are eyes of yearning, not of a monster."

Again, Genesis's voice cuts through the noise, the chaos in his mind - the need that seized him. Genesis pulls him back from the window, turns him, takes Sephiroth's face in his hands. His gloves brush Sephiroth's skin, the leather warm with the heat of his hands. Look at me! he commands, as at the reactor, and Sephiroth has to. His words wash that feeling away, that compulsion that seized Sephiroth so intensely again.

(Eyes of yearning... Right now, Genesis would see the yearning in those eyes, that terrible need. Like a terrified chocobo, bolting, seeking its herdmates, seeking its master. When Sephiroth's eyes were torn from Mt. Nibel in the distance, that need, those reins flew free for a moment. And now Genesis holds them in his hands.)

What was he doing? His search for his mother - the thing that had driven him all his life - has just had a breakthrough, a revelation! Whether he was tampered with in her womb didn't matter - he was still carried there, wasn't he? Sephiroth reaches up and grips Genesis's wrists where they cradle his face.

"We..." Both products - products - of Shinra. Their fates are one. "We have been robbed of our birthright." The right of a child to know his parents. To know his blood. "All this - all this, because Shinra wanted an Ancient. "Hojo, Hollander, Shinra - they wanted monsters, didn't they?" His breathing is harsh. He stares into Genesis as though he had never seen him before. "I think we should show them the fruits of their labor."

Edited (fat thumbs) 2024-05-24 23:04 (UTC)

but what if the sword kills the pen? // GENESIS HAS SOFT SKILLS AU

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