* Secrets and Lies *
part 1
(pregame
zack snippet, day before Nibelhiem)
With Sephiroth determined to be in a moody funk as he stared out the window of their small bedroom, there was nothing to do but surrender to the inevitable and go for a walk. Zack did his duty and ducked in to check on the troopers lounging in the second bedroom and then slouched down the stairs. The headache that had been threatening on the truck hadn’t improved any with their arrival. Something about Nibelhiem seemed determined to get under everybody’s skin. His men were edgy, his general down right waspish, and he himself… The dark haired SOLDIER shook his head, trying to clear it from the odd sensation of stuffiness but only making the feeling worse. Something about the place just sucked. That was all there was to it.
Pure luck had him next to a window as the last of his personnel slipped out the door of an unassuming house and sullenly trudged not back towards the hotel, but between two buildings and seemingly out of town. He swore lightly at the lapse. The kid had been told to see family if he wanted, not wander off into potentially monster infested territory. Hands reflexively patted for sword, phone, and micro-pack of supplies before he nodded to the hotel’s front desk and followed the trooper into the evening. Cynically he noted that despite his stretching on the truck, his leg was still stiff. The general’s comment about being ‘slow’ was a constant nagging in the back of his head.
// Not Slow! Just… // Zack grinned ruefully at himself, not able to counter the critique, even to himself. // I’ll be better next week… // It was a lame duck reply. According to the doctors there was no guarantee of even that much improvement. If he did, it would only be temporary. Dismal thoughts for a dismal town; he pushed them aside in favor of following something of a goat-path up hill and past the last of the outlying houses.
The area looked safe enough he decided. A rather pretty sort of pasture complete with split-rail fence where older stone walls had crumbled, and a scattering of placid shade-trees. Turning around he saw the view, sun sinking over the rooftops of the village in an artistic way. He turned back and spotted his lost sheep was perched on an empty water trough watching the same view.
“Yo Spike.”
“You following me?”
“Yeah. Thought I’d see what you were up to. Killer view.” Weaseling into unwanted conversations had to be his specialty. Zack ignored the younger man’s odd look and settled next to him on the makeshift bench. Getting the sword off his shoulders helped his headache a little, and something about the field just smelled better than the packed dirt streets below.
“…Am I in trouble?”
“For what?”
Spike proved that his lack of obvious muscle was an advantage by tucking his leg up so he could rest his chin on his knee. “… for not going straight back to the hotel?”
“…naaaah, just so long as you don’t get eaten. I hate filling out those forms.” The SOLDIER smiled to show he wasn’t serious. “Besides if I’m out here too we can call it reconnaissance and stay out however long we please… so long as we’re fit for duty tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Sighing softly, the blond looked about for a twitchy moment before staring at the valley again. “…Zack?”
“… yeah?”
“… sorry about before… and the time before that…”
“What, you mean when you accused me of bringing you on this jaunt as some sort of sadistic revenge for you yelling at me ages ago outside a bar?” He laughed. “Crazy kid. You’re forgiven.”
“… Know what the really sad thing is?” Zack looked over to see that there was a genuine if rueful smile on the private’s face. “… I didn’t even like Mido… I was just out drinking with him because that’s what all the others were doing…”
Concentrating, the shaggy haired man tried to remember the night in question. “… The rat-pimp looking guy? The one who tried to slug one of the MP’s?”
“Yeah. Him. We weren’t friends or anything… just had happened to both flunk out of the exams… so we went drinking… and then these guys start in on us… and I dunno… It was just easier to get mad…”
“Hmmmmm it really was just a ‘shit on Spike’ sort of day, wasn’t it.” Zack shook his head. “I heard about the test-thing later that night… was going to track you down, you know… apologize at least. Then the leg happened and I ended up spending two weeks in bed! So when this mission rolled around, I thought ‘hey! Great! At least I can get you a free trip home and some easy guard duty to make it up to you…’ and of course… it turns out you hate the place! Behold my amazing leadership skills in action.”
He looked over to see the trooper was laughing silently. “So there’s your news-flash, kid. Being a SOLDIER ain’t so hot. Doesn’t make you any smarter, at any rate. Just turns you into slightly better can-crusher at parties. You’re not missing a thing.” He pantomimed crushing beer can against his forehead, pleased to get another chuckle out of his companion.
For a little while there was nothing but the breeze, the shadowy mountains and the last of the sunset streaming up the valley. Zack pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to distract himself from the nagging sort of pain behind his eyes. He’d have gone back to the hotel and lay down if he thought he could get away with it. Just another downside to having the ‘General’ as a temporary roommate; there was no way he was going to give the man an excuse to call him unfit twice in one day.
“You all-right?”
He opened one eye to see the blond staring at him in concern. “… Yeah Spike, just got a headache from the truck, you know?”
“Ugh. The truck.”
“Yeah, how you doing? You look ok…”
“Oh I’m great once I’m on my feet again.” The kid made rolled his eyes at his own weakness. “… Just can’t handle the jolting, you know.”
The blond mustered a wistful smile. “Wish you had that car again.”
“Shit I nearly lost my head on that one…” Zack laughed even as he closed his eyes again, willing the aftereffects of the venom – or was it the anti-venom? - to fade. The wind through the grass had a rather mournful sound. “… What a strange place this is…”
“I hate this place.” Spike agreed softly. “Just hate it.”
“Why?”
“Everyone here is an asshole… I mean, they’re nice to you. Everybody’s nice to you. You’re built like a tank and have a license to kill or something…” The blond waved his hands, brushing off the fact that he was exaggerating. “They have to be on best behavior… but when there’s no one but locals… they’re assholes. Mean, gossiping, back stabbing, manipulative jerks.”
“Welcome to small-town Shinra. Where the men are stupid, women are catty, and the sheep run scared.” The officer quoted some comedian he had heard back in the city with a grin. “… Shit kid, sounds like Gongaga. Let me guess, that smarmy mayor thinks he’s the biggest thing short of god when there’s no one to contradict him.”
“Exactly.” Spike looked over at him, genuinely curious. “… Is that why you left Gongaga?”
“Pretty much. Well, more of a family thing… but yeah. They said ‘shape up or ship out’… so I did.” Zack snorted. “…ship out, that is.”
The blond shook his head in wonder. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s a very boring story. I left, went to Midgar, like everyone does, was lucky enough to have an uncle I could stay with and ended up enlisting.” He shrugged. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
Pain fading, Zack leaned back to watch the moon fighting its way above the lowest of the mountain peaks. Without the haze from Midgar it was brilliant, a cold white baleful thing. Habitually he stretched his leg out, trying to keep it loose for the walk back down to town. He would probably have to take a potion for it later. Deceptively observant for a trooper who had often been scolded for inattention, Spike caught the movement and frowned again. “So what happened to your leg? I didn’t think SOLDIER could get injured that bad… faster than average healing, or something…”
“Sometimes as much of a blessing as a curse.” The dark haired man patted his thigh thoughtfully. “Was down south, was some shipwreck or something. Sabotage we think. Anyway. Wasn’t paying enough attention one minute, and the next I’ve got this… thing trying it’s best to swallow my right leg whole. Again, SOLDIERs may be stronger, but we’re not always smarter… Within minutes I’m puking my damn guts out because of course the critter just has to be poisonous… and because my stupid body kept wanting to heal over the would before the poison was done draining they had to reopen it twice and re-clean it…”
“… re-open… you mean they had to…” The expression on the young troopers face implied that he probably couldn’t sit through a medical-drama on TV without feeling queasy. It was amazing that the kid hadn’t made the mental connection between becoming a SOLDIER and being intimately familiar with massive amounts of pain.
“Yup.”
“... That’s disgusting.”
“Life’s a bitch.” Zack laughed ruefully. “…All this and I bet you still want to be a soldier, right? Mind if I ask why?”
The blond abruptly stopped smiling. Even in the moonlight his face looked pinched. “You’d just laugh.”
“Possibly,” He agreed. “I laugh at a lot of things I probably shouldn’t. Get in trouble for it too.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I don’t care though.”
“Heh.”
The dark haired man waited a moment, but the trooper didn’t seem willing to volunteer anything. He grinned, knowing what the kid didn’t, that he was too stubborn to let something just drop from conversation if he didn’t want it to. “… hmmm let me guess…”
Spike looked at him in alarm. “What?”
“… you’re father was an army man…?” The blonde’s confused expression was all the veto he needed. “…. No… so… your mother was in love with a SOLDIER when she was a girl and wanted you to be one…?”
“My mom wouldn’t care if I became the town drunk.” Spike snorted in cynical amusement.
“That so? Well forget about her then.” Scrubbing his hair, he gave the trooper a considering look. “You’re what, 15? 16? Bet you used to get sat down in front of the TV during the end of the war and occupation… got all that ‘Hurray Shinra! Hurray SOLDIER! Hurray Sephiroth!’ rah-rah crap firmly indoctrinated into that cute little six-year old head of yours…”
The younger man looked away nervously, proving he was on the right track. “… What a load of shit that was…” His mild comment instantly drew Spike back into the conversation.
“Why do you say that?”
“The General is all right, kid, don’t get me wrong. I’ve stuck with him for years now… but he’s really not that special you know? He’s strong, sure, clever as fuck too… but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have problems just like everyone else. Really, he’s the last person I’d want anyone to want to ‘grow up to be’ and sadly, since Wutai there’s been a shitload of it.” Zack patted the trooper’s soldier. “Hell, at least you’re in good company.”
“Doesn’t matter now. You only get two chances… and I’ve blown it.”
“Fuck that. You’ve blown nothing. Plenty to do in the army aside from SOLDIER if you’d just open your eyes a little. Hell, army itself isn’t as glamorous as it used to be. These days it’s all science, science, science, fucking geeks have taken over the company. We screwed up with Wutai, made ourselves obsolete. Shinra’s new thing is Mako. We’d all be better off quitting this shtick and becoming hairdressers somewhere.”
“… no good, your customers would take one look at you and run away.” Spike shook his head in amusement. “Stick with bartending or something.”
“That’s an idea…” His phone rang, its annoying chirp distracting him from an anecdote about a time he was waiting for the ferry from Costa Del Sol. “Shit hold on…” He fished the offending device out of a pocket as the blond looked on with interest. “This is Zack.”
“Where
are you?”
“Just checking out the edges of town, General. Don’t get your garters in a twist.” Sephiroth would kill him if he knew he was standing less than a foot away from an enlisted man while teasing him. The pale man had gotten a lot more reserved in front of his men over the years, an inverse relationship to how much he had learned to relax in private. Signs of getting old, Zack speculated.
“That’s
what the troopers are for, major. I
want you back here within the hour.”
Something about the man’s preemptory tone, not improved by the static hiss of the connection, grated the wrong way. Still, it wouldn’t do to start an argument in front of the rank and file. “Yes sir, I’ll be back in about 15. There a problem, sir?”
“Don’t be stubborn Zack.” He could hear the sigh on the other end of the line. Sephiroth sounded tired. He wondered why. “You’re not to stress that leg anymore than you have to. We’ve got a hike tomorrow.”
“I know.” He matched softer tone for tone, silently grateful that whatever was bothering the man, he still remembered to be at least a little civilized… even if every other comment out of the general’s mouth was somehow alluding to his injury, or it’s affect on his performance. “I’m on my way.”
Spike followed his lead, brushing off his pants as he stood up. “We’re heading back?”
“Sorry kid, duty calls.”
“That’s ok. Are we sticking around after the run to the reactor?”
“Not that I know of. Up, check it out, back, gone. That’s what’s on paper.” The officer shrugged. “Things may change as the situation requires it, of course. But we won’t know until we go up there.”
“Good.” The blond sighed as he led the way back down the hill. “Sooner we leave here, the better.”
“Amen to that.” Something,
the wind, the grass, the moon, made him look once more before heading back. Cheerful little lights showed in several of
the windows in town; in every house in fact except the big one. The hulking
shadow of the mansion was even creepier at night. He wondered what was so
special about it, where the ‘
*****