[Zack doesn't - can't - answer the first question. He doesn't know what Cloud did or how they met, but it's not his place to give anything away there. Maybe his silence is answer enough, but he's not going to say it.
"For what it's worth"? He wonders about that. What could this do? Would it be enough to prevent anything? Here, or back home? Or is history doomed to repeat itself? Are they doomed? He feels badly, seeing Sephiroth close himself off. That, too, is a repeat. Finding out the truth leads to isolation, pushing people away. It fills Zack with a quiet, helpless fear, the memory of those frightful days in the mansion library buzzing around in his mind.]
You had a right to know, [he manages to say weakly, anyway. It's the truth. All of it is. He may not like it, but still.]
[Silence is confirmation, but it drives no sudden desire to put Cloud's words to the test and see if he can control anyone. The idea is nauseating. All of it was. He's a little hoarser when he speaks again, struggling around the tightness in his throat and the burning blur of vision. He will not cry. He won't. He's not a child. He will not.]
Is there anything .. else. I should know.
[He'd asked. He'd wanted answers. He would have pursued them through whatever avenue he could get, beneficial or not, friendly or not. It's already more than he can sort out immediately, everything he'd thought about himself now in doubt. Everything he'd wanted, now forced to be looked at through a filter of is it him, or is it the monster he really was?
There was no point in pursuing his mother, she's another Hojo, and he the grand experiment; there was no loving maternal figure who'd simply been taken from her child, no miracle reunion one day against all impossible odds. No bright future, just more death. Beneath his shroud of feathers and blanket, the shame of hot tears drawing lines down his face can't be seen, the hitch in his breathing muted.
How long did it take last time for revelation to turn into destruction? A week? He wouldn't be in top fighting form by then. An easier conflict, should it happen again. A recovering child is not the menace a grown man is.]
[Good question. Is there? He could provide a hundred more details - the people who got hurt who might also come after him, the cascading effect of all those experiments and what it had done not just to him and Cloud but anyone unlucky enough to carry Jenova's cells, his eventual return years later and another attempt to destroy the world, his sword cutting down the life of the person he and Cloud love most, so much more - but it's all hearsay from Cloud and he's already provided the broad strokes, enough to paint an ugly picture. The kid deserves time to process. And maybe taking it slow, instead of a week of constant doom-spiralling, will help prevent the worst that could in theory come.
More than that, though... looking at Sephiroth, this small, kid version who was only looking for his mom, for the first time freed from the leash of Shinra he's probably known his whole life, drowning in the awful revelation of his future... Zack doesn't want to say more, even if there was anything. The time for big reveals and talking is over.]
...Just one thing. Back then, he ordered me out. Made me leave. I thought he'd be okay, even though he'd never acted like that before. I've... always regretted that.
[Could he have done anything to stop it? Interfered with the madness? Maybe, maybe not. It could have been too late from the start. But the what if always bothered him. He should have been there for his friend.
He reaches out, sneaking under the wing-and-fabric blanket Sephiroth has created to touch his shoulder.]
I'm not going anywhere this time. You're not alone.
[Years ago, doing such a thing as reaching out a comforting touch to someone like Sephiroth, fifteen years further grown and further isolated, might have changed everything or changed absolutely nothing, in time such weakness would be even more taboo than it was now. But he's not there yet. For all that he resented how people treated him because of it, he was still very much an adolescent with painfully little real experience with anything outside of Shinra; people do not by and large touch Sephiroth unless they're actively trying to harm him, or are scientists. Kind touch was even rarer; exceptions were so few that he could probably count them on his hands with fingers left over for his entire lifetime til now. Although there's a subtle flinch on contact, Zack isn't snarled at or swatted away, but somehow it makes it that much harder to maintain anything even remotely like composure.
It fails, by the low sound of misery that follows.
Speech had been uncomfortable enough in the wake of the ordeal he'd been through at the hands of Vincent, but now it's all but impossible, unhappy revelations succeeding where pain did not. What could he say even if he could? Apologize for people not yet killed, terrors yet unleashed? Ask what happens next? Request he not be treated like the monstrosity he was? Zack already knew what he was when they first encountered each other here, and hadn't rejected him outright even though he'd had every reason to. That meant something, didn't it?
Pale fingers close around Zack's wrist, already calloused in spite of habitual gloves, feather light instead of the force he could likely bring to bear even now. It would be effortless to pull away and shake him off. Nothing is said. Not aloud, not through some strange alien communication cells-to-cells. But it may as well have been anyway, unspoken but clear regardless.
[Yeah, no link required, there. He gets the message loud and clear. Zack shifts in his chair, not pulling away from that soft grasp. Instead he scoots the chair a little closer, leaning in.
And he does exactly what Sephiroth does yet does not ask for: he stays. He doesn't leave.
This time he'll be right here, where he's needed. With his friend.]
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"For what it's worth"? He wonders about that. What could this do? Would it be enough to prevent anything? Here, or back home? Or is history doomed to repeat itself? Are they doomed? He feels badly, seeing Sephiroth close himself off. That, too, is a repeat. Finding out the truth leads to isolation, pushing people away. It fills Zack with a quiet, helpless fear, the memory of those frightful days in the mansion library buzzing around in his mind.]
You had a right to know, [he manages to say weakly, anyway. It's the truth. All of it is. He may not like it, but still.]
no subject
Is there anything .. else. I should know.
[He'd asked. He'd wanted answers. He would have pursued them through whatever avenue he could get, beneficial or not, friendly or not. It's already more than he can sort out immediately, everything he'd thought about himself now in doubt. Everything he'd wanted, now forced to be looked at through a filter of is it him, or is it the monster he really was?
There was no point in pursuing his mother, she's another Hojo, and he the grand experiment; there was no loving maternal figure who'd simply been taken from her child, no miracle reunion one day against all impossible odds. No bright future, just more death. Beneath his shroud of feathers and blanket, the shame of hot tears drawing lines down his face can't be seen, the hitch in his breathing muted.
How long did it take last time for revelation to turn into destruction? A week? He wouldn't be in top fighting form by then. An easier conflict, should it happen again. A recovering child is not the menace a grown man is.]
no subject
More than that, though... looking at Sephiroth, this small, kid version who was only looking for his mom, for the first time freed from the leash of Shinra he's probably known his whole life, drowning in the awful revelation of his future... Zack doesn't want to say more, even if there was anything. The time for big reveals and talking is over.]
...Just one thing. Back then, he ordered me out. Made me leave. I thought he'd be okay, even though he'd never acted like that before. I've... always regretted that.
[Could he have done anything to stop it? Interfered with the madness? Maybe, maybe not. It could have been too late from the start. But the what if always bothered him. He should have been there for his friend.
He reaches out, sneaking under the wing-and-fabric blanket Sephiroth has created to touch his shoulder.]
I'm not going anywhere this time. You're not alone.
no subject
It fails, by the low sound of misery that follows.
Speech had been uncomfortable enough in the wake of the ordeal he'd been through at the hands of Vincent, but now it's all but impossible, unhappy revelations succeeding where pain did not. What could he say even if he could? Apologize for people not yet killed, terrors yet unleashed? Ask what happens next? Request he not be treated like the monstrosity he was? Zack already knew what he was when they first encountered each other here, and hadn't rejected him outright even though he'd had every reason to. That meant something, didn't it?
Pale fingers close around Zack's wrist, already calloused in spite of habitual gloves, feather light instead of the force he could likely bring to bear even now. It would be effortless to pull away and shake him off. Nothing is said. Not aloud, not through some strange alien communication cells-to-cells. But it may as well have been anyway, unspoken but clear regardless.
Don't leave.]
no subject
And he does exactly what Sephiroth does yet does not ask for: he stays. He doesn't leave.
This time he'll be right here, where he's needed. With his friend.]