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keepsdeathhiscourt · 1 month ago

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101 ways to seduce a SOLDIER: prologue

sephiroth x fem!reader

series masterlist | series warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, established relationship, angst & fluff, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, explicit sexual content

chapter warnings: 3.8k+ words, more hurt than comfort for now, a bit of insecurties n worry

you love midgar at this time of day, right as the citizens begin to settle into their homes after another day of work and the sun is in the last few moments of setting; the few remaining rays of yellow light slowly being engulfed in the azure night. a cooling breeze accompanies the mako green hue of the street lights that have just begun to flicker on, illuminating the rest of your short walk to the bookstore.

it was one you knew by heart and muscle memory alone. when to leave on what days and what route to take in order to get there the hour before closing. each crack in the sidewalk familiar to your steps that always seem to avoid them just so, the closing of the other store fronts almost perfectly timed with your passing of them.

perhaps it was the same muscle memory that brought you to look upwards at the tinkling of the bell as you open the bookstores creaky wooden door and feel the warmth from inside the building kissing your cheeks. sephiroth would normally have stood next to you, peering down at you with that sweet smile that was just for you while he held the door open for you before he spent a pretty piece of gil on books for you both.

or maybe it was just your longing, aching, heart hoping that he would be there like you wished him to be. your chest tightens when you are only met with the doors hinges that groan as it closes behind you and leaves you staring at the side of an old bookshelf.

trying to leave the uncomfortableness in your chest at the door, you push forward with a shaky step and pull out your phone to read through your texts with sephiroth to confirm the title of the book you had offered to grab for him while he continued to work. it was mission after mission after mission lately and even when he did have a break or when he was only gone for the day, every moment at home was spent resting and getting ready for the next call that was surely not far off.

of course you both knew it could be like this at times, especially while the war with wutai continues on but it didn’t make it suck any less to not be able to be with him in so many ways. and it really fucking sucks.

you keep your phone held close to your chest with each step you take deeper into the bookstore, past the round cashiers desk in the middle of the small store where a familiar older woman sits and nods with a wrinkled smile as you pass by her. she had never said much to either you or sephiroth while you were here, outside of thanking you for your continued patronage and letting her know if she could special order anything for you. it was odd to not have someone fawning over him or asking for autographs or photos but for whatever reason she never had and it was one of the reasons you continued to come here.

you return her smile and hurry past her so you won’t take up too much of her time. no one else was in the shop besides the two of you and most nights when you came here with sephiroth, it was the same. comfortable, quiet and with an abundance of books from bedtime children's stories to rare collectables from wutai.

each bookshelf that lines every wall and splits the space into several smaller sections are made of different designs and woods, like each one had simply found itself here after no longer being needed in its previous home. in the extra spaces sit more mismatched tables that are stacked with books and advertising signs, hand written in a looping bold script and colorful ink.

right outside the historical section, one in particular catches your eye; a book with a deep purple cover and pink and gold lettering sitting on top of a square table with big leaf vines carved into the legs. the stack of books seemed to be missing quite a few, many already bought and these ones not far off. all that was left was a few scattered on the edges of the table and the stack of five or so laying one on top of the other in the middle of the table. sitting on the stack of them, a standing sign reads:

‘ranked midgars #1 in women's reading! featured in women of shinra magazine & sworn to work by gold saucer actress ramona maroon selling fast, get your copy today!’

you take a step towards the table and tentatively reach for one of the books at the edge closest to you. it’s light, the cover smooth and untouched by wear and tear but it starts to feel like a live bomb in your hands as you read the title and the smaller normal script below it.

‘101 ways to seduce your partner

have you lost that intimate spark? is work taking up all of their time? need to recatch their attention? this book is for you! a fool proof way to getting close and intimate with your partner once again’

you snort at first. this is a best seller? are so many of the relationships of midgar really in such need? but there’s an undeniable ache in your body that reminds you yours is not faring much better at the moment.

when was the last time you and sephiroth had been even close to intimate? outside of chaste kisses and embraces that were never long enough or outside of sleep, you can’t recall the last time you had felt his hands on you or when you had last caught his hungry gaze on you. you aren’t sure when you last saw his sculpted body outside of his uniform, got to feel him and love on him like he deserves.

surely it hadn’t come to this though.. you weren’t so desperate as to need a book's advice on how to get your boyfriend to look your way. does it even apply if your partner is a soldier? the circumstances are totally different. it’s not like either of you wanted this and it wasn’t because that spark was dead.

it wasn’t.. right?

no.. stupid book.

quickly, like it was burning your hands, you set it back down on the table and make your way deep into the historical section, ignoring the heat in your cheeks as you read down the book spines until you find the one sephiroth wanted and hug it against your chest like a shield when you have to walk past the table of purple books again to check out.

you don’t need a book to get yourself anxious over your relationship or to tell you how to fix it. there's nothing to even fix! you chide yourself. life had just been busy and tiring and you already knew you could catch sephiroths attention, that you could ignite that spark even when it had been untouched for longer than you could clearly handle.

you could and would do something about it, for both your sakes, without the help of a book for the housewives and husbands of midgar. surely he needed it too.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

when you had received sephiroths text a few days later letting you know he’d be returning back same day after having to leave you once again in the earliest parts of the morning, you knew exactly how you were going to welcome him home.

with your shopping for supplies out of the way, which you did with a giddy smile you could hardly contain, you had spent the better half of the late afternoon and early evening getting ready. ensuring your hair and makeup was to your liking and trying on all of your lingerie sets until you settled on the little lacey black piece you knew sephiroth loved. it hugs your figure perfectly and sits along your hips comfortably while leaving your back exposed and the dip of the neckline goes past your navel. the fabric lays lightly over your breasts but a small tug one way or the other would expose the most intimate parts of you so easily.

after getting ready, you throw on a robe to keep warm and covered until it’s time to feel so very vulnerable and exposed once you are in the presence of your beloved. you weren’t quite sure when sephiroth would be back but as the sun dips below the walls of midgar, you’re opening a bottle of wine and lighting the candles you had purchased earlier and had set along the living area and open kitchen that shared the large space, eagerly waiting for his return.

warm melted wax begins to pool at the center of each candle until it spills over the edge and onto the surface you had placed under them the longer the night goes on without sephiroth coming home. you’ve hardly moved from the spot you had taken on the couch, couldn’t let go of the edge of the cushion or calm your anxious heart as you waited and checked your phone again and again but no text or call came through and the time on your homescreen only continued to get later.

with your heart in your throat and making your eyes water even though you swore you wouldn’t cry, you were about to give up, blow out the candles and get changed into one of his oversized shirts to get ready to fall asleep while you waited for him to get home when you hear the front door lock turning. your held back tears are still glistening on your lash line but your face breaks out into a bashful smile as relief washes over you. quickly you untie your robe and toss it to the corner of the couch, cursing yourself for not deciding during your waiting on how you would pose or greet him when he walked in.

should you go with a hushed ‘welcome home’ as you pull him down to kiss you and stand on your toes to meet him? lay on the couch and sit up to beckon him over once he sees you? perhaps no words were needed but rather a sultry walk and a needy gaze until you’re in his arms and he takes you right there in the entryway, against the wall?

goddess it didn’t matter as long as you got to feel his hands and lips on you.

smoothing out the lace along your body and taking a deep breath, you feel all of your worries and anxieties completely evaporate at the sight of sephiroths tall figure and shining silver hair coming through the door. you feel a bit shy dressed in so little when he’s in his full uniform, so small and helpless; a tiny crystal offering to a god among men. but you’re entranced by the soft metal clinking of his armor and accessories, the sway of hair, the hands that hold you so tenderly but never let you go. you know there’s no reason to worry and don’t let the small, vulnerable feeling pooling in your belly stop you from taking a quiet step in his direction.

“seph~” you coo quietly, your sultry smile evident in your voice even to yourself.

but he doesn’t respond to your call. it’s as if he hadn’t noticed you or the flames flickering around him at all. like his body is on autopilot. his strides are long, quiet, and go straight past you, just out of arm's reach, and into the bedroom without taking in anything else around him or looking in your direction. in the shadows of the candle light and the length of his bangs covering his features, you can’t make out his expression or see his eyes but can feel his warmth and smell the last remnants of his floral shampoo as he passes by you.

you go to call his name again, try to grab his attention, maybe his hand, but there’s a lump in your throat keeping you from even breathing and a heaviness to your entire body that roots you in place when there's only his lingering scent to cling onto in the place you had expected him to take you into his arms.

this was.. not what you were expecting or prepared for; was more than your heart could handle and as you stand here alone, it feels more fragile than you had last remembered it.

he’s not ignoring you. he’s not. and you haven’t lost that spark. you haven’t. he still wants you.. still wants to be with you.. he does..

you swallow your anxious, unwelcomed, thoughts: bitter and hard and settling at the bottom of your stomach like bricks. he must be exhausted. it just wasn’t a good night for this. that’s all..

once you’re able to force yourself to move, you’re quick to blow out the candles and hurry into the bedroom after sephiroth but in the time you had taken, he had shed his entire outfit, leaving it on the floor near his side of the bed in a neat pile and, in only his boxers, has quite literally fallen into bed. you hear the dull thumb of his body against the mattress as you enter the room, not even able to pull himself under the covers.

from your place near the bedroom door, you can’t help but think how normally he would look younger like this, spread out along the large mattress with his features soft in the realm between consciousness and sleep. but tonight he looks weathered, evident dark circles under his eyes in the moonlight, his breaths deep like they were the first real ones he had taken all day. when he reaches towards your side of the bed and is met with nothing, his brows knit, his lips turning downwards in deep expressive displeasure. boyish like you remember him to be and it makes your heart go through an ungodly amount and levels of emotions in a span of a few beats.

it aches and bursts with warmth all at once. joins the heaviness of your stomach but still provides life to the butterflies knocking against your rib cage. chokes you and provides you with hope and worry and reminds you not to just stand there when he’s finally within arms reach. while you still have him.

leaving your lingerie among the pile of his uniform on the floor near the bed, you quickly slip into one of sephiroths cotton training t-shirts and crawl into bed, unsuccessfully attempting to get the covers from underneath his large body so he can be properly tucked in because as soon as he feels you, his arms are around you, gathering you to his chest and pressing you tightly against him.

a soft, barely audible murmur of your name leaves his lips and seeps into your hair where he presses a slow, sleepy kiss. he’s so warm, his heartbeat steady in your ears, his arms unyielding in their hold on you and you don’t know what it is exactly that has you shedding a few tears against your will, the wetness of them lingering on your cheeks and his chest as you, more quickly than you expected and without warning, follow him into the sands of sleep.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

though days later and a few hours earlier than when you would normally come, the bookstore brought the same blanket of warmth as soon as you entered, the smell of parchment, ink and leather prominent in the air. you don’t look up expecting sephiroth to be beside you like you had before but instead take your time studying the labeled sections as you pass by them slowly and try to remind yourself sephiroth would be here with you again soon.

his absence was something you had felt tenfold since he left for wutai the afternoon after your failed attempt at seducing him. you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the apology text you had woken up to or the neatly folded lingerie that was placed on top of the dresser by sephiroth before he had left for shinra hq in the early morning while you were still sleeping.

you were quick to shove the lace in the back of your drawer and reply to sephiroths text with reassurance that it was alright and an emoticon you did not really relate to at that moment. he had asked you if you were sure you were alright when you met in the afternoon to say your farewells in person before he left for wutai but your smile felt a little more honest then as he held you, kissed you deeply, like he needed it - you - more than air in his lungs, and you promised him everything was okay despite your slightly defeated heart and that aching yearning that was starting to feel like a more permanent part of you.

it is okay, missing him is normal and he’s missing you too. you repeat the reassurance to yourself and attempt to focus on the bookshelves in front of you. a plastic stand holding a piece of paper with sparkling black and red ink that advertises the well stocked vampire romance novels below it tells you that you’ve wandered into the start of the adult section and with light steps you keep going, taking your time to see if any catch your eyes as you go from section to section.

by the time you’ve made it a little more than halfway through the entire store, three books cradled in your arms and ready to come home with you, you find yourself facing the children's section, facing a self displaying mismatched used books and behind you sits an oversized shelf full of years worth of different prints of loveless. one of the childrens books catches your attention, a thick story book with a tan binding and colorfully painted dragons on the spine- a compilation of wutian children's stories.

laying the childrens book against the stack of the other books in your arms, you flip through a few pages, taking in the softly lined and colored lanterns, the little creatures, and the delicate lettering telling their story that flows along the pages. you’ve never read children's stories from wutai, don’t really remember any stories being told to you from your own childhood, but the pang you feel in your chest is for your beloved who more than likely had never had a story read to him in his whole life.

well, aside from genesis reading loveless over and over again.

adding the children's book to the stack of books coming home with you, holding tightly onto your wish to read it with sephiroth when he comes home, the weight now in your arms tells you it’s best to call it here. feeling the heaviness of them cradling in your arms, the crisp edges resting against your middle, you can’t help but think of sephiroth again. your mind wanders to the many memories you have in this one building alone, imagining the way he’d suddenly be behind you without having made a noise, the pads of his fingers finding the small of your back and a soft secret smile to his tone as he asks if he can carry the books for you like it would be his genuine pleasure to do so.

so many times he had done just that and you hold onto the fact that soon he’d be back, in your arms, in your bed, right behind you as you buy more books than your apartment could likely hold, like this little part of your life made it some kind of normal that you both longed for, together.

as if to taunt you right on queue, with your head so full of your beloved, being together with him - something you were severely lacking at the moment, there was that purple book only a few steps away from you as you turn to leave the children's section. you swallow thickly as you read the cover from a distance even though you recognized the pink lettering immediately but read it again just to be sure.

‘101 ways to seduce your partner

one single copy. misplaced on a side table it didn’t belong to but standing out against the pile of much less intimidating books surrounding it. you glance around the store, like someone might come to claim it as their own any second, apologizing for leaving it here while they went to look at something else but there only seemed to be you and the store owner in her usual place at the register.

you and her and this stupid, stupid book.

but maybe it wasn’t so stupid.. a small voice inside you whispers. you wanted his attention, didn’t you? soldier or not, sephiroth is a person with desires and feelings, wants and needs. no one in midgar was immune to that, not even the strongest of them. and maybe you could use something to cling onto. to give you a direction, hope to hold, to add to your spark - not letting yourself admit for a second that perhaps it was lost. and if nothing else, you could giggle over the more ridiculous suggestions.

your cheeks burn as you grab the copy of the book as you pass by it and hastily add it to the bottom of your pile, probably looking more like you were contemplating shoplifting it rather than embarrassed about purchasing it but there’s no knowing tells or side eyes by the shop owner as she adds together the price of each book and with care places them in the reusable bag you had brought with you and slides it across the counter with a thanking nod, without taking any gil from you.

before you can say anything, she explains with a small smile that crinkles the edges of her eyes, “mr. sephiroth came in a few days ago and filled a tab for you so you’re all set.” she looks down at her log book, scribbling down what you assume is the price of your haul today and when she meets your gaze again she adds, “will be for the next long while.”

you can feel the flame in your heart flickering in the wing beats of the butterflies swarming your chest and the giggle you can’t help but let out that sephiroth had set up a tab at a bookstore and had likely filled it with more money than you could possibly use while he was away.

“thank you,” you reply with a smile of your own, gathering your bag but you hold it to your chest rather than by the handles, feeling the smaller purple book pressed against you the entire walk home.

↬ next: part one [coming soon..]

#amazing!#cant wait for more #thank you!#sephiroth x reader #not my writing

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keepsdeathhiscourt · 2 months ago

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And now we meet in an abandoned studio

Summary: While sneaking into the basement one night during her pregnancy, Lucrecia Crescent has a close encounter of the third kind.

Content warnings: Standard Jenova project horror, characters in fear/distress, heavy focus on pregnancy w complications such as fainting and dizzy spells, body horror, descriptions of heavy non-violent gore, light choking/strangulation, very lightly described vomiting. This one is not fun. Mostly canon compliant but i get weird with Jenova

Word count: 3.4k

Posting for Sephiroth Week, day 5 "Library" prompt

A/N: PUGH AGH OUGH this is the first actual fanfiction i am posting on this webbed site I am. Nervous. I wrote this one a few years ago and I still like it a lot. Sephiroth is. Here. But this is really about his fucked up moms. Title is taken from Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. It's a Lucrecia song. In my heart. during the editing process this somehow gained 400 words help me

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Bare feet slide across old, uneven flooring. Soft, fast footsteps resound, punctuated by a sudden stop and look over the shoulder. Lucrecia brushes loose hair out of her face, scanning the passage behind her. A distant noise echoes down after her, and she holds her breath, waiting for the inevitable call of her name. But there’s nothing. No confused, nasally voice scolding her for being down here so late at night. No gentle one accompanied by horribly sad brown eyes. She’s almost more thankful for lack of the latter. Lucrecia lets herself breathe again, and realizes just how heavily she’s panting. Sprinting through the mansion may not be the most efficient way to sneak about while 5 months pregnant.

Slower this time, she moves to continue walking down the hallway. At the end, the library’s maw opens dark and wide. A chill in the air bites Lucrecia as she fumbles to light a candle, which does little to chase away the cold radiating from the stone walls. The small blot of light guides her to the terminal against the back wall. Even at this late hour, it's humming diligently. She bypasses the authentication without struggle. Technically, Lucrecia’s not supposed to know the password, as this is mainly Hojo’s terminal, but it was easy to guess. First four digits, their combined birthdates. Then the name of the university he graduated from, and then his mother’s maiden name. Lucrecia had seen him clack away at the keyboard enough times to work it out.

Blue light stings her eyes as the terminal blasts to full power. Everything sits on the desktop, organized into neat little folders. Lucrecia opens one labeled with her own name. Inside is most of her records, medical information, her resume, even her thesis paper from college. Part of her heart tries to warm at the thought that her husband would be so conscientious of her work. That part is quickly freezes over again as she closes it. Hojo, as much as he might like to, wouldn’t be allowed to hide away what she’s looking for. It’s either in her personal folder, or the main one. She moves to inspect the broadly labeled JENOVA Project. With a click, the contents sprawl out across the screen, with at least twenty individual sections. Photographs, samples taken, genetic records, chemical reactions, the physical state of the subject, their whole lives from the past two years, contained in one database. Lucrecia lets out a hopeful gasp when she sees the words Sonography.

There they are. Blurry, barely discernible scans. Lucrecia, childishly, bounces on her feet a little as she maximizes the first image. Making out anything through the grain is a challenge. But still she searches, peering into the gray blob, desperate for a shape. That curve may be a spine. Or the top of a very small head. That, there, is definitely a small hand. She remembers, with a snort, Gast’s proclamation of, “It's waving at you, Valentine.” Vincent’s flustered look away as he pretended that he hadn’t been intently watching the screen was priceless.

And she finds the jackpot. Through the static, clear as day, a very, very tiny face. A little nose, eyes sealed shut, the line of a mouth. Alone in the dark basement, Lucrecia smiles wider than she has in years. A shaky hand brushes against the monitor. The other rests on her stomach. The bump is visible now, even when she wears a baggy sweater to try and conceal it. 5 months in, the baby can hear its mother’s voice, or so the town’s midwife told her.

She whispers, “Hello.”

Lucrecia swears she can feel her stomach twitch under her fingers.

Hello, Mother, he replies.

The child’s sex doesn’t matter, really. They have no reason to believe that any specific chromosome differences would interfere with the process. Gast had, in secret, been rooting for a girl, he told her. “Little girls are more creative, more sensitive,” he told the others, half jokingly, over dinner, through a mouthful of salad. “Girls have better clothes, too. We could put the Ancient in a little dress with flowers on it.”

Hojo’s only input had been a bored, “It’s a male.” Lucrecia knows he doesn’t care, so long as the child comes out healthy, and she nodded along with him with a nonchalant face like she doesn't care either. She does. Just a little.

Her hand presses more onto the screen as she wraps her mind around it again.

A son.

Her son.

Her little boy, her magnum opus, still not fully formed. By now, hearing has developed, along with vocal chords. His lungs are still taking shape, but he can react to light. They’ll have to wait until he’s born to see if he inherits any of her or Hojo’s features. So much more growing to do, so much potential to fulfill. Such big shoes to fill, Lucrecia thinks, tearing her eyes away to look at the test tubes lining the walls. In each floats some malformed chunk of organic matter. Some flaked off from the main specimen, some just mutated into being when they tampered in a certain way with the cells. The Ancient’s odd biology raises so many questions about their ancestry and evolutions, all of which will be on her son to answer, and that’s not even broaching the social and political implications the revival of the Ancients will have. Truly, they were astoundingly different from modern humans, from what their research has revealed.

Lucrecia looks from one of the lumpy, pale tumors on the shelf back to the image of her son, and her vision goes white. Nausea swirls up from her stomach, so intense that for a moment she has to lean forward on the console to hold herself up. It clears up as quickly as it came, though it leaves behind a nice little migraine for her. A common occurrence at this point. All pregnancies have complications, but she must admit, she’d prefer if her body was as committed to this project as her mind. The future of Shinra, of the scientific community, of the world rests on her and the child she carries. The weight of such a thought has her hastily turning off the console and blinking the watery film out of her eyes. She needs to go back to bed.

As she’s still recovering from the brief spell, it takes Lucrecia a few seconds to understand what’s wrong when she blows out the candle and the room gets no darker. She blinks to clear her vision. Sterile yellow light, rough on her aching head, crosses her hands and feet, a line of color leading to the door at the far end of the library. Furrowing her brow, Lucrecia tentatively steps closer. Through the walls, muffled by the stones, comes the rattle of pipes and… music? A flat, low note hums behind the door. Lucrecia thrusts it open. An outpour of harsh brightness makes her throw a hand up in front of her face.

Squinting, she can barely make out the room. The lights in the ceiling buzz, a cacophony worthy of a swarm of locusts. By the sheer aggression of the sound, it’s shocking the bulbs haven’t blown out yet. Lucrecia runs to the control panel on the wall and slams down a switch. The room goes black, and again her vision is eclipsed, this time by an array of colorful, floating shapes. A pitiful clink from above her indicates that they’ll likely have to replace a bulb. She groans in annoyance.

It's no use, either way, because she can still hear that nasty buzzing. Over the normal sounds of machinery, a high-pitched thrum permeates the room. She turns to inspect the tank itself. There’s some automatic lights in the tank that stay on at all times, but they were just changed. They shouldn’t be acting up so soon. As Lucrecia examines the display, she finds her attention going to what the lights are illuminating.

Gast named it. He said the name had to be catchy but elegant, easy to say without sounding common, in preparation for when they could go public with their research. He’d come up with ‘Gen’ as in genetics, and ‘Nova’ as in new. They debated about spelling, and Lucrecia suggested they use a J instead of a G, really only because it was more aesthetically pleasing. So now they call it Jenova. Initially she liked the name; ethereal, yet approachable, the kind of name you’d expect a goddess to have. Now, after probably weeks worth of hours spent doing nothing except staring at the thing’s DNA, prodding it, dropping it in with any other samples they can get their hands on, it doesn’t seem very godly anymore.

The tank’s lights stain the slate gray skin a lurid green. Ashen hair, clinging to the remaining edges of the scalp, waves about stiffly in the liquid. Such lifelessness is really to be expected, for a 2,000 year old fossil, even if they’d been hoping for something a bit more… presentable.. Lucrecia walks around the tank, peering inside. The body hangs suspended in a strong chemical solution of formalin and raw liquid mako. They had contradicting hopes of both preserving the specimen and encouraging cell growth. The solution would likely have to be changed soon. Hojo's been working for weeks to try and come up with a new, more fitting mixture, ever since they realized it didn't need any help preserving itself, or growing.

A cold, fluttery feeling creeps up Lucrecia's spine when something like a human liver drifts by at eye level.

She remembers the frenzy the team went into when one of their samples grew a few cells overnight. She and Hojo spent a solid 18 hours in the lab, watching in awe as their samples reacted to stimuli with the vigor of day-old cells. When exposed to microscopic drops of raw mako, the cells swallowed them.

It was Gast’s idea to start pumping mako directly into its tank. Nothing much happened, at first. Soon, its form started to change. It had already looked strange when they originally recovered it. The crumpled, malformed skin was easily explained as natural decay. More mysterious was the massive, heart-like formation linked to it by what could best be called an umbilical cord. Without any understanding of how removing the heart might affect their future research, they opted to simply secure it to the specimen’s feet for convenience.

Vincent, of all of them, had been the one to notice the raised protrusions along the heart that were not there upon discovery. Over the course of several months, those protrusions grew into veins and arteries, spiraling up to latch onto the small of its back. One, which connected to the umbilical cord, shifted into something resembling a large intestine. The rest of the growth could not be placed. Rigid plates of muscle emerged from its back, asymmetrical and incomplete. Organs with no visible function or purpose carved themselves into being. The most recent edition to its collection is an eye, and a completely normal one, too, if one ignores that it’s sprouting by the optic nerve from one of the mystery organs. Any passing resemblance Jenova originally had to modern humans has long since been killed by the exterior biological system wrapped around it as securely as comfortably as any blanket.

What an astounding ability, to evolve and adapt even after death! What purpose would such an evolution serve? What toll might it have taken on a living body? Could modern humans be capable of something similar? Hojo's been writing a hefty paper on the subject for months. He becomes more enthralled with Jenova with every new mutation. Gast, on the other hand, started avoiding going into its room. In fact, he hasn't worked with it directly in months, evidently preferring to follow the progress of the pregnancy. Lucrecia, for her part, tries to match her husband's enthusiasm. It would be a waste of years of effort to hesitate now, when she has the privilege of not only observing history, but molding it with her own hands. Ugly as it may be, Jenova is the scientific discovery of a lifetime. To treat it as anything less would be an insult to both it and their own life’s work.

Thunk.

Lucrecia yelps involuntarily at the shattering of the thick silence. She looks around for the source of the noise. Nothing seems to have fallen. Her attention returns to Jenova. It’s floating backward with slightly more speed then normal, as if it's been pushed. Lucrecia huffs, mind jumping into overdrive to counteract her racing heart. First thing in the morning, she'll tell Hojo to put some actual measures in place to keep the damn thing from just bobbing up and down and back and forth. If they lose anything valuable because Jenova drifted too close to the glass and it got squished, she might actually divorce him.

Then, again, thunk. Lucrecia steps back this time. She'd seen motion. A smear of unidentifiable fluids now stain the glass. The Ancient's exposed brain must have pressed up against it. Could there be a current in the tank pushing it around? Bubbles frequently spill upwards from the openings where the pumps connect, but that flow shouldn't be strong enough to move its whole body.

Thunk. Her lungs seize. She wipes her eyes. As clear as day, Lucrecia saw the thing bend its torso downwards and bump its head against the tank, and now it’s just floating again. That spell must have been worse than she thought. She can already hear Hojo's whining about how one of the pipes was too strong and pushing in liquid too fast, how irresponsible someone is for risking permanent damage to his specimen, jeopardizing the whole operation, blah blah blah.

Regardless of how badly she wants to go upstairs, Lucrecia's scientific mind has formed a hypothesis and it won't allow her to leave without testing it. Slowly, very slowly, she circles the tank. Jenova doesn't move. Her nerves are almost settled when she makes a full rotation of the room without incident. She gives it one more examination, stepping on her tiptoes to bring her face to the glass.

Its eyes were fully open a few months after they put it in the tank. Hojo wrote off her concerns about it, saying that he'd lifted them himself to examine its eyes. Well, eye, singular, as its right socket is empty. The other is bright pink, with veins visible behind the sclera. They have yet to determine if that's its natural color, the result of some sort of illness, or a form of albinism.

Lucrecia is so caught up in her theorizing, she does not initially see the eye swiveling down to focus on her. When she does, she takes a few steps to the right. The eye trails after her. She doesn't even have time to jump back in horror before it's bending backwards, arching like it's going to do a reverse somersault. It swings its torso forward and its head smashes into the barrier. Instead of going thunk, this time the glass crunches. The moment of the impact, pain explodes in Lucrecia's head. She screams, doubling over as her vision goes out.

Her shriek barely echoes back to her over the roar of the torrent flooding out of the shattered tank. Liquid, cold yet burning, splashes her feet. The chlorine smell of raw mako stings her nose. Lucrecia scrambles back to her feet. If she stays exposed to the solution, she'll go catatonic in a few hours from the poisoning. She fumbles backwards into the wall, clawing for the doorknob. The tank empties fast; the room is already flooded to her ankles. Lucrecia finds the knob and whips her hand away. It’s wet. Not from the chemical spill, but from the pulsing yellow membrane that coats it. The door, the wall, the whole room is covered in viscous, twitching meat, purple and red and blue. The thinly stretched flesh squelches as it throbs, veins bulging from within, the sound coming from all directions. Lucrecia vomits instantly, both from what she’s seeing and the horrible, searing pain shooting out from her womb. She stumbles back, legs almost buckling underneath her.

Something in her bones makes her turn to look over her shoulder, and it's standing there, it's fucking standing there, dripping and motionless. Arms and legs unbound, metal plate still in its head and the umbilical cord still chaining it to the heart beating on the floor of the shattered tank. With a series of damp pops, its misplaced organs detach from it and hit the ground with a splash. It takes one stiff, lurching stride towards her, and she wails. Torso jolting around, arms dangling, a poorly animated marionette on loose strings, it takes another step.

Lucrecia starts heaving down sobs as its head jerks to the side and it makes dead eye contact with her. Its jaw drops open, and out comes a screech like metal being shredded. The sound reverberates in Lucrecia's head, ricocheting across the folds of her brain even as she clamps her hands over her ears.

lnɔɹǝɔᴉɐ cɹǝsɔǝuʇ

She's pressed against the disgusting wall now, trying to push herself through it. Jenova unleashes a string of guttural chirps, twisting its head as if looking around while it bends down with her as she slides to the floor. It's right there, leaning over her, something, saliva, falling down from its mouth in long, shiny strands. The face of a human woman, bug-eyed, desperate, unnatural, trying so hard to make Lucrecia look at it. She whimpers as agony rips up her body from her abdomen. Its voice shakes the building.

yon ʍɥo ʍonๅp ɯoʇɥǝɹ ɐ ɓop

A hand lashes out and grabs Lucrecia's throat. She wheezes, kicks her legs at its arm and its side, but nothing phases it. It shakes her, squeezes her neck, slams her head back into the wall over and over and over.

yon ɥɐʌǝ ʇɐʞǝu ʍɥɐʇ ᴉs uoʇ ʎonɹs ʇo ɓᴉʌǝ

When the blinding pain clears enough for her to be aware again, the hand around her neck is bound in leather. Lucrecia blinks hazily, and no longer looks at a mutilated cadaver, but a man. He’s tall, bigger then Jenova, all in black, a coat falling around him and over her. The hand at her neck tilts her head up, and her eyes meet a sterile green glowing under a curtain of ashen hair. The green eye shakes as it darts around her face, the slit pupil within trembling.

Lucrecia reaches a weak hand up to grab the man's wrist, and he loosens his grip. With a slight tug, she's able to coax him to take it off her neck, but he curls his hand back around to grip her own, hard. He continues to stare into her, tilting his head just a little, exposing his face. A not-so-little nose, eyes wide open, the line of a mouth. His features are clearer, face to face. He's pale, so, so pale, the off-color light in the room makes him look almost blue. He is inhuman, unnatural, as alien to her as the reanimated fossil that stood in his place just a moment ago. He reaches out with his other hand and hesitates with it over her empty womb before instead lifting it to cup her cheek. Green flickers to pink, and when he speaks, it's in Jenova's voice.

yon ɐɹǝ uoʇɥᴉuɓ qnʇ ɐ dnddǝʇ

Fire. Screaming. Fear, pain, the smell of blood and decay and mako, thoughts, so many thoughts, and the hunger, the hunger--

Mother!

Vincent finally manages to bash through the sealed door to the room off the library. Why his key hadn’t been working, he has no clue, and he doesn’t bother checking before he skids to where Lucrecia is collapsed in a heap beside the door. "Dr. Crescent?!"

"Vince..." Lucrecia wheezes. Vincent closes his eyes in relief, breathing out shakily.

"Dr. Crescent, how many fingers am I holding up?" The Turk prompts her. Lucrecia's gaze goes past his hand. She slurs incoherently. "What was that?"

"Jenova..." She raises a trembling arm to point behind him, at the glass tank containing the lifeless Ancient. "It..."

"Lucrecia!" Vincent forgets himself in his panic when she loses consciousness again. He scoops her up in his arms and rushes out of the room, yelling for the others.

When Professor Hojo goes to examine Jenova tomorrow, he will do so alone, cursing his wife’s inability to listen to him. Gast will carry an air of unease as he goes into town to consult the local midwife yet again. Vincent will not move from Lucrecia’s door all the next day, and, in his head, he will pray, something he hasn’t done since his father’s funeral. Lucrecia will eventually, eventually, wake up, with no memory of the incident, besides her womb feeling far heavier than it had before.

#not my writing #amazing #fic recs #ff7

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