Chapter Text
i.
“Hey,” a stranger says. “You okay?”
It is late— this he knows only from the complaints of the aides and Hojo’s own sour mood, when they drew Sephiroth from his room for the tests. It is late, and if it were a good day Sephiroth could be sleeping now, in that cold and sterile room that is his only moment of peace. It is not a good day. The most recent tests have failed; the SOLDIERS they chose to make like Sephiroth liquified rather than survived. Once again, he is the lone anomaly. A special sort of existence.
Hojo tells him this, as he always does, as they strap Sephiroth down to that familiar gurney. He is special, and he is above this, so he won’t complain, even though it is late and he is tired and he has spent over eight hours on his feet, fighting monsters in the dark while Hojo watches behind the glass. He will stay still. He will stay silent. He won’t flinch.
The lights of the lab flicker. An assistant is laid out on the floor—still breathing, her chest rising and falling, but blood trickles down the side of her face. An hour ago she slid the needle into his arm. Forty minutes ago she helped the doctor cut his other arm open. Twenty minutes ago she made notes on a clipboard about the rate of healing. Five minutes ago the alarms rang, and the lights flashed, and the lab assistant had pulled out a Fire materia with her eyes as much on the door as they were on the gurney.
The lab assistant doesn’t get up. Sephiroth drags his eyes away from the floor.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The stranger stands over him, their shadow falling across his face, the lab lights haloing the back of their head. They cant their head to the side when he speaks. The look on their face is not one he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t know the word for it.
“Is that a yes or no?”
Their hair is a soft gray. Their eyes burn alight from within, almost like Sephiroth’s own, except theirs are a clear gold brighter than even the sterile lights of the lab. He can’t even begin to guess at their gender; none of the usual markers seem to fit them.
Blood smears across their cheek. A heavy club rests against their shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Sephiroth repeats.
“Hmm. I’m gonna take that as a no.” Their eyes flicker down the gurney. The restraints, the cold metal, the scalpel Hojo left precisely on the surgery tray before he left to study Sephiroth’s bloodwork for the current test, ten minutes before the alarms went off. The metal club taps once against their shoulder and then vanishes in a burst of scattered light. Sephiroth stills.
The stranger has a finger to their chin. They look thoughtful. The expression fits them differently than it does Hojo; there’s something almost casual about it all, irrelevant. The way they roll on the backs of their feet. The slant to their shoulders. The easy confidence.
“How did you do that?”
The gold eyes flick back to his face. “Huh?”
“Your—club—”
“You mean my baseball bat?” Their lips break into a smile. It is—bright. The club returns, spinning in their hands in a whirl of light and flashing silver, and they end the move with a jaunty tap of the club against their collarbone. “Cool, right?”
Not a single word they’ve said makes any sense. He watches the trail of light with wide eyes even so.
The stranger visibly preens. A hand perches on their hip. “I know, I know.”
The alarm reaches a new pitch. Down the hall, a voice Sephiroth doesn’t know—bright and girlish and so full of emotion it startles him—says, “Oh, come on!? Another one?”
“Watch your six, March.”
“I’m trying! Stelle, hello, where’d you go?”
The stranger turns back towards the noise. “Oops,” they say. Their face is blank; the words are said matter-of-fact. They look back down at the gurney. “Mm. Okay. Time to speed things up.”
Sephiroth waits dispassionately for them to leave. The stranger instead kneels down and… and takes off the restraints.
Sephiroth stays where he is. He doesn’t move.
The stranger glances back up at him, and casually tugs off another leather strap from his wrist. “You can sit up now.”
“You’re not supposed to do that.” He feels like a broken record. He’s not sure what else to say. Don’t move, Hojo said, as he left the room. Don’t you dare move! the lab assistant had snapped at him, when he went to break his restraints at the sound of the alarm. The way her eyes flickered between him and the door. The door broke open. The stranger batted the assistant into the wall at the first blast of Fira. Sephiroth had stayed perfectly still throughout it all.
The stranger bops their head in a nod. “You mentioned.” Another strap released. They go for the last few around his ankles.
“…Hojo will be angry.”
A thoughtful hum. “Who?”
Another burst of light from the hallway. The brighter voice says, “Stelle? Hellooo?”
“Hojo,” Sephiroth says. The alarms keep flashing. He sits up slowly. He stares at them. “The… he is…”
The stranger watches him, patiently waiting for the answer. Sephiroth’s words wither in his throat. He does not know how to explain Hojo. He has never had to explain Hojo. He has never faced anything like this before. The lights. The alarm. The lab assistant on the floor.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he whispers.
The stranger smiles at him. “Neither are you.”
It hurts. Like a shard of ice in his chest. He has never belonged anywhere and there is nowhere else he knows to be. His fingers curl. “I—!”
The stranger pats the top of his head. The words die again, catch ragged in his throat. Not from the same thing that took them before. Something else. Like a warmth pressed beneath his tongue. Like holding something fluttering between his grasp. He feels so still.
“It’s chilly,” says the stranger, every word said factually and stone-cold certain. “And you’re only wearing a robe… you’ll catch a cold.” Sephiroth doesn’t move. The stranger pats his head again and then takes their hand back. “I’d give you my jacket, but then I’d be cold too.”
He has no idea at all what to say to that. He stares up at them. He can barely think to breathe.
“Can you stand?” asks the stranger.
Sephiroth gets off the gurney slowly. He can stand. His arm, half-healed, drips blood on the floor. The stranger’s eyes turn to it and narrow. Sephiroth holds himself still. His hand curls to a fist. Don’t flinch. Does that still apply? He has already moved. He has already spoken. The alarm rings on and on. He shifts back on his heel and prepares to lunge.
The stranger snaps their fingers. He intends to go for their throat and flinches instead. Something lumps in his throat. He feels lightheaded. Nothing happens.
No. Wait. His arm—
His arm no longer hurts.
Sephiroth looks at it. The wound is gone. He looks up. The stranger is looking at his arm too, and after a moment they dip their head in a nod. “Nice.”
No one is supposed to use Cure on him without Hojo’s instruction. It did not feel like a Cure. It did not feel like anything. The stranger has no visible materia. They have already done so many things they are not supposed to do.
Sephiroth’s head feels full of cotton. There is something building in his throat. Something between bitter and sweet. It curls tight in his chest and squeezes.
The stranger considers him. “Hey,” they say. “You have somewhere to go?”
They are so tall. “No,” Sephiroth tells them. He wants to ask— go where? He has never gone anywhere. Professor Gast used to say… but Professor Gast is long gone, and even then, it was always just a fantasy. Where exactly is Sephiroth supposed to go? Why is he going? This is the only place he has ever known.
He doesn’t know how to ask these questions. The stranger nods like they’ve heard them anyway. “Okay,” they say. They hold out their hand. “Then you can come with me.”
That strange tightness seizes in his chest. He stares at their hand. “Hojo will find me,” he says. The words feel numb and far-away. Like they don’t belong to him. It is not what he should have said.
“Hmm.” The stranger tilts their head again. “Do you want him to?”
He can’t look away from their hand. The words weigh on his tongue. Quiet. Thin. “No,” he whispers. Presses his lips against it. Wishes he hadn’t said anything.
The dream doesn’t end. Hojo doesn’t reappear. His weakness remains uncontested. For a moment he almost hopes the stranger hasn’t heard. Then they grin down at him, bright and sly, and his mind goes as blank as the walls.
“Then he won’t find you,” says the stranger, with confidence. “Trust me. I know a safe place.”
Sephiroth doesn’t react. He is irrationally terrified that if he moves, the dream will shatter.
A shadow crosses the doorway. Color and light and a cold chill in the room. Another stranger. Pink hair and eyes like crystal. That brighter voice. “Stelle? There you are! Hey, who’s this?”
“Dunno.”
“Aw, they look cold… hey, Dan Heng! Sacrifice your sweater!”
The conversation washes over him. Sephiroth is no longer listening. The hand is still outstretched. The stranger is waiting. Hojo will want Sephiroth to dispose of them. His hesitation is already a mark against him. Hojo has promised to tell him more about his mother. If he does well, if he behaves— one day, Hojo may even give him a picture of her.
The lab assistant does not get up. The alarm rings on and on.
Hojo is not here.
A safe place. Trust me. These words do not make sense. These words are meaningless. They cannot escape and they cannot take him. These people will die, and he will suffer for it, and he will have to learn these age-old lessons all over again. It is childish to want it, foolish to even consider it. It is a fantasy worse than any story Professor Gast ever told him. To be swayed that unfounded confidence. To be lured in by the warmth of that hand on his head, the mischievous crook of that smile.
“Well?” says the stranger. “Are you coming?”
It is foolish.
Sephiroth reaches for that hand anyway.