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FF7/GundamW Xover drabbleverse - Wufei/Seph for viper_s
It didn't fit in the comments, so...
Previous drabblethings.
"Chang," he said when the sparring bout was over, voice quiet and contained. "Put away your gear and come with me."
The man with the jet-black hair didn't say anything. He never did say very much, unless he was angry. Sephiroth had seen nothing to make him believe the man acted any other way when his commanding officers weren't around, and it bothered him that he didn't know whether that was another warning sign.
Under his eye, the other sparring pairs moved a tiny bit more energetically. Another day, Sephiroth would have commented on that, never mind that he knew the men who made it into SOLDIER knew the difference between training and the field. Today, Sephiroth waited for Chang, as the man put the practice sword back on the rack and pulled off his protective gear.
Even after two hours of drills, his steps were still long, elastic, and precise like a hunting cat, with very little to betray his fatigue. A lot like Sephiroth's, as a matter of fact -- except for the fact that Chang was perhaps twenty centimeters shorter than he was. Without the sweat soaking his shirt through and the strands of black hair escaping from the strict ponytail, the fact he wasn't coming back from a picnic would have been hard to notice. Sephiroth had appreciated that, at the beginning; a good fighter was one thing, but a truly fearsome fighter was one who made hunting, killing, seem easy as breathing, even when -- especially when -- it was anything but.
Curse Shinra's inadequate Human Resources department, and its appetite for conquest that meant he had to start second-guessing every single one of his men, especially the competent ones.
"General?"
Chang was expressionless, hard-eyed. The Second Class enhancements had kicked in, and a faint gold glow shimmered over his black irises; Sephiroth noted the way the glow sharpened, another telltale.
There was no surprise on his face. No confusion.
"Walk with me."
They left the gymnasium in silence, Sephiroth a step ahead.
"The results of your latest background check came in."
He left it at that, superior senses trained onto the man at his side. The face didn't change much; the heartbeat sped up briefly, but nothing like the kick it should have gotten if Chang hadn't been expecting it.
He waited, for Chang to start explaining the holes; he wasn't even sure the report had covered everything. But the Second Class didn't. He didn't even express surprise that he'd been submitted to another background check.
"Do you have something to tell me?" Sephiroth, of course, was carrying his own blade. He waited for the first lie.
Chang looked up at him. "What do you want to know?"
"You were not born in Mideel."
Chang sighed then, and his eyes went from watchful to weary. "... No, I wasn't." He squared his shoulders and said briskly, "I was born in an isolationist clan that prized itself on keeping up traditions and guarding themselves from progress, which they saw as corruption. They're extinct now. You won't find them on any official map. As far as Shinra is concerned, they never existed." He snorted then, giving Sephiroth a cynical look. "As you can see, that makes proving my legal existence somewhat difficult. Getting a fake Mideel residency established seemed like less of a headache. It was only a matter of being willing to part with a few hundred gil."
Hm. No noticeable difference in his heartbeat, though his pupils seemed to have dilated. It was hard to tell with black eyes.
There were a myriad of small undiscovered tribes in the Mideel islands -- undiscovered as in they'd never had official contact with the Shinra Company. They were probably well-known to the neighbors they traded with, just like all those small villages in the mountains. Still, you could have driven a truck through the omissions in Chang's story.
"And when you enlisted, you never thought this little fact would be brought to light?" he asked, arching a silver eyebrow.
Chang's lips quirked up in sardonic amusement. "Of course I did. But apart from fighting I have very few marketable skills. At least Shinra offers healthcare. I never planned to go much higher than trooper; at worst I would have been fired, and been forced to look for some other mercenary group to employ me."
Sephiroth paused in his steps then, to look at the smaller man. "... You regard the Shinra military like a mercenary group then?"
Chang looked up to meet his eyes right on, and he didn't flinch away from their strange pupils and green shine. "It's not a state army. It doesn't exist to protect the people, but the interests of the company."
"This is very close to subversive talk," Sephiroth mused, eyes narrowed predatorily.
Chang snorted, and didn't look very impressed. "I'm perfectly aware that the interests of the majority of the world are tied in with the interests of the company. There's still a distinction, though. But seeing as Shinra Corporation is the one that hands me my paychecks, so far it's still rather academic."
"Hm. So your motive to join the military was alimentary."
"Not only. I... like to fight," Chang admitted with some difficulty.
Sephiroth's gaze sharpened; that was the first lie he'd heard him say outright. "Really."
Chang shook his head in irritation, closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again... Sephiroth didn't know. There were things in there he didn't have in his experience to name.
"... I was born to be a fighter. It is the thing I do best for my people. The only thing I can do for my people. Except they're all dead," he gritted out, fingers curled into fists. He turned away then; not entirely, but enough that he didn't have to look at Sephiroth directly. "Some people are born to be teachers, or healers. I was born to be a warrior. That's all there is to it."
Sephiroth nodded slowly. For a moment, he wondered what would happen if Shinra went bankrupt and cut him free. What would he do? He only knew how to be a soldier. But no matter how sincere, how deeply personal they sounded, perhaps Chang's words were calculated to provoke his sympathy. Trusting him was dangerous.
"How did they die?" he asked point-blank, staring at Chang's face, ready to catch the smallest telltale. He only caught a flicker, the yellow glow dimming briefly. Anger or hate would have made them brighter.
Chang kept staring steadily at him for a few seconds before he flicked him a humorless half-smirk. "It wasn't Shinra." A shrug, aiming to be dismissive and not quite managing. "They promptly went on to lose the war my clan had been caught up in, so I consider the matter resolved."
That sounded like a very quick and particularly misleading summary to Sephiroth, but he hadn't come to conduct an interrogation... not just yet. If he wasn't willing to accept Chang's word for the time being and wait for the Turks' background check, he might as well just knock him out and throw him to the wolves right here and now.
But Chang was one of his men, a promising one, and Sephiroth didn't like the idea of letting any of those go without a very good reason.
Even if he was being singularly uncommunicative.
Sephiroth watched him for a second longer. The killers of his clan had lost the war, and now Chang was satisfied... and from the little he knew about the man he thought he could figure out a missing link in there. "You helped it along, didn't you."
A small, fleeting look of feral vindication. "No comment."
Hah. Yes, he'd rather thought so.
Sephiroth could have told Chang there were some things that as a Shinra employee he didn't get to say 'none of your business, sir' about. He could have, but he could tell he would have lost the man right there.
Chang didn't trust him, didn't trust any of them, didn't have 'Shinra Company man' amongst his self-descriptive tags. But he had at least shown a remarkable honesty about the existence of those things he was hiding. Push any harder and he would lock down like a fortress and then even this grudging exchange would stop.
Sephiroth enjoyed a good puzzle too much to allow that to happen yet.
"... So your motives for seeking employment were money and continued fighting practice. And your motives for trying out for SOLDIER?"
Chang smirked faintly. "I always have to be the best. It's my greatest fault."
Sephiroth allowed himself a small smile in answer. Curse himself, he approved of Chang, of his drive and his sharp intellect and his fighting instincts. That shouldn't have been enough.
But Zack liked Chang too, and he was a lot harder to fool. He said Chang was lonely, grieving, and too damn proud to ask for help; he'd rather bleed to death on his feet. But that he had honor, too.
"Where was your clan from?" he asked conversationally.
Chang gave him a blank look. "Mideel was the first town I came across."
That wasn't really an answer; but if Wufei Chang was a Wutainese agent as the Turks half-believed then he hadn't done a great job of covering his tracks. He also displayed a rather marked lack of hostility to Shinra or horror and disgust for the unnatural mutations going on inside his own body.
Granted, even if he wasn't a Wutainese agent, his story still had way too many holes to trust him out of reach of a good, sharp blade.
But the Masamune had enough reach for that. "I'm going to put you on probation, Chang," he said briskly, "and your security clearance lowered back to Third for the time being. Be grateful I have too few competent men to decide to err on the side of caution."
The side of caution would be to throw him to the Turks and let them sort it out. Whatever Chang knew, once the Turks were done they would know it too. Though if he had the misfortune of being... non-hostile to Shinra -- Sephiroth didn't think terms like 'innocent' applied here -- then the SOLDIER would be quite unable to get him back. And Hojo was always looking for test subjects to perfect his treatments on... Sephiroth would wait until he had more hints than a few registration irregularities before he delivered one of his most promising officers to the labs.
"... Make no mistake," he said, voice silky-soft, as he leaned close enough that a few silver strands brushed the man's temple. "This is my command. Those are my men. Should anything untoward happen to any of them, you will not see a trial. Are we clear?"
Chang didn't give an inch, even when the green glow of Sephiroth's eyes started dancing on his bronze skin. He just stared right back, gold-on-black, serious and determined. And then he smiled -- a thin, amused, approving smile. "I wouldn't expect any less of you. Sir."
Sephiroth considered him for a few seconds, then gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel, back toward the gymnasium.
"You're not afraid of me at all, Chang, are you?" he asked after a few steps, amused -- bemused, too, though Zack was starting to cure him of that faint surprise that men who should have known better still failed to cower before him.
Wufei Chang sized him up and down; a quick, critical glance that missed very little. "No." The glow of his eyes brightened briefly -- not with happiness, but a feral sort of anticipation. "I've seen you spar -- you're one of the most lethal men I've ever met. You would be a formidable adversary." He inclined his head, respect from one swordsman to another.
'One of the most', Sephiroth noted. Not 'the most'. Intriguing. Suspicious.
"But that does not scare you."
"You're extraordinary," he said, matter of fact, so different from the awe or flattery those words usually held. "But you're still a living being. That means there's a way to kill you."
Sephiroth chuckled softly. Fearless. In a very different way from Zack -- not determined to make everything better, but grimly persuaded that everything would be worse, and ready to deal with it.
If he didn't end up having to kill Wufei Chang for betraying him, he would enjoy having him in his personal unit when the man eventually made First Class.
He pushed the gymnasium door open, and gestured at Chang to return to his training buddies.
damn it now I ship it a little.
Omake courtesy of JoIsBishMyoga:
"Aw come on, one of the perks of SOLDIER is the bigass swords."
"I like swords to be a reasonable size. Mine works fine."
"But SOLDIERS fight really huge monsters-- a blade that size might as well be a toothpick!"
"The blade you're attempting to foist upon me is longer than I am tall. It's ridiculous."
"Not the size of the ship but the motion of the ocean, huh?"
"Zack, kindly take your sexual innuendo and shove it."
And since I'm at it, might as well repost the Cid/Duo - Exhilarating for luel_exana. For reference purposes, it happens WAY later than either the Wufei/Seph or the Wufei/Zack. Also if I make it a real 'verse i'll probably cut out the Wu/Zack kissing. Zack is enough of a slut as it is, and I want to keep the one with Duo. XD
Cid muttered angrily and struggled with a stuck gear. No dice. "Shera, gauge 8 wrench."
Today his assistant was doing her own thing, but he'd heard her voice close by and he wasn't in a position to get out of the hatch and look for his tools; it would be a right mess. More than a mess than it was now.
No wrench materialized in his held up hand. Cid waited a second, two, ten. "Shera, goddamn woman--!"
Thwack. Cid gave a grunt when metal smacked in his palm. The weight was right; he dove back in. Aha, take that, you misaligned piece of shit--
"You're welcome," an amused, definitely male voice said, from just behind his back.
Cid growled, finished fixing the problem area, and pulled out to glare balefully at the joker who had nothing to do but stand there being funny as other guys worked. "Who the fuck are you?"
Shera winced. The young man only smiled, unruffled as you please. "Duo Maxwell. Got a friend of a friend who said you were looking for another mechanic."
Cid looked suspicious. "Yeah? Who's that friend?"
"Zack Fair, SOLDIER Second class."
Cid remembered the kid. SOLDIERs tended to be an insular lot; friendly ones tended to stick out, especially ones who actually listened to his space-going dreams. "He ain't stationed at Midgar?"
"Sure he is," Duo replied easily.
"...Oh, oh, don't tell me you've come to another continent just so you can work with us," Shera said, and winced. "It's way too far. Were you moving anyway?"
Duo laughed. "Oh no, I came over justfor you."
Cid had been vaguely defensive before, but now he was suspicious. "You're aware we only pay minimum wages, yeah? Budget's sponsored by Shinra, and so far they think we don't need a new mechanic that badly."
"I didn't come here to fix your motor pool," the man countered calmly. "Though I'll do that happily enough, when there's a job in need of doing. But what I came for is the rocket. I don't care about the wages. I could sleep in a cardboard box so long as this means we'll go into space."
Cid snorted. "We, huh?"
"Oh yeah." Maxwell grinned suddenly. "You're the head honcho, but I've improved a few motors in my time..."
He found himself amused by the teasing cockiness of the guy's attitude. "Hah. Talk is cheap."
"Yup," Maxwell agreed brightly. "I figure you'll have to give me a trial period to make sure."
"... Well, I gotta hand you that, you've got balls. Fine then. You don't get paid till Sunday, and not at all if you've been fucking things up. And you're not getting anywhere close to the rocket 'till I say you can. Deal with it."
The guy actually bounced on the balls of his feet. "No problem. I start now?"
Cid took out a cigarette and lit it. Seemed nice, someone who wanted to go into space too. He wasn't going to believe a word of it, not so long as it was still words. "I'll give you the tour, and then it's straight to work."
But when Maxwell saw the half-built rocket, with its open panels and missing floors and the underlying architecture bare for all to see, he paused and gave it a look like he was in love. For a second Cid was almost jealous, like he would have been over some woman. If he'd ever loved a woman even half as much as he loved his dream, that was.
"... Heh. You wanna fly with, huh? Ain't gonna happen for years."
"Yeah, I gathered. It's okay." He grimaced, eyes briefly downcast. "I'm not going anywhere."
Cid briefly wondered where the young man wanted to go, that he couldn't and yet thought nothing of crossing two continents just to work here. "Careful, the competition to take you up ain't gonna be picnic-like."
Maxwell grinned. "Oh yeah." He took a deep breath, rolled up on his toes like he was seriously thinking of climbing it. "It's going to be downright exhilarating."
Previous drabblethings.
"Chang," he said when the sparring bout was over, voice quiet and contained. "Put away your gear and come with me."
The man with the jet-black hair didn't say anything. He never did say very much, unless he was angry. Sephiroth had seen nothing to make him believe the man acted any other way when his commanding officers weren't around, and it bothered him that he didn't know whether that was another warning sign.
Under his eye, the other sparring pairs moved a tiny bit more energetically. Another day, Sephiroth would have commented on that, never mind that he knew the men who made it into SOLDIER knew the difference between training and the field. Today, Sephiroth waited for Chang, as the man put the practice sword back on the rack and pulled off his protective gear.
Even after two hours of drills, his steps were still long, elastic, and precise like a hunting cat, with very little to betray his fatigue. A lot like Sephiroth's, as a matter of fact -- except for the fact that Chang was perhaps twenty centimeters shorter than he was. Without the sweat soaking his shirt through and the strands of black hair escaping from the strict ponytail, the fact he wasn't coming back from a picnic would have been hard to notice. Sephiroth had appreciated that, at the beginning; a good fighter was one thing, but a truly fearsome fighter was one who made hunting, killing, seem easy as breathing, even when -- especially when -- it was anything but.
Curse Shinra's inadequate Human Resources department, and its appetite for conquest that meant he had to start second-guessing every single one of his men, especially the competent ones.
"General?"
Chang was expressionless, hard-eyed. The Second Class enhancements had kicked in, and a faint gold glow shimmered over his black irises; Sephiroth noted the way the glow sharpened, another telltale.
There was no surprise on his face. No confusion.
"Walk with me."
They left the gymnasium in silence, Sephiroth a step ahead.
"The results of your latest background check came in."
He left it at that, superior senses trained onto the man at his side. The face didn't change much; the heartbeat sped up briefly, but nothing like the kick it should have gotten if Chang hadn't been expecting it.
He waited, for Chang to start explaining the holes; he wasn't even sure the report had covered everything. But the Second Class didn't. He didn't even express surprise that he'd been submitted to another background check.
"Do you have something to tell me?" Sephiroth, of course, was carrying his own blade. He waited for the first lie.
Chang looked up at him. "What do you want to know?"
"You were not born in Mideel."
Chang sighed then, and his eyes went from watchful to weary. "... No, I wasn't." He squared his shoulders and said briskly, "I was born in an isolationist clan that prized itself on keeping up traditions and guarding themselves from progress, which they saw as corruption. They're extinct now. You won't find them on any official map. As far as Shinra is concerned, they never existed." He snorted then, giving Sephiroth a cynical look. "As you can see, that makes proving my legal existence somewhat difficult. Getting a fake Mideel residency established seemed like less of a headache. It was only a matter of being willing to part with a few hundred gil."
Hm. No noticeable difference in his heartbeat, though his pupils seemed to have dilated. It was hard to tell with black eyes.
There were a myriad of small undiscovered tribes in the Mideel islands -- undiscovered as in they'd never had official contact with the Shinra Company. They were probably well-known to the neighbors they traded with, just like all those small villages in the mountains. Still, you could have driven a truck through the omissions in Chang's story.
"And when you enlisted, you never thought this little fact would be brought to light?" he asked, arching a silver eyebrow.
Chang's lips quirked up in sardonic amusement. "Of course I did. But apart from fighting I have very few marketable skills. At least Shinra offers healthcare. I never planned to go much higher than trooper; at worst I would have been fired, and been forced to look for some other mercenary group to employ me."
Sephiroth paused in his steps then, to look at the smaller man. "... You regard the Shinra military like a mercenary group then?"
Chang looked up to meet his eyes right on, and he didn't flinch away from their strange pupils and green shine. "It's not a state army. It doesn't exist to protect the people, but the interests of the company."
"This is very close to subversive talk," Sephiroth mused, eyes narrowed predatorily.
Chang snorted, and didn't look very impressed. "I'm perfectly aware that the interests of the majority of the world are tied in with the interests of the company. There's still a distinction, though. But seeing as Shinra Corporation is the one that hands me my paychecks, so far it's still rather academic."
"Hm. So your motive to join the military was alimentary."
"Not only. I... like to fight," Chang admitted with some difficulty.
Sephiroth's gaze sharpened; that was the first lie he'd heard him say outright. "Really."
Chang shook his head in irritation, closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again... Sephiroth didn't know. There were things in there he didn't have in his experience to name.
"... I was born to be a fighter. It is the thing I do best for my people. The only thing I can do for my people. Except they're all dead," he gritted out, fingers curled into fists. He turned away then; not entirely, but enough that he didn't have to look at Sephiroth directly. "Some people are born to be teachers, or healers. I was born to be a warrior. That's all there is to it."
Sephiroth nodded slowly. For a moment, he wondered what would happen if Shinra went bankrupt and cut him free. What would he do? He only knew how to be a soldier. But no matter how sincere, how deeply personal they sounded, perhaps Chang's words were calculated to provoke his sympathy. Trusting him was dangerous.
"How did they die?" he asked point-blank, staring at Chang's face, ready to catch the smallest telltale. He only caught a flicker, the yellow glow dimming briefly. Anger or hate would have made them brighter.
Chang kept staring steadily at him for a few seconds before he flicked him a humorless half-smirk. "It wasn't Shinra." A shrug, aiming to be dismissive and not quite managing. "They promptly went on to lose the war my clan had been caught up in, so I consider the matter resolved."
That sounded like a very quick and particularly misleading summary to Sephiroth, but he hadn't come to conduct an interrogation... not just yet. If he wasn't willing to accept Chang's word for the time being and wait for the Turks' background check, he might as well just knock him out and throw him to the wolves right here and now.
But Chang was one of his men, a promising one, and Sephiroth didn't like the idea of letting any of those go without a very good reason.
Even if he was being singularly uncommunicative.
Sephiroth watched him for a second longer. The killers of his clan had lost the war, and now Chang was satisfied... and from the little he knew about the man he thought he could figure out a missing link in there. "You helped it along, didn't you."
A small, fleeting look of feral vindication. "No comment."
Hah. Yes, he'd rather thought so.
Sephiroth could have told Chang there were some things that as a Shinra employee he didn't get to say 'none of your business, sir' about. He could have, but he could tell he would have lost the man right there.
Chang didn't trust him, didn't trust any of them, didn't have 'Shinra Company man' amongst his self-descriptive tags. But he had at least shown a remarkable honesty about the existence of those things he was hiding. Push any harder and he would lock down like a fortress and then even this grudging exchange would stop.
Sephiroth enjoyed a good puzzle too much to allow that to happen yet.
"... So your motives for seeking employment were money and continued fighting practice. And your motives for trying out for SOLDIER?"
Chang smirked faintly. "I always have to be the best. It's my greatest fault."
Sephiroth allowed himself a small smile in answer. Curse himself, he approved of Chang, of his drive and his sharp intellect and his fighting instincts. That shouldn't have been enough.
But Zack liked Chang too, and he was a lot harder to fool. He said Chang was lonely, grieving, and too damn proud to ask for help; he'd rather bleed to death on his feet. But that he had honor, too.
"Where was your clan from?" he asked conversationally.
Chang gave him a blank look. "Mideel was the first town I came across."
That wasn't really an answer; but if Wufei Chang was a Wutainese agent as the Turks half-believed then he hadn't done a great job of covering his tracks. He also displayed a rather marked lack of hostility to Shinra or horror and disgust for the unnatural mutations going on inside his own body.
Granted, even if he wasn't a Wutainese agent, his story still had way too many holes to trust him out of reach of a good, sharp blade.
But the Masamune had enough reach for that. "I'm going to put you on probation, Chang," he said briskly, "and your security clearance lowered back to Third for the time being. Be grateful I have too few competent men to decide to err on the side of caution."
The side of caution would be to throw him to the Turks and let them sort it out. Whatever Chang knew, once the Turks were done they would know it too. Though if he had the misfortune of being... non-hostile to Shinra -- Sephiroth didn't think terms like 'innocent' applied here -- then the SOLDIER would be quite unable to get him back. And Hojo was always looking for test subjects to perfect his treatments on... Sephiroth would wait until he had more hints than a few registration irregularities before he delivered one of his most promising officers to the labs.
"... Make no mistake," he said, voice silky-soft, as he leaned close enough that a few silver strands brushed the man's temple. "This is my command. Those are my men. Should anything untoward happen to any of them, you will not see a trial. Are we clear?"
Chang didn't give an inch, even when the green glow of Sephiroth's eyes started dancing on his bronze skin. He just stared right back, gold-on-black, serious and determined. And then he smiled -- a thin, amused, approving smile. "I wouldn't expect any less of you. Sir."
Sephiroth considered him for a few seconds, then gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel, back toward the gymnasium.
"You're not afraid of me at all, Chang, are you?" he asked after a few steps, amused -- bemused, too, though Zack was starting to cure him of that faint surprise that men who should have known better still failed to cower before him.
Wufei Chang sized him up and down; a quick, critical glance that missed very little. "No." The glow of his eyes brightened briefly -- not with happiness, but a feral sort of anticipation. "I've seen you spar -- you're one of the most lethal men I've ever met. You would be a formidable adversary." He inclined his head, respect from one swordsman to another.
'One of the most', Sephiroth noted. Not 'the most'. Intriguing. Suspicious.
"But that does not scare you."
"You're extraordinary," he said, matter of fact, so different from the awe or flattery those words usually held. "But you're still a living being. That means there's a way to kill you."
Sephiroth chuckled softly. Fearless. In a very different way from Zack -- not determined to make everything better, but grimly persuaded that everything would be worse, and ready to deal with it.
If he didn't end up having to kill Wufei Chang for betraying him, he would enjoy having him in his personal unit when the man eventually made First Class.
He pushed the gymnasium door open, and gestured at Chang to return to his training buddies.
damn it now I ship it a little.
Omake courtesy of JoIsBishMyoga:
"Aw come on, one of the perks of SOLDIER is the bigass swords."
"I like swords to be a reasonable size. Mine works fine."
"But SOLDIERS fight really huge monsters-- a blade that size might as well be a toothpick!"
"The blade you're attempting to foist upon me is longer than I am tall. It's ridiculous."
"Not the size of the ship but the motion of the ocean, huh?"
"Zack, kindly take your sexual innuendo and shove it."
And since I'm at it, might as well repost the Cid/Duo - Exhilarating for luel_exana. For reference purposes, it happens WAY later than either the Wufei/Seph or the Wufei/Zack. Also if I make it a real 'verse i'll probably cut out the Wu/Zack kissing. Zack is enough of a slut as it is, and I want to keep the one with Duo. XD
Cid muttered angrily and struggled with a stuck gear. No dice. "Shera, gauge 8 wrench."
Today his assistant was doing her own thing, but he'd heard her voice close by and he wasn't in a position to get out of the hatch and look for his tools; it would be a right mess. More than a mess than it was now.
No wrench materialized in his held up hand. Cid waited a second, two, ten. "Shera, goddamn woman--!"
Thwack. Cid gave a grunt when metal smacked in his palm. The weight was right; he dove back in. Aha, take that, you misaligned piece of shit--
"You're welcome," an amused, definitely male voice said, from just behind his back.
Cid growled, finished fixing the problem area, and pulled out to glare balefully at the joker who had nothing to do but stand there being funny as other guys worked. "Who the fuck are you?"
Shera winced. The young man only smiled, unruffled as you please. "Duo Maxwell. Got a friend of a friend who said you were looking for another mechanic."
Cid looked suspicious. "Yeah? Who's that friend?"
"Zack Fair, SOLDIER Second class."
Cid remembered the kid. SOLDIERs tended to be an insular lot; friendly ones tended to stick out, especially ones who actually listened to his space-going dreams. "He ain't stationed at Midgar?"
"Sure he is," Duo replied easily.
"...Oh, oh, don't tell me you've come to another continent just so you can work with us," Shera said, and winced. "It's way too far. Were you moving anyway?"
Duo laughed. "Oh no, I came over justfor you."
Cid had been vaguely defensive before, but now he was suspicious. "You're aware we only pay minimum wages, yeah? Budget's sponsored by Shinra, and so far they think we don't need a new mechanic that badly."
"I didn't come here to fix your motor pool," the man countered calmly. "Though I'll do that happily enough, when there's a job in need of doing. But what I came for is the rocket. I don't care about the wages. I could sleep in a cardboard box so long as this means we'll go into space."
Cid snorted. "We, huh?"
"Oh yeah." Maxwell grinned suddenly. "You're the head honcho, but I've improved a few motors in my time..."
He found himself amused by the teasing cockiness of the guy's attitude. "Hah. Talk is cheap."
"Yup," Maxwell agreed brightly. "I figure you'll have to give me a trial period to make sure."
"... Well, I gotta hand you that, you've got balls. Fine then. You don't get paid till Sunday, and not at all if you've been fucking things up. And you're not getting anywhere close to the rocket 'till I say you can. Deal with it."
The guy actually bounced on the balls of his feet. "No problem. I start now?"
Cid took out a cigarette and lit it. Seemed nice, someone who wanted to go into space too. He wasn't going to believe a word of it, not so long as it was still words. "I'll give you the tour, and then it's straight to work."
But when Maxwell saw the half-built rocket, with its open panels and missing floors and the underlying architecture bare for all to see, he paused and gave it a look like he was in love. For a second Cid was almost jealous, like he would have been over some woman. If he'd ever loved a woman even half as much as he loved his dream, that was.
"... Heh. You wanna fly with, huh? Ain't gonna happen for years."
"Yeah, I gathered. It's okay." He grimaced, eyes briefly downcast. "I'm not going anywhere."
Cid briefly wondered where the young man wanted to go, that he couldn't and yet thought nothing of crossing two continents just to work here. "Careful, the competition to take you up ain't gonna be picnic-like."
Maxwell grinned. "Oh yeah." He took a deep breath, rolled up on his toes like he was seriously thinking of climbing it. "It's going to be downright exhilarating."
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*ponders making them an actual ship* >.>
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well.
I know how they arrived on the Planet anyway. *_______* SHINY SHINY. And after that I know how heero/duo/fei meet again. (btw the first ff7 canon guy Heero meets? Hojo. yeah.) After that I suspect it's all fallout. ... nnnnngh. *purrpurrdance*
mmmyes. Shining gold eyes... *_* *cough cough*
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And then he smiled, a thin, amused, approving smile.
*swoons* Oh, Fei!
I just love how you write Wufei, he becomes so real to me! And so very hot! Throw in Seph (who you have also managed to make plausible, kudos) and I really have no words for the sheer awesomeness this is made of.
I'm so glad you have more ideas for this, it seems like such a shiny sandbox to play in!
Also, as an after thought (and mainly because I'm curious) have you played Crisis Core?
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Well, I suspect if I actually want to post it, i'll have to rework some parts. Also this part is all about Seph's thoughts on Fei and almost nothing on Seph himself. But that can always be arranged. >_>
Nope, haven't, and I don't really want to. It retcons too many things, limits fannish exploration of that era (biggest reason! XD), and there are events and characters and stuff that seem really unnecessary to me. Well, to make a whole game they obviously needed to add SOMETHING that wasn't in the previous game, but all that Genesis and Hollander and everyone getting wings and whatnot... I don't even like Angeal all that much and his relationship with Zack leaves me cold, so. XD; If I want to write anything, it's only gonna be AC-compliant because not a lot happened that fucked very much with my ideas of what might happen after-game, and then again only if AC works with my fic ideas. Dirge of Cerberus and everything that came after that... ehhh.
But it's pretty, so I'm totally watching all the cutscenes and AMVs and walkthroughs anyway. Visual fanfic! XD
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that my friend is pure talent!
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Thank you. ^___^ If you're lost/confused/have questions about either setting I can do a babblefu for you. *likes to babble, so!*
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http://askerian.livejournal.com/424383.html
*hangs head* .__.;
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He said Chang was lonely, grieving, and too damn proud to ask for help; he'd rather bleed to death on his feet. But that he had honor, too.
This is the most perfect description of Wufei that I've ever heard. It's just so, so perfect.
Waitwait, so Duo knows Zack but doesn't know Wufei ... Duo get washed up in Aeris' church or something?
Okay, Aeris/Duo interactions would be fantastic because she'd be awesome for all his quietly simmering rage and they'd be awesome together when it comes to pranking everything that moves. Oh my god, Zack and Aeris and Duo /brain explodes They would be so awesome together there's not words for it.
Holy shit, just realised, OT3 for FF7 and GW are SephZackCloud and 125 and oh my god, they're so similar only with issues mixed around.
...
I think I have a type. /ponders
(Also, Duo wanting to go into space is just <3 <3 <3)
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... I... never saw it in those words before OH GOD IT FITS.
totally shipping them now, no kiddin. XD
No, no, Duo knows Wufei, but Cid doesn't so he doesn't mention him is all. This ficlet will likely need some rewriting to fit anyway. I wrote it before I really had the plot in mind.
Holy shit, just realised, OT3 for FF7 and GW are SephZackCloud and 125 and oh my god, they're so similar only with issues mixed around.
...*__* *has a type with*