Oo how about “you’re safe now” with Sephiroth and any of agz? Whether that is true or not is up to you >:)
OOOOOOH, STAR!! That is a juicy one!!! :000 >:3cc Thank you so much for the delicious start!!! 💕
~
Sephiroth didn’t need to glance up to know it was Angeal who stalked into his office that evening, the exhausted huff and heavy slam of the door telling him all that he needed to know.
“...Long training session?” Sephiroth grunted, green eyes never straying from the document in front of him, his pen never halting in its elegant glide across the paper.
He heard Angeal plunk onto the couch. “Very long,” he corrected, and Sephiroth could see him sweep a sweat-sheeted layer of hair back from the corner of his eye. “I’m telling you... that boy, he drains me. Really drains me.”
Sephiroth scoffed, unsurprised. “Did I not warn you that a student would be a waste of your energy?”
“Gee... Thanks, Sephiroth.”
The man’s scoff hardened into a grunt. “I’m only being factual. If you had to take a protégée under your wing, I’m still baffled as to why you needed one of such... high demand.”
“High demand?” Angeal parroted, leaning back against the sofa. “What is he, a pet?”
“Mmn. I not the one who gave him the moniker, ‘puppy.’“
“Heh, well, it’s true.” Angeal’s lips curled into a smirk. “That kid’s got more energy than the average chihuahuas. And he’s clumsy like one, too. You know he broke three training swords by swinging too hard today?”
“Again...” Sephiroth scoffed, “why are you so devoted to this student?”
He was not expecting such a long swath of silence to pass after that. It was as if the words had struck something in his friend, strumming a tender cord that Sephiroth didn’t know to be so raw, leaving the man appearing extremely distant. Thoughtful. Wistful. For several beats, Angeal didn’t say a word, his gaze drifting over to the large, panoramic window behind him, scanning over the sprawling, bustling terrain of the cityscape below.
And when he did finally speak again, some noticeable time later, he seemingly wanted to redirect the subject entirely.
“...I need to ask you a favor, Sephiroth,” he said.
Grateful for the break in silence, Sephiroth continued to scrawl. “What?”
“...Can you look at me, at least? I’m serious.”
Something of a sigh escaped Sephiroth’s lips as he lifted his gaze from his paperwork, blinking a couple times to ease the strain, green eyes drifting across the office to lock with the sage, mako-fueled indigo of his friend’s.
He was almost taken aback by just how stern the man’s countenance really was.
“...If anything happens to me,” Angeal started, grimly, taking their connected gaze as permission to speak, “I need you to take care of Zack... alright?”
Sharp, blazing jolts of surprise coursed through Sephiroth’s body, stunned by both his friend’s direct words and the deeper implications. “W... what?” was all he could manage to say, the emerald eyes briefly widening before narrowing to slits, a pulse of concern hammering dreadfully in his heart. “Why would something happen to you?”
Angeal didn’t seem at all fazed by the question, the l prospect. “Life’s unpredictable... isn’t it? Who knows what might happen tomorrow.”
“Angeal—” Sephiroth started, unable to stifle the full extent of his panic. How... how could he even say such a thing? Genesis hadn’t even been gone for a week, and now Angeal was trying to insinuate something might happen to him as well? Something that might... take him away too...?! His lips curled into a snarl, defensive. “Why would you...—”
“Hey, relax.” Angeal put his palms up in a gesture of peace, comfort. “I’m not going anywhere.”—There was a flicker im his eyes as he said this, a spark that Sephiroth just couldn’t decipher—”I simply... worry about Zack sometimes. That’s all. I’m afraid he’ll get himself really tangled up without someone watching out for him. He’s a good kid, though, Sephiroth.:; Probably the kindest soul in all of SOLDIER. And really good with a sword, too.”
Sephiroth raised a brow. Skilled with a sword...? Heh. Most younger SOLDIERs preferred guns—much easier to handle, more practical, quicker to kill... It did take a certain courage to wield a blade, a certain character...
Still—
Sephiroth’s eyes returned to slits, throat rumbling in protest. “I don’t care.” he shook his head, tempted to reabsorb himself in his paperwork, the feline needles drifting back to his pen and document. “I have no desire to adopt a student.”
Angeal rubbed a kink in his neck. “...It was only a hypothetical, Sephiroth.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the man grunted. “I do not want the responsibility thrust upon me. Ask somebody else.”
Angeal remained silent for a moment. “...Like who, Sephiroth? Tell me.”
“Gene—” Sephiroth began, instinctively, before reality clamped down on his tongue in a cold, jagged vice, swallowing the rest of the name instead as a bitter silence dogged, one that loomed over the two SOLDIERs, breathing into and thickening the air around them like pollution.
“Exactly,” Angeal said after a few moments, quietly. “You’re the only one who I could really turn to, Sephiroth. The only one who be able to truly protect nim.”
Sephiroth’s gaze fell to the floor.
“Sephiroth...” Angeal sighed, pleading. “I need to know that there will be someone looking out for him. Please... I’m asking as a friend.”
Sephiroth grunted. “...And how would we ever get along?”
There was a beat, and Angeal cracked a small, wan smile. “...Don’t worry about that,” he chuckled. “I didn’t just call him Pup for the energy alone: he grows on you, you know? He worms his way into your heart.”
Heh, right... Sephiroth rapped his fingers against the arm of the chair. “...And who says I’m equipped to a student?”
Angeal shrugged, the tired smile still present. “I think you could use it. Both of you. Zack could likely benefit from someone a little tougher, and, you, well...” He thought for a moment. “I think Zack would be able to see what I see in you, friend. What... we both saw in you.” His smile faltered a little as he added this, another indecipherable flicker in his mako-fueled eyes. “In any case... I wouldn’t expect you to become best friends. I’m not asking that. Hell, I’d be rather shocked if you did. I’m only asking for someone who will look after the kid. Someone who I can trust, and someone who I know will...”—his eyes softened, swallowing thickly—”keep my friend safe...”
The silver bangs spilled over Sephiroth’s visage as he dipped his chin.
“Sephiroth... please.”
He never did give him an answer before Angeal’s phone rang, and the man raced out of his office in search of Zack.
The conversation never arose again.
—————
Green eyes fluttered open in the present, still sitting upright on his best friend’s couch, still cloaked in the sleepy darkness that had initially lulled him to sleep. Flickering lights from the television still puddled on his face, still buzzing with some late-night program that was left on... And that weight—the warm, sturdy weight pressing against his shoulder...
Sleepily, Sephiroth turned his head aside, and he couldn’t say he was surprised to find Zack sound asleep against him, a tranquil smile playing on his lips as he exhaled soft, rhythmic breaths into his coat, the light from the TV illuminating his sleepy visage, his scar, the thready cowlick that drooped endearingly over his nose...
Smiling softly, Sephiroth reached out, gently ruffling the feathery nest of spikes.
Zack’s own smile softened under his touch.
“…You’re safe with me. I promise.”
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