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tseng fucking dying — closed
Reno is dead. He has to keep repeating that in his head, out loud. He is dead. Dead. Tseng ought to know. He has been staring up at Reno's body for hours now, curled up on the floor beside the sofa he laid him down upon. That was the last time that he could bring himself to touch him. His skin is so cold. It does not matter. He needs to move the body, he needs to bury him. Just get up and do it, now. Reno is dead. It is just an illusion that makes him look like he is sleeping, like he has a thousand times before in this very spot, and really, it was a terrible idea to bring him here, but what was the better idea? He had one. Didn't he? Anyway, it does not matter, because he is dead. This is just a body. Nothing of Reno is left inside of it. Reno is dead.
Tseng manages to stand up. He does not know where he is going, not until he finds himself in one of the upper story labs. The usual crew is gone for the night. Or are they? He could be surrounded by people right now and likely not notice. Whatever the case, no one stops him when he approaches a refrigeration case and shatters the glass with his fist. Which is a silly thing, he could have used anything else to bypass that keycode lock. It was probably a bad idea to hurt himself. Or a good idea, because it feels a little better to be the one bleeding tonight, even if it is not the blood he wants to spill.
There is a concentrate, Tristamectatine-x2. It is supposed to be diluted before you load it into those little tranq canisters. He knows that. Instead, he returns to the couch and the body and his spot on the floor and drips as many of those vials into the canisters as he can fit, pure and unadulterated. His fingers hover over the needle. One little prick of this and his muscles will probably seize before he can pull it out again. He would be helpless but to lay on the floor as the rest of it filtered quickly through his system, until his heart arrested and the lifestream took him. It is tempting. But not yet.
At least this is helping, a little. His mind is coming back to him. Getting back into the groove of thinking, recounting all of the information he's gathered in the few short days he's spent here. He is keeping tabs on everyone who passed by that cliff, yes, but there is something peculiar about Sephiroth—
Tseng puts the canister down, far out of his reach. He almost touched the needle again. That would be unfortunate.
Anyway. Sephiroth. And Zack Fair, whose image he cannot dwell on for long, because it makes his fingers reach for the needle again and he is having trouble stopping them. When he watches Sephiroth with anyone else, it is a terse interaction, it ends in blood or it ends in anger. (And if only he had been— No. He will pay for that soon enough. No need to torment himself now.) But with Fair, the atmosphere seems different. He is disinclined to believe that Sephiroth likes anyone, but he certainly seems to keep coming back. And that is his ticket.
Tseng does not remember loading up the rifle, the canisters, the car. He does not remember driving. He comes to when he sees Zack leaned up against the rail on the old Junon helipad. Sephiroth may come to join him. He might not. It does not matter if he wastes his time and effort working his way into the top level of the hangar behind it, if he spends days or weeks crouched below the window, his rifle aimed at the heart of one of the few people in this life he ever cared about. Nothing matters except that he is waiting, for as long as it will take.
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To shift the feeling, he physically moves -- sitting up ignoring all the pain from his injuries. He looks down at Zack with a shake of his head, but he can't quite pull away from his gaze.
"You're imagining things," he says to Zack though it is partially directed at himself. If he keeps saying it, surely he can rebuild those walls he's spent so long surrounding himself with.
Ones that already seem to he on the verge of crumbling down. He won't let that happen. He won't --
His guard dropped for the briefest of moments and now he's laying here, injured and questioning everything. But even that is not exactly true. That night he started questioning himself. This just exacerbated everything.
"You only see what you want to see."
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He doesn't ask, doesn't yell, just surges forward, one hand open and stable against Sephiroth's back, the other pressing into his shoulder to lay him right back down. Zack has to lean over him to do it, one knee bent and balanced precariously upon the edge of the futon, as he forces Sephiroth lower and lower with care.
"I see the guy who just killed one of my best friends," he says, and it's dark, the way he says it, the quiet eye in his howling hurricane of emotions. But it's also soft, unaccusing. "I see Nibelheim on fire. I see all the pain and hurt you caused for me and all my friends."
He sighs, once he gets Sephiroth down. Something switches in his eyes, just a quick flicker within that mako-blue glare.
"But I see how complicated things got too. And—you can try to hide it, but—" Zack's back to blinking owlishly at him, back to smiling, leaned in so close now (Sephiroth's laying on his hand, he didn't think this one through, whatever, he's stuck for a sec here). "I see you tryin'. Maybe not on purpose, but. I see it."
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With Zack hovering so close the warmth of his breath tailed over his skin encasing him like a blanket. In a way he felt trapped, locked into that blue-gaze of the man who should in all respects hate him for everything he's done.
Yet he doesn't. And he can see it in those eyes that almost seem like boring straight through him down to what remains of his soul -- if he even has one.
"Everything is complicated," he finally finds the words to speak. "It's been that way since the moment we ran into each other in this place."
Reaching up, he lightly touches the side of Zack's face before pulling him down just a hair closer.
"I don't know what that means. I'm not even sure I know who I am anymore. But despite all that has happened, I am glad for this place to have given me the chance to speak with you again after so long."
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He doesn't have to be the one he came to know after that, either. If Zack's just here enough, if he's just persistent and says all the right things, then it can be like this, like him clasping his hands over Sephiroth's knuckles and matching the uncertainty in his eyes with a confident grin of his own. And then maybe one day, it'll just be like this all the time, slow and quiet and not so fucking bad at all.
"I'll help you figure it out," he says, glowing like a sunbeam. You try getting told by Sephiroth, literally the coolest guy to ever walk the planet (and then summarily try to destroy it), that he's glad you're around. "Long as you got me, you're not alone in this."
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No. Never again.
But the person he became ... the one laced with bitter anger and hate, also feels almost like a memory. One he tries so hard to desperately hold on to. This is who he is now ... this is who he wants to be, but no matter how tight the grasp it just slips away and he supposes that is why he feels so very, very lost.
Zack is almost like an anchor keeping him grounded in the present and in this moment -- forgetting all the pain, blood, and death from before it almost would be nice if they could just stay like this. Just a quiet, peaceful moment where nothing else really matters.
Pulling in the other man closer so that they are barely a breath apart, he blinks slowly trying to take this entire moment in for what it is.
"One day you'll have to tell me your secret," his voice is slightly softer than before -- no harsh edges like the previous times. "No matter your hardships, your spirit never darkens. Never grows bitter. I've never met another person who manages the way you do."
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The past will haunt them for the rest of their lives. But sharing that together, somehow it makes this fleeting moment in time a place of true serenity. They could move on together, he thinks, they could rise above all the pain that was done to them, by them, they can look at each other and find a reason to smile again.
"Think I'd rather show you," he says, gently tracing the line of Sephiroth's jaw, fixing the angle of his chin with a softly persistent tug. His head tilts, so that bright little grin of his fits in closer. "F'that's all right with you."
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But now Zack is what's in front of him and he is within arms reach. They were so close it would be so easy to get lost in the moment. To forget everything else for this one precious moment of time. Shove all the pain, hate, anger away for the here and now.
There's a twitch on the corner of his lips, a rare sight even before his fall. Thinking about everything in hindsight, he could almost laugh. Such a ridiculous yet painful series of events that lead them to this point.
Feeling Zack's breath against his lips the warmth in his chest grows even stronger. He doesn't know what this all means. He also doesn't care. With his thumb he lightly caresses the other man's cheek, slowly ... gently.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
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So he says, "Because I don't want to lose you again," and sounds so hurt, so raw. There's no swallowing it down; his emotions have only ever been portrayed in perfect clarity.
But still, as ever, he's smiling.
He leans into Sephiroth's hand, matching the soft strokes on his face to the gentle path of his fingers across Sephiroth's jaw. It's so easy to believe everything's okay like this. If he blurs his eyes enough, it almost looks like he's the same person from so long ago. Which he doesn't do, because this new incarnation of him, whatever he chooses to become, Zack has decided to accept it, accept him, a promise that he seals with a softly-pressed kiss.