InsaneJournal

"Confutatis Maledictis," Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth
Title: Confutatis maledictis
Author: joudama
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word count: 959
Summary: There are some things Sephiroth will never say.
A/N: "Confutatis maledictis" is from the Dies Irae, and means "The wicked are confounded." Also, what's up with all the first person I've been writing lately?!
Prompt: Sephiroth, angst – salt in an open wound

--

I don't know how he does it. Either of them.

"Get off me, brat!" Angeal says with a laughing grin, and it's painfully obvious to anyone that he doesn't mean the harsh words. He's indulgent almost to a fault with the young SOLDIER he's picked up as a protégé somehow; saying nothing about the boy hanging off Angeal's back like a young child. This despite the Buster sword. The boy stays on, somehow, and Angeal simply rolls his eyes and then ignores the boy, and goes about his business, not missing a step as he walks down the hall with a still-gangly mass of fifteen-year-old boy hanging off of him. I simply cannot fathom why or how the boy can so freely express his adoration for his mentor, or how Angeal can allow it.

But I wonder, sometimes, what it must be like. I could certainly never drape myself across someone's back now as that boy has done, nor could I have done it when I was still small enough for it to have been feasible. When I was that young, the idea never would have occurred to me, and touch even more of a foreign concept than it is now. Back then, the only form of touch I had ever seen or known was of doctors preparing me for tests or of fighting simulations. Now, it has changed to the clash of real battle and watching those around me laugh and touch and, in the case of Fair, leap screaming onto Angeal's back.

I could never have been so free, nor was there anyone I would have wished to be so...tactile with.

And there is no one who would dare be so free with me as that boy is Angeal. Everyone is careful around me. No one touches me. And there was a time when I preferred that, because it was a sight better than the labs and the touch of the scientists and Hojo. But the longer I am free, the more I begin to feel my difference from all of those around me. They are all free in their camaraderie and touch, but I alone am different. Even amongst the two I call my friends, I know that things are different.

I see how Genesis and Angeal are together; the touch without thought and the way they will slide into the dialect of their hometown area at times when no one is around. Or rather, when no one else save myself is around. And I can't help but wonder if it is because I am so separate that they simply...forget I am there and slip back into their comfortable duo.

I wonder what it would be like, to have a hometown, and to have someone that I am that close to, that I could speak so freely in the broad, rolling tones they use. I've grown to understand almost everything they say, of course. They are never saying anything bad, anything they would not wish me to hear, simply teasing each other or tossing snatches of reminiscence of some childhood scene.

I wonder what would happen, if one day I simply opened my mouth and asked what it was that had caused a Mrs. Markopoulos to remark that one day Genesis' temper bomb would go off and set the town ablaze, or respond to some other such inconsequentiality that they had started in on, or ask "Why?" in the lilting speech of their home. But I never will. I feel as though if I did, I would somehow sully whatever it is that they have, that easy camaraderie of two. I would not force myself unto something that seems so personal, and so I never let on that I understand.

Angeal waves to Genesis as he passes him, the boy still on his back and grinning. Genesis is as he always is, surrounded by people. Genesis has never had trouble drawing a crowd--he is almost like a flame that draws the moths. I can understand it, in a way, because as much as Genesis is a thoroughly irrational character, there is something oddly compelling about him.

I rarely have so many people around me, not when I am not fighting them, or they are not taking an interminably endless amount of photographs for ShinRa's PR machine. What must it be like, I can't help but wonder, to have so many around you because they genuinely like you, not because they wish to use you for something. I would like to ask him, one day. But...much as I will never question, I never will, because there is no point, and because some part of my shies away from revealing such a weakness about myself. I am not supposed to need or want a connection with others, and asking about something I will never have is a waste of time.

"Ahh, here he is, the hero of Wutai!" a voice, Lazard, calls out. "We need you for a photo, General. This way," he says, and it stings, somehow. Of course, this is all that I am good for, when not at war, and all that I am called out to do.

I glance over at Genesis, and there is an ugly look on his face as he watches all of this, and he looks at me with something in his eyes blazing for a single, unguarded moment, all of the people around him ignored as he glares at the reporters and Lazard. He gives a tight smile and frees himself from his own crowd with an "Excuse me, I need to rescue Angeal. Leave the hero here to his adoring throng," and all of them laugh.

I don't understand his anger, and suddenly, I feel very, very alone.

--

ETA! Because Seph needs hugs, mystiri_1 has decided to have Zack try to provide: Hugs, Cookies, and Cute, Fluffy Things. XDDDDD